TFHS Closer Look: 2016 Futures Game Caps

Let's dive into the caps worn by the players in this year's Futures Game.

By SD Hat Guy@SDHatGuy Jul 15, 2016, 10:00am PDT

The Futures Game is always an interesting spectacle. For baseball neophytes or casual fans, it's an opportunity to introduce players from the minor leagues that could eventually star for their respective major league teams. For the diehards of the diamond, it's a chance to see the stars of the minors match up against one another and allows one the opportunity to gauge how far away these future players are from the bigs.

Normally I don't collect Futures Games caps. The designs are generally plain and don't really catch my attention. However, since this year's All-Star Game was in San Diego, of course I HAD TO HAVE IT ALL.

It doesn't hurt that these caps are awesome to stare at, either.

Brown crown
White front panels
Yellow brim and squatcho
Orange, brown and yellow USA font

Brother in arms Padres No Hitter has once again offered his expertise in beautiful cap pictures for this endeavor. The Futures Games caps and uniforms followed the same theme as the wildly successful batting practice/media appearance/Home Run Derby threads. The USA cap (worn by Hunter Renfroe this year) is most similar in look to the actual Home Run Derby cap except that the letters' colors are different and the USA is some odd approximation to what the 1980-84 Padres font would look like capitalized. Perhaps the MLB design team thought a lowercase USA was inappropriate?

Here's a closer look at that yellow squatcho.

Here's a side look...

And a closer peek at the Futures Game side patch. Think this game was sponsored?

The MLB Batterman logo is white with a brown and gold interior. It's the exact same on both the USA and World caps.

Here's our under look. Strangely, the Futures Game caps have gray underbrims while the HR Derby cap has a black underbrim. Not much of a difference outside of aesthetics, if you're into that.

Let's check out the World cap next!

Yellow crown
White front panels
Brown brim and squatchee
Orange, yellow and brown World font

The World cap (worn by Manuel Margot and Carlos Asuaje) is markedly different from the USA cap in that the crown and brim colors are inverted. I particularly like the contrast between the two caps; the World cap matched up well with the World/American colorway jerseys. I imagine this was also to get me to buy the World cap as it wasn't too similar to the USA cap. It worked. The World font isn't quite as funky looking as the USA font, for some reason.

Take a closer look at the brown squatcho. I imagine the cap would have looked a bit plainer had the squatchee matched the crown color.

Here's the side of the World cap...

And the Chroma patch. I seriously lament the death of embroidered patches. While Chroma does allow for a more detailed patch, it just doesn't match the feel and quality of an embroidered patch. Chroma patches are merely glued on, which allows for collectors of my ilk to peel them off and attach them to other caps. Several collectors use this opportunity to recreate All-Star Game caps of years past by peeling patches off of other caps and simply reapplying them to a choice cap. Embroidery doesn't allow for such mischief. Keep that little tidbit under your cap.