Brooklyn-born: The Baseball Cap

They are spotted at Yankee Stadium, the US Open Tennis, The Masters, or any outdoor sporting event. It is the round crown, six panels attached to a visor, baseball cap.Breathable, colorful, and durable, an American-born accessory…that is the baseball cap. 

Over a century ago, the Brooklyn Excelsiors, an amateur baseball team, wore this prototype cap to shield their eyes from the sun. It evolved by the 1940s into the stiff brim, six panel crown worn today. Keeping heads cool, it shields faces with its simplicity and practicalness. Globally, athletes, fans, and almost everyone wears them. Millions are produced yearly, and worn in almost all of the continents.

Once considered a sport/fan accessory, the baseball cap transitioned. As a fashion statement, embellished with pins, glitter, print fabrics, and other bedazzles, it became more individualized and stylish. Rappers and musicians, princes and princesses, presidents and directors, and everyone else, wear the cap with style.

Historically, hat wearing delivers a message. Take, for example, the cap worn backwards by a baseball catcher and a rapper. One needs to see a ball coming, and the other suggests a cool rebel, daredevil type. For those seeking anonymity, envision the visor pulled down, over the eyes, covering the telling face features. During our pandemic time, it became the complete facial cover-up, visor down, facemask up, as seen with Prince Harry covering his ginger locks, Janet Jackson covering her plentiful braids, and Binjin going through Incheon International Airport. It alerts: “cover-up celebrity coming thru!!” On a functional level, it is the go-to for women’s bad hair days. The ‘ponytail’ cap-look, ‘the unruly curls under the cap’ look, or the ‘stuff all the hair under the cap’ look address these styles.

The evolution of the modest American cap, from sports to fashion to celebrity anonymity, parading its simplicity and practical nature. Thank you, Brooklyn, good job.