Hats Off: Collecting Game-Used Baseball Caps

In a game against the Cleveland Indians on June 28, 1997, David Wells decided to wear a Yankees cap used by Babe Ruth. The hat lasted an inning before Yankees manager Joe Torre made the pitcher remove The Bambino’s gamer.

“I took it to the ballpark and said I’m going to wear this sucker,” Wells later recalled. “Joe Torre caught wind of it and was like, ‘Hey, you can’t wear that hat. It’s not required uniform.’ I’m like but how cool would that be to wear the hat Babe Ruth wore? Now I’m wearing it.”

The burly hurler was fined $2,500 for his violation. He paid with 2,500 $1 bills. That didn’t sting so much. Nor did the $35,000 he paid for the holy relic. The whirlwind of publicity Wells generated lent his publicity stunt an air of hipness, boosting his investment.

The only thing snappier on New York City streets than a Yankees cap is a Ruth gamer. In 2012, he auctioned it off in an SCP auctions for a jaw-dropping $537,278. The quirky Wells was way ahead of his time.

Today, game-used baseball caps are definitely worth collecting and, despite Wells’ fortunes, don’t break the bank in contrast to the most expensive players’ apparel: jerseys. Mickey Mantle’s 1968 final jersey fetched $2.2 million at auction. Jackie Robinson’s 1951 game-used Brooklyn Dodgers home jersey nearly hit $7 million in a Goldin Auction, but didn’t meet the reserve.

Most vintage game-used baseball caps sell from the high hundreds to a few thousand dollars. They look fabulous autographed, whether you buy them that way or pay to add an autograph yourself. And, like Wells, you can always wear them as long as you don’t add extra game wear that spoils the piece’s integrity. But do your homework to make sure you’re buying the real thing. There are plenty of fakes out there.

“In recent years, the baseball cap has become more of an everyday fashion than a function of keeping the sun off of a player’s head and out of his eyes on the ball diamond,” Mike Heffner, the president of Lelands auction house, wrote in a comprehensive guide called The Equipment Manager. “Every time I turn around, I see someone wearing a baseball cap. I believe that caps are relatively still affordable and somewhat unappreciated by the collecting public. One of the main reasons that caps worn by Hall of Famers and star players are undervalued is because most are tough to authenticate.”

Jersey collectors like to describe their prized possessions as “the shirts off their backs.” Cap collectors, far fewer in numbers, refer to the “hats off their heads.” Imagine owning the headwear of your favorite player on the field, whether he’s a Hall of Famer or a common player. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t give you the same jolt as holding a game jersey or bat.

Some collectors with refined tastes look for different styles of caps. All vintage Yankees caps look the same. But many teams such as the White Sox, Phillies, and Padres made artistic fashion statements with funky innovations over the course of history. I’ve found the completed sales of a white rookie 1965-1966 Bert Campaneris Kansas City Athletics cap with an artfully intertwined “KC” in green embroidery ($1,800), a 1979 Willie Stargell Pirates pillbox cap with a flat crown and black lines swirling around the golden brown, straight upright side ($1,3450), and a 1980-1982 bright orange Nolan Ryan Houston Astros cap with a bold H atop a dark blue star ($4,080).

The most desirable, authentic, and expensive caps date back to before the 1950s. Some teams, particularly the Yankees, had the player’s name sewn right into the band inside the cap. “Vintage pre-war caps had names like Babe or Joe DiMaggio,” says John Taube who authenticates caps for PSA/ DNA. “These embroidered ones are very, very rare; the rarest part of a uniform, and are authentic.”

Unfortunately, pre-war examples tend to be far out of reach of average collectors. In 2019, a 1929-1932 game-worn Lou Gehrig cap sold for $312,000 in a Heritage Auction. The asking price for a 1935 Babe Ruth game worn Boston Braves cap is more than $200,000 on Heritage’s site. In 2021, Heritage sold a circa 1941 Joe DiMaggio cap for $222,000.

What we focus on here in these pages are the relatively affordable post-war caps, excluding megastars the likes of Mickey Mantle ($30,000-$50,000) and Willie Mays ($10,000- $20,000). Searching various auctions over the past few years, I found a 1993-94 Ken Griffey Jr. game-worn and signed cap with a player’s letter for $1,680; a 1995 Cal Ripken All-Star game-worn and signed Orioles Cap with MLB Players Association & American League Letters of Provenance for $3,240; and a 1973-75 Mike Schmidt game-worn and signed Phillies cap from his rookie era for $870 with a Letter of Authenticity (LOA) from Heritage Auctions.

What distinguishes the Griffey and Ripken caps from the Schmidt is the strong and recognized paperwork. “With post 1960 caps, in my opinion, it’s all about credible provenance,” Taube says. “Tagging and the appropriate size are easily determined but they do not determine authenticity.”

Where Do They Come From?

Popular vintage specimens can come from the player himself, family members, the team, or team employees like the equipment manager or even an usher.

