If the United States has a national hat, it is surely the baseball cap. Even golfers, tennis players, and football players wear them, either when playing or while standing on the sidelines. Mail-carriers, truck drivers, and Boy Scouts wear them, too. You may have seen stores that sell nothing but baseball caps.
It took many years for baseball players to settle on the style of cap so familiar today.
William Arlt is an expert on the subject and president of the Cooperstown Ball Cap Co. He says the first baseball team, the Knickerbockers, wore straw hats! From the 1840s to the 1870s, players wore all sorts of hats - boating caps, jockey caps, even bicycling …
The Christian Science Monitor; September 19, 2001
The Christian Science Monitor; July 11, 2002
The Christian Science Monitor; August 17, 2004
The Christian Science Monitor; September 11, 2009
The Christian Science Monitor; August 20, 2003
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