Hat sizes

What's the deal with hat sizes?

I've got four hats in the last year.  Each one fits differently than any other one.  I don't get it.  My original blue Montreal Expos hat was a 7-1/4.  It fit great so I resolved to buy 7-1/4 for all future hats.

I got a Phillies hat from my sister for my birthday last year.  Following my policy, I got a 7-1/4.  It fit decently so I was satisfied.  But then in the fall I wanted a Blue Jays hat so I got one at SportChek.  I believe I had a gift card or they were on sale.  I had a reason to be getting it at SportChek.  They had no 7-1/4, but they did have a 7-3/8 so I took that.  Its only 1/8 of an inch bigger, which is a pretty small discrepancy.  The hat is enormous.  You could get a small child in beside my head inside this hat.  1/8 of an inch should not make that much difference.

Then I bought two hats simultaneously today.  I stuck to the rule, and picked up 7-1/4 hats for both.  They had an anti-theft device in them so they weren't really try-on-able in the store.  I got out to my truck and giddy as I was, I had to fix the brim and try them on.

Each was 7-1/4.

The red Washington Nationals hat was very, very snug.  Bordering on too small but based on my experience from last fall, I wasn't moving up a size else it would require walking around with a child hanging next to my right ear to make it fit right.  It was snug but I wasn't uncomfortable wearing it so I declared it good.

The blue Montreal Expos hat was spot-on perfect.  It fit my head exactly the way a hat is supposed to.  It was just about 10% too snug.   You have that security of knowing there's no way its blowing off when you're lined up for a 3-iron on the 12th hole at the Harbor Golf Course at Elbow, where the wind screams off the prairie landscape like the sonic blast coming off a space shuttle launch.  The hat I wanted most fit better than anything else I tried to buy/get in the last year.  It was like coming home.

Four hats.  Four different fits.  All of these hats trying to approximate the sense of perfection that comes only when I wear a Montreal Expos cap.