Portland Sea Dogs dropped the hardest hat ever but we still have questions

Minor league baseball hats are awesome.

Of this, there should be no doubt. MiLB is filled with incredible hats over the years, such as this hat for the Rocket City Trash Pandas, or this hat for the Montgomery Biscuits.

However, the Portland Sea Dogs just upped the game.

Portland, the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, will rebrand as the “Maine Lobster Bakes” for a single game this season, coming on August 23rd.

And the hat they are wearing for that game goes ABSOLUTELY HARD:

Honestly, this hat has no excuse for going as hard as it does. Look at the lobster on there, with the menacing glare that tells anyone who dares to get near it that they are in for the fight of their life. What is it holding? We don’t know — more on that in a second — but that lobster looks like they will beat us to death with it.

“Lobster is without a doubt Maine’s most iconic food item…when you think of lobster, you think of Maine. We wanted to create a theme night that honored Maine’s most famous delicacy and the Mainers who have dedicated their lives to this industry that is vital to our economy,” said Portland GM and President Geoff Lacuessa.

Still, we have questions.

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Poor little lobster
By Jared Mueller

I initially sent this hat into the loving arms of our Slack channel to share my concern for this poor little lobster. Literally the message said “Poor lil lobster in a pan.” Mark came out swinging with how awesome the hat was but this little face tells me he’s going off to be cooked:

Who puts their mascot, no matter how cool the actual hat is, in a pan with other ingredients on its way to become a meal? As an Ohio State Buckeye fan, I’d put a Wolverine in a pan because we are going to cook and eat our rivals.

Also, is that an ax in his hand? A hobo stick? Maybe a toothpick with a prong on the end to snack on the food after it is cooked?

Sweet hat, poor little lobster!

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I have a lot of questions about this chef
By James Dator

This is a good hat. It’s a little lobster willing to fight anyone who tries to steam him to perfection. It’s horrifying. It’s adorable. I get the appeal.

My issue is with whoever is trying to prepare this lobster. It’s clear they’ve placed all their ingredients inside a sauteuse, or sauté pan as we say in the United States. This high-walled pan is designed to braise and roast foods in a multi-functional unit which allows direct-heat browning of ingredients, before using an oven’s indirect heat to finish over a long time.

The pan doesn’t even reach the lobster’s claw. What are we even trying to do here? There is absolutely no way this lobster can be cooked properly in these conditions. Even if you were to add liquid there’s going to be drastically uneven application of heat in a way that neither allows the lobster to boil, or steam effectively.

This is a copper-cored pan, so obviously the chef has some money to spend on quality cookware. This appears to be a All-Clad copper-cored three-ply 7 quart pan, which retails for $250. You know what’s infinitely cheaper? A STOCK POT! Hell, you can even be boujee with it and buy a totally unnecessary All-Clad stock pot and it’ll still only be $129.

I’m irrationally angry at the utter disrespect for quality ingredients which would lead to anyone putting a Maine lobster inhumanely in a sauteuse to fry part of its body unevenly over heat. You either boil a mess of water and throw it in, or learn how to dispatch it quickly with a knife.

This chef is a monster.

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I have never purchased a hat faster
By Mark Schofield

Honestly, that says it all.

Thanks to the beauty of the internet, within just a few clicks I had a Lobster Bake hat of my own heading my way.

Sure, this is probably a hat designed for me, after all. I am a Red Sox fan, I grew up in New England and vacationed in Maine many a summer, and have attended many a lobster boil.

But this is a lobster that is going down swinging.

What is it holding in its claw? That we do not know. Is it a pick-axe? A stick with its belongings tied to it on the end? What belongings does a lobster actually have? Is there something in this lobster’s past it does not want to share with us? That stick led to many questions in the SB Nation Slack channel.

But one thing you cannot question is how hard this hat goes.

And I have never purchased a hat faster.