Caps & Helmets

From the game's earliest days, players wore caps to keep the sun out their eyes. Over the next century, the baseball cap evolved as both a practical piece of equipment and a uniquely American fashion statement. Made of wool and easily worn out in warm and muggy weather, old caps were easily discarded, making them tough to find today. In the late 1940s, an many companies competed in the marketplace, including Spalding, Wilson, Rawlings, McAuliffe and Goldsmith/MacGregor. By the mid-1970s, New Era took over the market.

The major league caps displayed here date back from the early 1940s to the early 1980s. In the early 1950s, McAuliffe introduced the modern high crown cap, which was partly done to accommodate a fiber glass insert to protect batters. But Pirates owner Branch Rickey came out with the fiberglass batting helmet, so the inserts never caught on. Rickey's Pirates wore the first ones. Strangely enough, their pitchers wore them on the mound for a few years. One is pictured below.

Here is a Houston Astros cap with a "Harry Walker Pro Model" tag. A quick search on Google reveals almost nothing about Walker's caps, other than mentioning he made some in the early 60s for the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Colt 45s. Curiously, Walker was the manager of the Astros in the late 1960s — and this style cap was worn by the team from 1965 to 1970. The fact that this cap has mesh and a strapback only makes it more puzzling. Walker, whose brother was Dixie Walker, was a former National League batting champion who got the nickname "Harry the Hat" from constantly fiddling with his cap.

The same companies which produced caps for major league teams did so for minor league teams as well. Many of the minor's best known teams are represented here, including the Rochester Red Wings, the Kansas City Blues, the Indianapolis Indians, the Louisville Colonels, and from the Pacific Coast League, the Hollywood Stars, the Seattle Angels and the San Diego Padres. The first three caps — the Atlanta Crackers (worn by shortstop Buster Chatham in the late 1930s), the Cedar Rapids Raiders (1938) and the American Association All-Stars (1939) — all pre-date World War II.

Here are caps worn by four different college baseball teams. The first one (from the left) is a puzzle — conceivably, it could be Kansas or Kentucky, or maybe something else altogether. Next is a Vanderbilt University cap from around 1960, followed by one that was used by Bowling Green University. The burgundy cap was worn by the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod League. The red one, which has a McAuliffe tag in it, was worn by the University of Wisconsin in the 1960s. Next is a cap worn by the Michigan State Spartans. The last one pictured here seems likely to be affiliated with the University of Oregon — I love the duck! — although I have no proof.

Here are a pair of cap made of satin from the 1940s. There was a brief time when satin jerseys were used for night games in both the majors and minors. This was done to make the players easier to see under the lights. It's unclear what teams wore these beauties, but the one on the left was made by Rawlings, and has a second tag for Wichita Sporting Goods.

The popularity of the baseball cap led to the souvenir cap, which made it possible for kids to wear caps with the same logos as their favorite teams. Below are souvenir caps for the St. Louis Cardinals and Oakland Oaks (late 1940s), the St . Louis Browns and the Brooklyn Dodgers (early 1950s), and the Cincinnati Reds and the Houston Colt 45s (early 1960s). In the early 1960s, throwbacks caps also appear, likely for use in old timers games — the second Browns cap pictured below, which likely marks the 20th anniversary of its pennant-winning 1944 team, was made for such a game in Shea Stadium in 1964. Also displayed are two 1960s youth caps made by Coane, which made caps for several MLB teams in the '40s and '50s.

Plastic souvenir batting helmets were produced for the first time in the early 1960s. The first three shown here, the Reds, Pirates and Orioles, were made by the Bobbie company during that time. In 1969, Laich began mass-producing plastic helmets for the first time, and they soon became a popular item at ballpark souvenir stands.