How Much Do You Need to Know About a Team to Wear the Hat?

By Kelly Conaboy September 22, 2016

Advice for a reader.

A reader sent in a question, again, seeking advice. I do not have an advice column.

Kelly —

Me again. You know my Nets hat? I think you do. It’s a black baseball hat that has the Brooklyn Nets logo in white. Here is a picture of me in it. Just kidding, that’s me when I was child and my face was all cheek. Here it is. It’s a hat. It’s fine. It does the trick — the trick being covering my head, and more specifically, my hair (when it’s bad). Also, I like the feeling of wearing a hat: like I’m hiding. I saw Oscar Isaac in a similar hat last week and I thought, I can barely tell you’re Oscar Isaac. Just kidding, I actually thought, Schwing. I’m kidding a lot this time. Back to the matter at hand or at head/hair: this hat. My concern is if I wear the hat, it’ll be a conversation starter. And that conversation will be about the intricacies of sports. Very specifically, every day I decide to wear the hat, I feel compelled to look up the stats of the Brooklyn Nets. Not just record, but I want to be able to be like, “It’s crazy that Brook Lopez is only averaging like seven and a half rebounds a game.” Now, I like the Brooklyn Nets. They are “my team” because they play the sport I like most in the city I currently live. However, they are very bad, so while I am happy rooting for them and sometimes watching them, but knowing everything about them feels like it might be too much of a burden. But sometimes my hair is bad, Kelly! And I can’t wear a logoless hat because then I’ll look a sociopath or at best an extra on a TV show too cheap to pay licensing. I’ll do whatever you suggest. Please don’t tell me to chop off my head.

Yours,

— Jesse David Fox