The Excelsiors of Brooklyn in 1860 (Raynolds, J. Whiting, Creighton, Polhemus, Pearsall, Russell, Leggett, Brainard, Flanly), two of them holding their caps. New York Public Library, A.G. Spalding Baseball Collection, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons. No team-logo cap is pictured: the marks belong to the clubs.
The New Era 59FIFTY
What it took directly
- statedThe 59FIFTY took from Harold Koch's push to make caps uniform across the league: buckram stiffening the two front panels"That’s why we started doing the buckram just in the front two panels, to give that structure and that uniformity" Jim Wannemacher, New Era's brand historian, to InsideHook (2020)
- documentedThe 59FIFTY of 1954 comes from a cap New Era made for the St. Louis Browns in 1947"While the 59Fifty would officially debut for a handful of teams in 1954, it actually was first seen on a St. Louis Browns cap in 1947." MLB.com, baseball cap history and timeline, with images from the New Era Archive
- statedNew Era's turn to baseball caps took from Harold Koch seeing fashion caps fade while professional baseball grew"Harold noticed the demand for the fashion cap fading, while professional baseball was growing in popularity." New Era, on its own history page
- statedThe 59FIFTY as fashion took from Spike Lee's 1996 request for a red Yankees cap, which Koch says started New Era's fashion business"Back in '96, Spike Lee called and asked us to make him the Yankees baseball cap in red" Chris Koch, New Era's CEO, to Esquire (2017)
What it learned to do
- statedNew Era's first baseball cap learned from the Brooklyn-style cap, the nearest fit to what the Koch factory already made"He developed a cap based on the Brooklyn-style cap, which he felt was probably closest to what we were doing, most popular from what he could see across the market and fit in nicely with our manufacturing process" Jim Wannemacher, New Era's brand historian, to MLB.com
- statedThe 59FIFTY learned from New Era's earlier fitted caps, redrawn with lighter wool and raised stitching"Then he [Harold] cleaned the templates up to use lighter wool and lighter sweats and beading. He rose the stitching and the hat became the 59FIFTY we know today." Jim Wannemacher, New Era's brand historian, to InsideHook (2020)
- inferredNew Era's baseball caps learned from the company's first trade: Gatsby-style fashion caps"His expertise and open-mindedness led to the company producing 60,000 Gatsby-style caps in the first year." inferred — New Era's own history says it made fashion caps for some fourteen years before its first baseball cap in 1934; that the cap-making craft carried over is our reading, not the company's claim
The tradition it sits in
- statedNew Era comes from Ehrhardt Koch, a German immigrant cap maker in Buffalo, who started it with money borrowed from his sister Rose"In 1920, his dream came true when he borrowed money from his sister, Rose, to start New Era Cap Co." New Era, on its own history page
- documentedThe Brooklyn-style cap comes from the Brooklyn Excelsiors, who lengthened the brim and deepened the button-topped crown"Those same Brooklyn Excelsiors then brought us much closer to today’s baseball cap, with what is now known as the "Brooklyn-style cap." The brim went longer and it had a deeper, button-topped crown." MLB.com, baseball cap history and timeline
Where the whole form comes from
- documentedThe baseball cap comes from a merino cap that Peck & Snyder of New York made for the Mutuals and the Excelsiors"Teams like the New York Mutuals and Brooklyn Excelsiors switched to a merino cap topped with a star-like pattern made by New York sporting goods company Peck & Snyder." MLB.com, baseball cap history and timeline
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