I am The Yankee Hat.
Right off the bat, I gotta tell ya, that to understand me, now you first have to understand my history, you see, I didn’t always look the way I look today,
(and statistically speaking…neither did you)
From Babe Ruth to Jay-Z, I’ve had quite an exciting life so far, if you’ll indulge me for moment,I’ll take you through the fascinating journey of how I got to where I am today.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Picture it, New York City, Early 1900’s-
A new century is dawning. The average person makes about a dollar a day. Streets are crowded with horse drawn carriages and new horseless carriages called automobiles are being mass produced introducing the city to a new modern problem, traffic jams.
New York City is now the largest city in America spanning from Columbus Circle in the North, all the way down Broadway to Wall Street. Major League Baseball has a National League team in the city called the New York Giants when a new American League is formed.
The northern part of the city is all farmland and in 1903, a professional baseball field called Hilltop Park is built on what was already a legendary area.
An accomplished land surveyor named George Washington (maybe you heard of him) became General during the Revolutionary War and cleverly makes his headquarters out of a strategically located house, The Jumel Mansion. Its elevated height provides tactical advantage over lower Manhattan allowing General Washington to watch the movements of the British Army. These ‘high lands’ gave our ball club our original name, The New York Highlanders. First team president, Joseph Gordon, a Scotsman, loved to point out that team’s name aligned with name of the famed Scottish military regiment Gordon’s Highlanders.
The spot of the original home plate is still visible here in a neighborhood known today as Washington Heights.
THE EARLY YEARS
Here’s an early photo of me and our first team…
The 1903 New York Highlanders Baseball Club. The navy blue uniform is completed by a white hat with blue pinstripes.
No lettering though, that came later. More about that in a minute.
Top Row L-R:
Ernie Courtney, Herman Long,
Bill Pounds, John Ganzel, Monte Beville, Dave Fultz, Jimmy Williams, Jack Chesbro and Lefty Davis
Bottom Row L-R:
Herm McFarland, Jack O’Connor, Clark Griffith, Willie Keeler, Wid Conroy and Jesse Tannehill
My Baby Photos -
A scrappy lil' cappy
One of my first styles was modeled in the “Brooklyn style hat” which was made popular by a team back in 1860 called the Brooklyn Excelsiors. This new hat was nicknamed “Philadelphia style” and was produced by Spalding.
My look was round, constructed of 8 panels of wool and flannel with a soft-crown, featuring a soft two inch crushable visor with a green wool underside. The crown had a horsehair front and backing with a leather inner sweatband.
The design made it functional in any weather and easily foldable to be carried in the pocket. Men of the time worea derby or bowler hat when not on the field.
The first team insignia was a separated N and Yon the chest of the uniform jersey.
Early photos show an alternate version of me featuringnavy blue with white pinstripes. Here I am on the head of Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Chesbro, who won 41 games for the club in our 1904 season , an American League Record to this day.
Not a bad look, but we were still working it out.
Police Medal BECOMES IconIC
In 1877 a NYPD officer named John McDowell was shot in the line of duty and as to be awarded the Medal of Valor. Famous jewelers Tiffany & Company were commissioned to design the medal in silver which featured a shield depicting Justice placing a laurel wreath on an officer’s head underneath the word VALOR connected by the interlocking NY.
BING!
In 1909 former NYPD Chief William Devery became part owner of the team and remembered the insignia from his time in the department and commandeered it for the ball club.
BOOM!
ORIGIN OF THE YANKEES
Due to Hilltop Park’s proximity of only 10 blocks north from its rival team’s ballpark, the Polo Grounds, which was at 157th Street and 8th Avenue, New York Press sports editor Jim Price began referring to the team as “Yanks’ or ‘Yankees’ a slang term used by Civil War era American Southerners to refer to Northerners. Use of the nickname by sports columnists were common as early as 1904 when the Highlanders finished 2nd in the American League.In 1911, the Polo Grounds burned down. The Highlanders allowed The Giants to play at Hilltop Park. When the Polo Grounds was reopened in 1913 the Giants offered to share the new stadium with The Highlanders who accepted the offer. Since the slang nickname had stuck and they were no longer to be playing in the ‘high lands’ the team officially adopted the name New York Yankees in 1913.The same year the team officially started using the iconic navy blue hat with white lettering.The Yankees shared the Polo Grounds with the Giants until 1923 when the first Yankee Stadium was built ushering in the Babe Ruth era and championship team known as Murderer’s Row. Arguably one of the best teams of any time period, the batting order was Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri. Together they swept both the 1927 and 1928 World Series launching me and the New York Yankees to international fame.
THE DiMaggio ERA HAT
The 1940s saw the Joe Dimaggio era when Major League Baseball’s caps were manufactured by Spalding who experimented with adding latex rubber into the hat’s structure, which resulted in a stiffer fitting cap that stood up on its own instead of flopping.
Raw materials needed for WWII made resources scarce. To further support the war effort, many players traded in baseball bats for rifles and enlisted in military service putting many baseball careers on hold.
POST WWii: A NEW ERA
Post WWII brought the boys home and by 1954 baseball was back in full swing an the New Era Cap Company introduced its 59Fifty model hat.
Each hat was fitted to the player’s exact head size and maintained its shape thanks to a leather inner band.
The new 59Fifty fitted hat by New Era: This new version sported a much longerbrim then previous hat designs and featuredgreen underside.
Outfielders preferred my much longer bill’s eye shade on sunny days.
Pitchers were now able to pull me hat down and curve my brim’s sides inward to covertly check their sides for leading baserunners without opponents seeing where they were looking.This technique was mastered by 5 time world champion, Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte.
The 59Fifty was sold exclusively to teams until 1978 when they were first made available to the general public.
The leather band was phased out in the 1980’s and the green underside was changed to grey.
In 1993 New Era’s 59Fifty become the exclusive on field hat of Major League Baseball at which time they added the embroidered MLB batter logo to the back of the cap.
TODAY'S HAT
The traditionalist Yankees were one of the last teams to make the switch to the gray underside in 1995.
In 2007, we saw my material go from wool to polyester (making my life much cooler) and the underside color change from gray to black.
2017’s New Era added their own logo to my left side once again updating the 59fifty On Field Authentic.
FASHION ICON: COOL. CLASSIC. FRESH.
Internationally known and locally respected my story has been incredible. I’ve gone from the baseball diamond to the red carpet and all points between.
In 2018, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art had a exhibit called IS FASHION MODERN? Which featured 111 items that have had a strong impact on history and society in the 20th and 21st centuries. Among the list of items on display, New Era’s New York Yankee hat.
New Era created a Limited Edition MOMA version of the hat to commemorate the event.
