Why do ABC’s wear baseball caps?
for the same reasons american do: they are useful devices.
it ain’t manly to be fussing with your hair if you are in america. wash and go. slap a cap on it to cover up. carry a comb and a mirror like my taiwanese male students? yeah, right.
additionally a baseball hat is a great tool. keeps the sun out of your eyes. is easily adjustable to shade/protect eyes.
now that motorcycle helmets are the law in taiwan, even old guys wear them. i wore a cap under my helmet because it tightened things up. most everyone likes a tight fit.
baseball caps are remnants of back when people wore caps when they went outside and took caps off when they came inside. a cap designates who you are and what you do. it is readily discernable, almost a tribal sign of position in the hierarchy.
that ABCs wear caps is no surprise. my question is “what kind of logos are on their baseball hats?” a baseball cap is not something lightly chosen. kind of like a school tie or a tartan: something that you choose to wear that immediately identifies your place in the greater order.
if someone wears a chicago cubs hat down here it tells me alot about him before we even make eye contact. yes, it is that simple. ABCs then wear baseball caps to let everyone else know where their allegiances lie.
What does a cubs hat tell you? And what does a Cleveland Indians hat tell you?? Just curious, been gone to long to tell myself!
well…everything is contingent upon location. at present i am in st.louis. somebody wearing a cubbies hat here is a true fan. also a bit contrarian. not necessarily a good or bad thing. an indians fan? well…the only indians fans are from cleveland: they don’t have a huge, spread out fan base. a cleveland hat tells that he is probably from cleveland and earnest. the indians were less than competitive fro a long time. to be an indians follower you gotta be a TRUE die hard fan. is it the old “C” hat or the politically improper chief wahoo hat? in my book the chief gets big points as it is kinda non-PC and a bit esoteric.
both the cubies and the indians rate alot higher than someone wearing a yankees or chicago bulls (back in the day) gear. a good portion of those folks are johnny-come-lately, ionly root for the winners and will change sides folllowing the next championship game.
now back to location, naturally wearing any of the above in taiwan will open you up to all the usual anti-american diatribes, george bush rants, etc. that seem to be part and partial of being a “yankee” in taiwan.
So, what kind of cap should one wear if one does not watch corporate sports?
where you went to school… maybe? 
if not corporate sports ther are still plenty of options. political affiliation. in taiwan, political parties love to give out hats. schools. vacation keepsakes(most folks ain’t gonna wear a “branson” hat unless they’ve beheld the wonderment on offer there). even absolutely nothing is OK- but even nothing in terms of a baseball cap reveals at least a single color. wear a green hat in china? no way. what does a guy wearing a purple/ lavendar hat evoke?baseball caps identify who we are, where we have been and what we aspire. if you owned a ferrari, would you actually wear a ferrari baseball cap? me neither.
lemme see. i have one of my football team, one of my university, one from taroko gorge. damn you can trace my life just by loking at my hat collection. glad i didn’t keep any of those dorky navy hats.
let’s not forget the smartass hats, offering up such witticisms as “my take home pay won’t take me home”. kinda a spin-off of truckers hats. which are baseball hats with different logos to the eyes of the uninitiated.
also, companies use them to advertise. buy two cartons of winston and get a free hat. it has always fazed me just how many people wear these giveaways.
anything or nothing is OK. very much a matter of personal taste and discretion.
the film maker michael moore wears a detroit tigers cap. from his home town.
spike lee wears NY stuff. his home town.
rappers wear all kinds of stuff, often indicative of their hometowns.
baseball hats are only gonna get more popular. the simple, utilitarian structure coupled with the prominent space for displaying whatever we (our or corporate overlords)feel apt is just too good to pass up, especially in the face of global warming, increasing melanomas, security camera proliferation, and a rapidly graying/balding society.
For newbies, this is so bec in Chinese tradition, wearing a green hat means your spouse/partner left you. This is not related to Taiwan politics 
Is everyone like me and accumulates more baseball caps than I can want?
I throw about 6 away every year (leaving me with 10 or so). I have never bought one either.
[quote=“skeptic yank”] is it the old “C” hat or the politically improper chief wahoo hat? in my book the chief gets big points as it is kinda non-PC and a bit esoteric.
now back to location, naturally wearing any of the above in Taiwan will open you up to all the usual anti-American diatribes, George Bush rants, etc. that seem to be part and partial of being a “yankee” in Taiwan.[/quote]
Of course it’s the chief wahoo! God I love that guy. So much so that hubby has several of these hats and wears them, even though he totally prefers cricket to baseball… 
And as for the anti-american diatribe, I love 'em! Hate GB, been gone so long that I don’t understand half the crap going on anyway. I get to smile and agree, which seems to really freak people out. Americans are NOT supposed to agree with criticism of their own country! 
yangdemei: hope you got an eyeful of the uniforms your team was wearing last night. ugliest of the century so far. reminded me of the old 1978ish uniforms: blood red tops and bottoms. so ugly they were cool.
skeptic yank: didn’t see em myself, but just looked up the pics. The pants aren’t tight enough…
You forgot a biggie: to keep the ubiquitous overhead flourescent lights of Taiwan/Asia out of your eyes so you can sleep (you pull it down so the brim rests on your schnozz).
