A GALLERY OF CAPS
An assortment of ball caps for sale from a street vendor in Sri Lanka.
President Obama wearing his favorite White Sox cap.
The Dalai Lama sported a Washington Nationals baseball cap during his recent visit to the nation’s capital.
Guinness Book record-holder Buckey Legried with some of his more than 90,000 ball caps, at home in Frost, Minnesota.
Here comes the bride’s ball cap, from a Las Vegas wedding chapel.
The ball cap has become a fashion icon, according to one fashion expert.
Pioneering cap wearer Spike Lee, wearing a Brooklyn cap. The filmmaker helped popularize MLB caps in non-team colors.
Tom Selleck as Magnum, P.I., the first hero/sex symbol known for wearing a baseball
Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo, many of whom had never before worn new clothing, happy with their Super Bowl caps.
Judah Friedlander of television’s 30 Rock and a few of his custom-made caps.
Ball Cap Nation
Copyright © 2009 by James Lilliefors
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any fashion, print, facsimile, or electronic, or by any method yet to be developed, without express permission of the copyright holder.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lilliefors, Jim
Ball cap nation: a journey through the world of America’s national hat/by James Lilliefors.--1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57860-340-4
ISBN-10: 1-57860-340-4
1. Baseball caps--United States. I. Title.
GT2110.L55 2009
391.4’3--dc22
2009009873
Edited by
Jack Heffron
Interior designed by
Stephen Sullivan
Distributed by Publishers Group West
For Janet
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Helen Zimmermann, who took on this project, helped to shape the proposal, and found a good home for it.
I am indebted to Jack Heffron, the editorial director at Clerisy Press, who steered this book through the writing, editing, and production phases, and whose editorial suggestions were always on target. I am grateful to the team at Clerisy Press, including Howard Cohen, marketing and publicity director, and Donna Poehner, production manager. And Richard Hunt, Clerisy’s president, for deciding to publish it.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame provided valuable assistance with research and photos for the book. Thanks to Senior Curator Tom Shieber, who gave me a tour of the Hall of Fame; Photo Archivist Pat Kelly, for all of her help with photos; and Freddy Berowsky, researcher and head of the reference desk.
Dana Marciniak, corporate communications manager at New Era, was very helpful in arranging interviews, providing photos, and answering questions.
I much appreciate the assistance of Ellen Roney Hughes, Ph.D., curator, and Jane Rogers, associate curator, for the Division of Music, Sports, and Entertainment History, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Myra Janco Daniels, CEO and founder of the Philharmonic Center/Naples Museum of Art, inspired me to pursue this project and allowed me the freedom to do so. And I again thank my father and Liliane.
Numerous other people shared their stories and thoughts about ball caps, giving me perspectives on the subject that I hadn’t imagined. I am thankful to all of them, and to those who agreed to be interviewed for this book.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Janet Johnson, who happened to notice one night that so many of our fellow restaurant patrons were wearing ball caps. This book was her idea and I am grateful for her support and contributions along the way.
CONTENTS
| 1 | Born in the USA | |
| 2 | The Cap Revolution | |
| 3 | Top Cap: The New Era Story | |
| 4 | The Wide World of Caps | |
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5
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