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Interview with Jerry Cohen of Ebbets Field Flannels

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For the past 25 years, Ebbets Field Flannels has been bringing us high-quality retro sports apparel and simultaneously preserving the legacies and stories of obscure teams and leagues of the past that would have otherwise been forgotten. Their specialty is hand-made reproductions of vintage flannel baseball jerseys, or "shirts" as they were known back in the day. Ebbets Field Flannels also produces a wide variety of reproductions of vintage baseball caps, made with high-quality 100% wool with goat hair buckram, satin taping and undervisors, and on their 8-panel caps; genuine leather sweatbands. You can view what they have to offer offer at Ebbets.com . Q. For those of us that don't know or don't remember, what were some of the first caps EFF first produced? A. I think the first two caps we did were from the old Pacific Coast League, the San Francisco Seals and Seattle Rainiers. Q. What are some of the most popular/highest selling EFF cap

Ebbets Field Flannels 8-Panel Caps

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Ebbets Field Flannels recently unveiled a new line of 8-panel caps. The 8-panel cap has a much lower crown and has a more vintage look compared to the normal 6-panel caps. 8-panel caps were common in the pre-WWII era but disappeared by the early 1940s. The caps are unstructured (no buckram) and feature EFF's trademark satin taping and undervisor. The visor is soft and flexible. EFF also reintroduced leather sweatbands, which they haven't offered with their caps for many years. The EFF logo is embossed into the leather. First impression: The first 8-panel cap that I ordered was the 1923 Sacramento Senators. First glance at the cap reveals a headwear masterpiece, an amazing sight to behold for anyone that loves caps; The look of the old-fashioned wool, satin, and leather really made me thankful that we have a company like EFF around and that we can purchase a ballcap like this in the year 2013. Another thing that I noticed right out of the box was the smell of leather. The

Caps made for the film "Moneyball"

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For those that didn't see the movie, the film came out last year and is about Oakland A's GM Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics season. There are many scenes depicting games and even flashback scenes. The first thing that crossed my mind was that perhaps the caps (particularly the A's caps) were just "deadstock", just leftovers sitting in storage. However, all the caps were made specially for the movie with the exception of the A's Spring Training/Batting Practice caps, which were a mix of deadstock and reproductions . New Era provided all of the MLB caps. They were made in USA and most are 100% wool or wool combined with acrylic. Aside from the A's (Home, Road, and BP/Spring Training), there were caps made for the Dodgers, Twins, Royals, Yankees, Angels, Tigers, and Mets. Some were made for A's game scenes and some for Billy Beane flashback scenes. The A's Spring/BP and Home caps were all "weathered" by the props departm

2013 Padres Taco Bell Caps

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So I said that my next post would be about the caps from Moneyball, but there has been an unforeseen delay. I should have it done in the next week or so. This past Friday (May 17th), the Padres had a 1984 "Turn Back The Clock" game vs. the Nationals. The Nationals did not participate, which is unfortunate. I would have loved to see them wear 1984 Expos uniforms.  The taco bell caps were identical to the 2011 1983/1984 TBTC caps. The good news is that THEY WILL BE AVAILABLE IN RETAIL. The bad news is that they will be made in China like the 2011 taco bells. MLB shop is already taking orders HERE. Oddly, if you look at the photo of the cap at MLB shop there is one missing detail: There are no eyelets on the front panels! This has been a recent issue with reproduction taco bell caps that I mentioned before. However, the caps that the players wore in the game DID have eyelets. Either the photo at MLB shop is a prototype that didn't have eyelets, or someone that work

MLB Caps Made For The Film "42"

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 This is the first of two posts focusing on caps made for recent films. The next post will be on caps made for "Moneyball". The MLB caps made for the Jackie Robinson film "42" were provided by "Sports Studio" and were manufactured under private label by California Custom Caps. Ebbets Field Flannels provided the Minor League and Negro League caps. Despite the fact that most (if not all) of the logos back then were embroidered, many of the film's cap logos were felt. This was because the film's producers decided that they looked best on camera. Despite the felt logos, the caps were very well made and are historically accurate in other respects. The wool fabric looks correct for the era, and satin taping and leather sweatbands were used. The caps are extremely similar in look and construction to Ebbets Field Flannels caps. I believe that if EFF was ever allowed to make MLB caps, this is exactly what they would look like, only with the satin under

Procaprepair.com is up and running!

Folks, the day has finally come! We can now get caps of all years and makers repaired. Longtime cap collector Clint Farrell has founded a new company: Procaprepair.com! They can make various repairs to caps, mostly focusing on replacing cracked and broken visor boards. BCB: First and foremost, you are a cap collector yourself. How long have you been collecting and what are some of the highlights of your collection? CF: I was a kid in Toronto before MLB came to Canada. I always wore a Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) cap. By the 1980’s I had a nice little collection of Expos, Blue Jays and Orioles caps. All long gone now. When the Expos announced their move in 2004, I made sure to grab some caps from their final season, and that got me started again. I bought some Cooperstown caps, but was disappointed to find that they didn’t match the original caps all that well. So my search was on for vintage caps! I have close to 200 vintage caps in my collection

Padres Fan Fest

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This year, a friend was able to get me an early entry pass into Padres Fan Fest. Unfortunately, there was an extreme lack in the amount of caps this time. Despite the fact that I got in early and was in the front of the line, there were only about four or five team-issued 1978 Turn Back The Clock game caps. There were no 1989 or 1997 Turn Back The Clock game caps. There were some older 1980-84 team issued caps that appeared to be from around 2006, but they were in small sizes and were growing mold. As I've said before, the 1978 Turn Back The Clock game caps were not sold to retail. They were basically identical to the 2007 versions, but with the batterman logo on the back and a black sweatband. While the 1983/84 Turn Back The Clock game caps last season were made in China, the 1978 caps were actually made in the USA. Instead of the "Authentic Collection" tag, the cap has a "Cooperstown Collection" tag. On the back of the New Era tag, it says that the cap is ma