BTW: KC Royals, StL Cardinals, an Orange County Chopper Comanche (it’s a motorcycle) hat, Northern Face, others - two dozen or so, I think.
For me, the structure of the hat far outweighs its logo - usually (that said, I wouldn’t be caught dead with a Yankees hat, or any NBA-team hat). I like unstructured hats, mostly, but I gotta pass on those long-billed yachting hats, too.
yeah, you are right about keeping out unwanted light. also reminds me of yet another salient esoteric point that is well worth relating to the uninitiated: position of the cap as it rests on the skull. tells you alot about the wearer and his present frame of mind.
down snug, covering the eyes so as to prevent eye contact: don’t bother me.
sideways: ain’t i cute/adorable/hip? (insecure plea for acknowledgment.)
backwards: multi-facted, depends upon context. including:
-i’m working, talk later.
-my hair is too long to keep outta my eyes but i have no bandana.
-i am zesty for life, just like ken griffey, jr…notice and compliment me!
-its windy today and my cap has already been blown off once.
bill up: ain’t i zany?
down on the nose: ZZZZZ (leave me alone, i’m tired/resting).
inside out: man, we gotta rally!
off the forehead, a bit of hair showing between cap and forehead with bill pointing in an angled, upwards direction: how you doing? i am approachable for general conversation.
no, this isn’t the place to go into the never ending adjustable vs. fitted debate.
royals? is there where i should drop some kinda intrastate joke? nah. can’t help but feel for em. back in the day they played the game the way it was meant to be. lost the owners, the “new” economics entered the scene and a small midwestern market just can’t hang with the bigger, media owned coastal markets when it comes to retaining/buying performers. if big city chicago and houston ever got their acts together my cardinals would be in pretty much the same condition.
here’s to meeting up in the world series again.
[quote=“Mr. Sir”]Why do ABC’s wear baseball caps?[/quote]Isn’t it part of the ‘hip hop’ image they steal from African Americans? well, I guess it depends on how they wear the cap… straight or ‘hip hoppy’…
“steal”? yeah urban/hip-hop is a driving force in today’s fashion industry. regardless of where they buy it, the influence from the streets can’t be discounted. however, more importantly notice the commonalities between ABCs and African-Americans. both are americans. while the diversity is noted, the commonalities are stronger regarding individual/group identification. the greatest rapper of all time, nelly and i wear the same cap. take our hats off and we are disparate. in our gear we share something, no matter how tenuous in common. in a multi-ethnic society perhaps such is something worthy of more than a scoff. yet, the positioning of the cap does mean alot: i am with you, but not one of you. the urban folks generally want nothing to do with the “great american melting pot” as they are happy the way they are.
freedom of expression, freedom of association and a whole lot of those other freedoms are acknowledged by the style one selects and wears his hat. which leads to another tacit understanding: don’t like a strangers cap? shut the f%ck up about it. don’t say anything to his face. it may be the dirtiest, natiest, stinkiest thing this side of the zinc mines but a cap is a great indicator of a person and if you don’t know them it is best just to (in the parlance of the street) step off.
keepin’ it real.
I hate baseball hats. I have a Massey Ferguson one and a Mountain Hardwear one.
For the teachers out there, what’s your policy on students wearing caps in class? It really bugs me. I know that some of the locals in Chiayi even wear caps in pricey restaurants. 
And I’m not just talking about teenagers trying to be black.
The problem with forcing students to take caps off in class is that they may be using it to hide some embarrassing scar/ medical treatment, or perhaps their hair is a dog’s breakfast because they got really hammered in the early hours of the morning and attempting to do a DIY cut but the bloody clippers packed up halfway through the job.
Been there, done that.
I need to get something off my back.
I’d rather see someone in a baseball cap than in one of those plastic see-through visors that come down over the whole face. Have you seen those? People drive wearing them, too. I’ve only see females wearing them so far.
I don’t know if ABCs wear them, but maybe to tap into that market, manufacturers could add sports team logos or for the hardcore wannabes, really obscene pictures and language on the visors.
ball caps in class?depends upon the teacher. at U of Hawaii, generally, they were OK if you didn’t have test. if a student was sitting for a test one had to takeoff the cap and stow it out of sight.
yeah, a hat is better to look at than bed head or hat hair.
in taiwan i didn’t care if my students wore hats, but i would tell them to wear it so that i could see their eyes if it was down to low.