I've recently noticed an interesting fashion phenomenon here in Amsterdam:  a surprising number of young men wearing Atlanta Braves baseball caps.  Does anyone know why this particular cap seems to be so predominant?  Could it be that the script letter "A" has been adopted as an informal symbol of Amsterdammers?  Or could it be that some particular subculture or group in the city has picked up this fashion accessory as its own for some other reason?  I honestly don't know why this particular cap seems to be so popular -- but it really does seem quite a trend.  From my uneducated perspective, it seems like the people who are expressing themselves in this way might be associated with the hip-hop scene here in Amsterdam... But again, I really don't know.

I'd be very curious if anyone knew any more about this phenomenon.

Slightly less popular, but still noticeably present is a number of people (also from the same general walk of life, as far as I can tell) wearing ball caps for the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.  These caps seem to exist in varying color sets; that is, they're not always black hats with a yellow "P" -- whereas the Atlanta Braves hats all seem to be standard-issue, official-style Major League Baseball headwear.  But they do all have that distinctive pointy "P."  And again, I have to wonder why this particular ballcap is so popular in Amsterdam these days.

To me, it's kind of funny to see these particular ball caps associated with these urban youth.  In my mind, the Braves cap is a symbol of staid conservatism -- worn by a successful but fairly conservatively-run ball-club in a very conservative region of the United States.  And the Pirates cap is a symbol of mediocrity -- worn by a low-budget club that hasn't fielded a truly competitive team for decades.  And I don't see either Atlanta or Pittsburgh as being particularly "cool" cities (though I'm sure they're lovely places to visit, in their own right); they just don't exude the same vibe as a New York or Los Angeles, which would seem to more typically appeal to Europeans and to people within the hip-hop scene.  And it's not like the design of the ball caps themselves is all that arresting.  I can think of several other ball caps that have a more appealing design (i.e. the Detroit Tigers, the St. Louis Cardinals, the San Francisco Giants, the Washington Nationals, or the New York Yankees, for example), regardless of the connotations of their particular city or team.

So what am I missing here?