Now in its second year, Player’s Weekend flips the baseball norm on its head and lets teams bust out bright colors and “softball” tops alongside some alternate logo usage for a weekend meant to coincide with the Little League World Series. This season the Padres knocked it out of the park with their headwear choice but left a lot of fans scratching their heads with a rather dull and boring jersey.
The hat itself was not left without a strange idiosyncrasy, however. Let’s take a look at a tale of two caps:
Yellow crown
Brown brim, squatcho and New Era logo
Brown and neon green Military interlocking SD logo
Quite a looker, isn’t it? With echoes to the 1972 Padres road cap this design is definitely Padres. The brown is a welcome sight after nary an appearance in last year’s Player’s Weekend kit. The Padres opted for an alternate version of their Military Sunday logo for the Player’s Weekend look at it works well…though this collector would love to see the Swinging Friar instead…
Of note in this logo is the colors of the middle stripes; they’re neon green in the retail-available on-field version.
The rear of the cap features a Liquidchrome logo featuring the progression of a Little League player to full on professional. If you look closer you can see influences from the Little League Baseball logo to the MiLB logo all the way to a full-body MLB logo.
The underbrim is matching brown and the sweatband is black. Let’s take a closer look at an added tag…
Now this is an odd sight on an on-field cap. Included here is a white tag usually indicative of a cap made for sale in the UK and Europe (though the cap itself is made in China). Look closer and you’ll see an address for England right on the tag. I own a few caps from overseas and these are commonplace on those particular caps…but an on-field meant for retail sale in the US? Very odd indeed.
If you happened to catch the games then you know the Padres did wear a Player’s Weekend cap…with white stripes in the middle of the logo instead of neon green. What gives?
As it turns out the only way to obtain such a hat is to literally…buy one that one of the players wore that weekend! This cap was worn by RHP Brett Kennedy. Why did I pick Brett Kennedy? We wear the same size (though I seriously doubt I’d actually wear the cap) and he didn’t play in the series, so the cap is otherwise pristine…ish.
Here you can see the distinct white striping. I’m leaning towards the white looking better than the neon green, but it’s not a major deal overall.
The rear logo is the same.
Since players eschew their stickers before wear you’ll notice no Authentic sticker; in place is an Authentic MLB sticker placed after the cap is worn and found most commonly on any true on-field game-worn authentic gear.
On most game-worn caps are markings presumably placed by the equipment team to designate which cap belongs to which player (since I don’t think they can or want to memorize sizing). #60 is Brett Kennedy’s number.
You’ll notice a lack of extra tagging on this interior. Game-worn caps are almost always made in the USA (or at least constructed in the USA) and that is indicated behind the New Era label.
Cap Availability Statuses
Padres 2018 Player’s Weekend (Neon Green): Common
Padres 2018 Player’s Weekend (White): Grail
The Player’s Weekend hat that features a neon green middle stripe should be widely available via most of your usual hat outlets. The white-striped cap is a game-worn on-field only and as such can only be found through the team. I picked mine up at the game-used and worn stand at Petco Park and summarily paid a premium for it. Your best bet for owning a white-striped cap is to do the same…though whether you want to wear it or not is up to you!
SD HAT COLLECTORS 
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