It appears at first the logo appeared on the side of the caps. I have never seen a New Era cap like this but I have seen several Sports Specialties caps. Also in the early days the logo was not embroidered straight on to the cap; it was a simply a patch glued onto the cap.
A pre-first season Marlins cap with the logo on the side.
Circa 1992 MLB logo "patch".
Sports Specialties apparently experimented with single-color MLB logos.
In 1994 after New Era became the exclusive cap supplier, on-field caps came with gold pins in the MLB logo's place to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Major League Baseball.
For years the logo remained unchanged on the backs of caps until the switch to polyester caps in 2007. The logo is now embossed instead of being flat.
Old style embroidery.
New style embroidery.
I'm not sure of the "official" name of the MLB logo. I just refer to it as the "batter man" since a New Era employee I once spoke to over the phone called it that. A friend of mine believes the logo is based on Harmon Killebrew. Any thoughts?
An important part you missed is that when the logo started being embossed it also started using team colors instead of the red, white, and blue color scheme. Same for minor league baseball.
ReplyDeleteFor completeness' sake, I have a Brewers on-field from 2005, from before batterman was embossed. It's in team colors.
Deletehttps://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=BC63C60482D5C417!9718
I think the sequence was:
Green Brim no batterman logo
Green Brim + red/white/blue Batterman OR Grey Brim + red/white/blue Batterman: 1992
Grey Brim + Team Color Batterman: ??? (late 90s?)
Black Brim + Team Color Batterman (both very tall): 2007
Ah I see. I just thought that goes without saying, but now that someone brought it up I should probably put that in there. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm no expert but I've never seen these caps with batter man logoman for use on the field. I just thought these were basic fan product stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here is a good read on the "batter"
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/081105
The man who made the logo Mr.Dior said this,"That's completely untrue. It's not Harmon Killebrew. It's not anyone in particular."
ReplyDeleteI think it was based on the profile of a bufflehead bay duck. That's what it looks like to me, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's supposed to be Pete Rose. Back in the day, This Week in Baseball closed with an MLB notice with an animated silhouette figure that sure looked like Rose adopting his batting stance before it froze into the MLB logo (complete with ball). I also read a reference to it being Rose somewhere within the context of the controversies surrounding him despite the fact that he (once) literally was the symbol for MLB.
ReplyDelete