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Showing posts from 2010

Game-Used Ballcap Mystery

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Hello everyone and sorry for the lack of updates. I should have some more free time in the new year to dedicate to the blog. I am working on an article about the colors of the undersides of visors (aka bills/brims), so if anyone has any information that they feel might be relevant, please contact me. Anyway, I just recently purchased an (alleged) game-used San Francisco Giants cap. Pictures are below. It is a KM Pro cap that the seller said was used by Danny O'Connell. Now first and foremost, he wasn't trying to dupe me, he simply said he had purchased it in the 1980s and the seller told him that was who used it. O'Connell had played for the Giants from 1957 (their final season in New York) and then in San Francisco in 1958 and 1959. There is just one problem; the cap has a 1970s style KM Pro tag and not a Tim McAuliffe tag like a 1950s cap would. Also, normally a game-used cap would have the player's number written in marker under the visor near the sweatband, or on th

End-Of-The-Season Thoughts and My First Pro-Model Cap

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First off, congrats to the San Francisco Giants on winning the World Series! In my opinion, both the Giants and Rangers deserved to win. However, since I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, it feels great to have a local team win. Unfortunately I didn't get to watch it, I was driving to Los Angeles and had to listen to it on the radio. I learned an interesting cap-related fact while watching the Series. Apparently Giants manager Bruce Bochy has such a large head that his cap is a custom-made size 8 1/8! Now that the season is over, it's time to wonder what new caps will debut next season and which ones will be phased out. Apparently the Cleveland Indians have ALREADY introduced a new alternate cap and got rid of the one with the cursive "I". I am always too slow to go out and buy recently-phased-out caps before they disappear from stores. The last one I bought was the Chicago Cubs road cap that was phased out after the 2008 season. That cap is one of my personal favor

The MLB "Batter Man" Logo

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In 1992, Major League Baseball had two official on-field cap suppliers; New Era and Sports Specialties. I'm not sure who's idea it was or why, but the two cap companies decided to add the MLB "batter man" logo to their caps. The two colors on each side of the batter man would be the two main colors of each team. 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

Team Cap History: The San Francisco Giants

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As a Bay Area resident I feel the time is right to pay tribute to the San Francisco Giants and their 2010 playoff run by looking at and comparing their caps over the years. (By the way, neither of the Bay Area teams (Giants and A's) are my favorite teams). Giants caps have really not changed all that much since moving to San Francisco from New York in 1958. The 1958 pre-season saw two different prototypes; one that Willie Mays wore in a press conference, and then the design that was airbrushed onto player's caps on Topps baseball cards (see the "Holy Grails" blog). It's always been the same colors: black and orange. There has been slight variances, most notably the orange visors of the late 70s/early 80s and has an alternate this past regular season. Let's take a look... The Giants primary cap maker dating back to the New York days until 1976 was Tim McAuliffe, Inc. (KM Pro after 1969) and remained that way until KM went out of business in 1976. I have seen Ne

Totally Awesome 80s Caps

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I was born in the mid 1980s, but while growing up in the 1990s I lived in an era of "80s backlash". Anything from the 80s was considered extremely "uncool". I hated everything about the 80s; the images, the music, the fashion, ect. but for some reason I loved and still love 80s baseball caps and uniforms. This was the last decade of the wild and outlandishly colorful uniforms. When I was around the age of ten a local Blockbuster video store had various video cassette tapes of highlights from past World Series games. I rented "Highlights of the 1984 World Series" and fell in love with the Padres "taco bell" caps despite the fact that the Padres got creamed by the Tigers. A couple of years later Blockbuster got rid of all of those tapes and I was lucky enough to buy that very tape. Slowly but surely the colorful uniforms and caps began to disappear around 1983 when designs from the 70s (my favorite decade for caps and uniforms) began to fall out o

Collectors Corner: Steven August

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Name / Age / Occupation: Steven August /45 / Entrepreneur When did you first start collecting pro-model baseball caps? 1975 How have you acquired your caps? I purchased many when I was younger, KM Pro used to sell them in the Sporting News. When they went out of business Roman Pro started doing the same. I used to wait for the UPS truck to come and deliver that little brown box with my next new cap in it. I also used to visit Gerry Cosby's in New York City, they had a very large selection as Pro caps were not as popular and easy to get in the 70's. What do you consider to be your “holy grail/grails”? I have a McAuliffe 1962 Mets cap worn by Jay Hook (who won the first Mets game ever)...pretty cool cap. I also own a few Mets "Pillbox caps" from 1976 which are classic. What is your favorite cap manufacturer? Without question KM Pro. What about baseball caps appeals to you? Something about the history and nostalgia behind them. I do believe the best caps made in bot