Baseball Caps and Other Global Disasters

Commemorate the occasion.

Palash Ghosh of the International Business Times has a question for the world: Why does everyone wear baseball caps?

This seems like kind of a low-stakes query. I mean, hats are pretty harmless. Everyone might just stop wearing baseball caps tomorrow! That would solve the problem, whatever the problem is. Right?

“What began as a harmless and humble exercise in showing support for one’s favorite local baseball club has mushroomed into something so gargantuan and irreversible [emphasis added] that I fear baseball caps will never vanish from the sartorial landscape.”

Whoah.

While Mr. Ghosh’s tone is a little grumpier* than I can defend, I do sympathize with his perplexity. I wear baseball caps when I need protection from the sun. But lots of people (ok, dudes) wear caps EVERYWHERE. Like sit-down restaurant, wedding reception, college seminar everywhere.

*Maybe ironically?

In fact, The Main Reason I Like Baseball is that when I go to baseball games, everyone has a good reason to be wearing a baseball cap, so I don’t get all apoplectic over people inappropriately wearing baseball caps. Which happens without exception everywhere else I go.

But back to Mr. Ghosh, who’s the really crochety one — his article speculates a little on why there’s this excess of caps. It seems multinational corporate marketing machines and the inexorable disintegration of modern society are somehow implicated. In conclusion: This baseball cap thing is gargantuan. And irreversible.