Baseball caps

Fashion Synopsis

They hide bed head, baldness, dandruff, and plain old bad hair days. They're one size fits all, and they look good on anybody. Forwards, backwards, or sideways, the all-American baseball cap became inseparable to the heads of boys (and many girls) during the sports-crazed 90’s.

The first baseball cap, worn in 1849 by the New York Knickerbockers, wasn’t the round-crown, hard-billed cap we love today, but was instead a straw hat. Yes, straw hats were the first baseball caps, but by 1876 the National League was organized, and official uniforms were changed to include a baseball cap as we know it now. Chicago White Sox manager A.G. Spaulding is credited with dressing his team with caps of different colors, thereby creating history.

In their original role, baseball caps were a necessity to shield eyes from the glare of the sun, giving a clear vision of the flying ball. Because there’s nothing like getting beaned by a sixty-mile-an-hour ball because the sun got in your eyes. Even Little Leaguers soon caught on, as a logo-emblazoned baseball cap became the must-have fashion accessory for the schoolyard or sandlot game.

But you didn’t have to be a sports fan to pull the cap on and wear it with pride. During the 70’s, baseball-style ‘truckers’ caps were all the rage along with CB radios and B.J. and the Bear. Made of mesh backs with plastic sizing strips, and with foamy printed fronts, the trucker cap found a small audience with truckers, old men, and the occasional Bad News Bears wannabee.

Baseball caps stole home when the 90’s sports craze put the hip chapeaus on the heads of everyone from ghetto gangs to suburban housewives. The baseball cap was everywhere: rappers wore it twisted sideways and perched high on the crown, frat boys wore it backwards in testosterone-driven defiance, and girls wore it straight ahead, with ponytails swinging from the back.

Whatever way you wore it, it was cool. And it always fit. The baseball cap is truly the all-American classic, spanning all classes, ages, and lifestyles.