As announced in the Father’s Day uniform article, with 4th of July coming up, we take a look at the Diamondbacks’ special event gear for this day. In this article we cover the years 2009-2015.

Since MLB 4th of July caps and gear have been around quite some time, I will make this a two series article.

While Nelly was partying hard with “Hot in Herre” (btw recently the woman he danced around with passed away), MLB teams started to wear special 4th of July designed caps for the first time in 2002, as a reaction to the September 11 attacks the year before.

That is 20 years of history of the special event 4th of July gear. That is a long time.

Apparently, if we have to believe the Internet since I didn’t really watch baseball back then, from 2002 to 2008 the Diamondbacks wore just a flag as a patch on their baseball caps, just like all other teams.

But Internet isn’t a trustworthy place. One of few images that showed up in the search engines we can use for images and from a game on the 4th of July, an 11-3 loss at Dodger stadium in 2006, didn’t reveal any American flag on the cap, so I will stick to what we can really see and start with the first year that actually shows some special event features in a photo.

Ah, and Happy 4th of July to all you Americans (and semi-Americans)!

On the 4th of July 2009 the Diamondbacks would beat the Rockies in Colorado in a 11-7 slugfest. While Dan Haren didn’t pitch in that game (he’d start the following game), the 4th of July caps were worn in 3 games during this series.

The red cap on the Rockies dark outfits looked hideous, while the red Arizona cap fitted perfectly with their grey uniform. The Snake D looked good in what was a blue-red logo with white stars. I am sure many of you liked this version.

Over 26,000 spectators would see the Diamondbacks lose 3-1 against the Dodgers on July 4 in 2010 after getting 7 strong innings from Dan Haren.

Below an image from the game the night before where Kirk Gibson is showing off the 2010 special event cap. Hard to see this version not going well with any Diamondbacks uniform. The logo was pretty much the same as the year before although this time MLB designed a white cap with a red visor for the D-Backs instead of the all red cap from the year before. The Dodgers wore a blue visor, by the way.

Starter Daniel Hudson went just 4 innings and gave up 6 runs, but the Diamondbacks still managed to get a win out of their 4th of July game this year, as they routed to an 8-6 victory over the Brewers in an away game. Long forgotten Sam Demel got the win, while David Hernandez achieved a perfect save on a big offensive night for the Diamondbacks.

The cap was somewhat of a mix of the caps of the previous two years. The star-spangled snake D was this time on a white background with the rest of the cap being red, giving it a trucker stylish appearance. Still a nice cap.

Almost 49,000 witnessed a Diamondbacks’ loss at Chase Field against the San Diego Padres in 2012 despite 7 good innings from Ian Kennedy as the snakes went down 8-6.

The 2012 cap was a step back from previous seasons. Once again the Snake D was chosen as the 4th of July logo, but on an all red cap the silver with golden stars really couldn’t stand out and rise to the occassion.

The Diamondbacks scored just 5 runs on 17 hits, but it was enough for a 4th of July win in Flushing over the Mets after 15 innings in a game that lasted 5 hours and 46 minutes. Luckily the Diamondbacks once again got 7 strong innings from Ian Kennedy, but still had to dive deep into the bullpen. What a way to celebrate your national holiday!

MLB designed a 4th of July cap that looked good on the grey uniform, but wasn’t really anything special as a stand-alone cap. Personally I am not a big fan of white or light-coloured caps that don’t have anything black on it, and the 2013 version went with a red visor and a blue Snake D with white stars. Although you cannot really appreciate it in the picture, the Snake D had a red shadow lining around it.

Josh Collmenter didn’t get the necessary offence and had to take the loss after giving up 5 runs in what would end in a 5-2 loss at the Braves.

But while the game was an L, the cap was a winner. Not sure if I would necessary buy one, but at least the design was original: once again the Snake D was the logo for the 4th of July cap, only this time it would be white and over a star with the american flag in it and red lining on the outskirts. The cap would be all blue with a red visor, as all NL teams would wear.

Although I liked the design, I wonder how the red cap that AL teams got would have gone with the Diamondbacks uniform. Probably a lot better.

Over 42,000 spectators saw the Diamondbacks get a 7-3 win at Chase Field over the Colorado Rockies with Patrick Corbin picking up the win.

The 2015 4th of July game saw the teams wear a 4th of July kit for the very first time in history. Obviously there would be an American flag on one sleeve. The D-Backs lettering on the front and the numbering on the back had a red background with blue lining with white stars in it. This is the kind of gear I’d like to buy.

The cap was nothing special though, especially the red ones the D-Backs wore. It was an all red cap with a blue-ish American flag on it with, once again, the Snake D on top of it, all white.

In the next article I will cover the years 2016 untill now.