Tip of the cap
Baseball fans flip their lids over Jacobs Field’s colorful ‘Hat Man’
Cleveland Plain Dealer
August 23, 2004
There’s the character of an alluring ballpark. And then there are the characters inside it.
At Jacobs Field, briefly fashionable again as the Indians flirted with a pennant race, drumming bleacherite John Adams is legendary. Sister Mary Assumpta scored national attention during two World Series for her chocolate-chip cookies and undying faith in the team.
And when the TV camera zooms in on left-handed batters, viewers might notice a man seated in the background with a Day-Glo hat and personality to match.
He’s Tom “the Hat Man” O’Toole.
The Willoughby man changes hats every inning, from one bright-colored ballcap to the next, always in the same order. The Hat Man has done his hat thing since Jacobs Field opened 10 years ago – to the point where he’s developed a following.
“People tell us they know from the color of his hat what inning it is,” said Joanne O’Toole, his wife of 39 years.
The O’Tooles have been Indians’ season ticket-holders for 37 years. When the team moved from dingy Municipal Stadium to Jacobs Field in 1994, Tom got so caught up in the color and excitement of the new place that he decided to add some spice of his own.
Thus, the hats, which he religiously brings to the games in a light blue duffel bag with his name, “Thomas O’Toole,” etched on the side. Each hat has the corresponding inning number taped to the underside of the bill, including four for extra innings.
When lefties step up to the plate and the camera sneaks in, the Hat Man and his wife are hard to miss from their front-row seats in section 148 behind the visitor’s dugout. So hard, in fact, that he’s routinely approached for autographs.
As a recent game against the division-leading Minnesota Twins entered the bottom of the eighth inning, Indians fan Cathy Deininger of Cleveland Heights fawned over the Hat Man.
“It’s the best! You’re the best! I love you for doing that,” she told him. Patrons at her neighborhood bar, not realizing he follows a pattern, often bet on which hat he’ll be wearing next.
“Oh, my God, it’s hilarious,” she said. “We just watch it and go, ‘There’s the ultimate fan ever.’ ”
Although the O’Tooles have A-list box seats, they couldn’t be more unassuming.
They work as free-lance travel writers and photographers, attending about a quarter of the Indians’ 81 home games — always Opening Day, every Yankees game and all the Friday games and special-event days. They sell the rest of their tickets to friends.
Tom is bubbly, with blue eyes that sparkle with a genuine zest for life. As Tom tells a familiar story, Joanne, the bigger baseball fan of the two, gazes at him with her soft brown eyes, smiling as if she’s hearing it for the first time.
They met at a wedding in 1964. On their first date, Tom wanted to do something different, something memorable. So he asked her to dinner, picked her up and drove to Cavoli’s, an Italian restaurant near the Cleveland-Lakewood border.
He knew her family owned the place.
“Who takes a date to her family’s restaurant?” Joanne wondered to herself. She wasn’t sure what to make of this guy, but he certainly was different — and memorable. They’ve been together ever since, and seated side by side at Indians games.
Tom is amused by the celebrity. He doesn’t understand the fuss, which really took off during the 1995 World Series. The national exposure was unavoidable. Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner and actress Jane Fonda, Turner’s wife at the time, sat behind them in Cleveland.
By the fourth inning, Tom overheard Turner and Fonda wondering what gives with all the hats. So Tom turned around, introduced himself and explained.
Turner asked whether Tom kept a railroad engineer’s hat in his bag. He didn’t but returned with one for Turner the next night.
The Hat Man now has fans nationwide.
When the O’Tooles arrived for the Twins game on a recent Friday night, they were handed a letter left for them days before. It was from Gerry Schurtz, who watches Indians games on satellite TV at home in Las Cruces, N.M. He had hoped to give the Hat Man a cap while visiting Jacobs Field, but the O’Tooles weren’t there. So Schurtz left them a distinctive hat and the note.
The Hat Man won’t wear hats for commercial reasons, although he’s been asked many times, and he won’t wear other people’s hats. But he broke his own policy this time.
In the fourth inning, Tom slipped on a light brown cap with a black bill and the words “Eat Pecans.”
“That was one of the high points of my life,” Schurtz, a 69-year-old pecan farmer, said by phone. “Cleveland Indians fans take delight in small things.”
- they were 1 for 7 with RISP 
Repeat after me: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLUTCHIBILITY.There are good hitters and bad hitters. Productive players and not productive players. The 2004 team didn't win because it had "warriors". It won because they were the best hitting team in the league (#1 in OBP and Slugging in all of baseball) and were THIRD in team ERA. This year's Sox team?#1 in OBP#3 in slugging#2 in ERAEven GREAT teams go through bad stretches. Not saying this is a great team, but it is clearly a VERY GOOD team. Any other conclusion is just mystical nonsense and can't be backed up by anything tangible.
4-0, 2.90 ERA...what's not to like?
He wasn't exactly mowing them down in AAA. He can't be worse than Travarez has been lately though. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
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Seems to be alot of talk about it.I would love to see Tex playing first and Youks at third.
Seems to be alot of talk about it.I would love to see Tex playing first and Youks at third.