“Most game-used caps have nothing more identifying the player than a number written in marker underneath the brim or on the inside mesh of the body,” Heffner says.

I bought a well-used 1970 Brooks Robinson cap with his number 5 underneath the brim and with a notarized letter from an Orioles usher who was gifted the cap along with a Brooks game-used jersey and bat. Hunt Auctions showed a photo of the ex-usher with Robinson and the jersey. Being a huge fan of Robinson and of his MVP heroics in the 1970 World Series, I won it for $1,900. That’s not chump change, but a fraction of the cost of the Brooks jersey: $28,000.

I then mailed it off with all the documentation to a private signing for him to autograph it, date it 1970 (the year he wore it), and write, “My Cap.” After that, I mailed it to Taube for an LOA. Hunt also provided its own LOA, as respectable auction houses always do.

I asked Taube about memorabilia such as bats or caps he authenticates that the player signs “my gamer.” He said, “players tend to be liberal. They don’t know themselves. We are the collectors. All they do is put caps on their heads. We are the guys who know a player’s characteristics or the prov- enance.” But, of course, it definitely pays to have an authentic cap signed if the player is still living and willing.

In 2021, Heritage sold a 1966-1974 Robinson gamer for $18,600 with just its own LOA. It emphasized some key factors to look for that are explained in detail in Heffner’s column and elsewhere in auction descriptions. Robinson’s cap had a Wilson label, the manufacturer of Orioles caps.

“Some of the more prominent manufacturers include Reach, Spalding, Wilson, MacGregor, McAuliffe, KM Pro and New Era,” Heffner notes. “Some of these companies are defunct and others have been bought out. Over the past 40 years, New Era has been the most widely used professional baseball cap and today they have a very strong hold on the industry. They have been around since the 1920s but only began to dominate the pro cap market during the 1970s.”

Heritage also noted Robinson’s hat size “7 1/4, a key determinant. While different hair styles account for bigger or smaller hats, the sizes remain fairly consistent. Here are just a few caps sizes taken from rock solid exemplars,” Heffner says. “Lou Gehrig (7 1/8), Pete Rose (7–7 1/8), Roberto Clemente (6 7/8-7), Mike Piazza (7 3/8), Rickey Henderson (7 1/4), Paul Molitor (7 1/8), Barry Bonds (7 1/4), Eddie Murray (7 1/8), Willie Mays (7), Mark McGwire (7 1/2).” Every auction indicates the hat size. In case you’re wondering, the hat sizes were smaller back then than today.

Through Internet research or baseball cards, you can trace the evolution of a cap’s style to help date it. Heritage based its age range for the Robinson on the Orioles cartoon mascot after the ornitho-logically correct bird that adorned caps in the 1950s and early 1960s. Sometimes Wilson’s three letter code survived the player’s perspiration. Mine indicates 1969 (but the usher said it was used the following season).

Sweat stains and wear on the brim and headband are a conclusive sign of game use and wear. “I see a lot of fakes that have heavy, brown dirt inside on the band with no wear on the outside,” Heffner explains. “This is not normal. If you wear caps, take a look at the band on one of your favorites. This is how a heavily game-used baseball cap should look on the inside.

“The people who [try to] forge game-worn caps rarely take the time to fabricate use that looks real. Instead, they take a bunch of dirt and sand and grind it into the sweatband, thus, creating a used but phony look.”

Above all, the player’s uniform number should almost always appear in “vintage” marker, usually on the brim’s underside. “The ink used to mark the player’s number sometimes fades or bleeds from repeated usage and sweating,” Hefner adds.

You don’t need a really trained eye to tell the difference between faded and spanking-new markers.

Along with being one of the leading experts on caps with an encyclopedic knowledge, Heffner is one of the top collectors, too. He owns about 200 caps, starting with Hall of Famer Nellie Fox.

“I’m a huge fan,” he said. “I have one from each of his teams: the White Sox from the early 1950s to the 1960s and his Houston Colts in the early-to-mid 1960s. I own a very early John McGraw from the early 1900s and Ted Williams with his name stitched in. They stopped embroidering in the 1950s. I like the caps from the 1970s when I grew up. A lot of them are Hall of Famers. I have Lou Brock, Steve Carlton, and Jim Palmer. Plus, Paul Molitor from the 1980s. I could still use a Robin Yount. I have styles [that are common players or unidentified] like the early Washington Senators from the 1930s, St. Louis Browns, Colt 45s, and the Seattle Pilots from 1969.”

His George Brett has plenty of pine tar on the brim from touching the pine tar famously lathered on his bat handle. “Caps have characteristics like this pine tar,” Heffner explained. “There are ways of telling like PSA/DNA does with letters and bats.” These letters for bats may specify tape or scoring on the handle to link it to a player’s characteristics, the term Heffner and Taube emphasize for caps, too.

I asked Heffner to give me advice about a tempting early 1970s Lou Brock gamer in a major auction described as a “choice example dating to the heart of Brock’s Hall of Fame career.” The stamped size (7 1/4) looked good. So did the “KM Pro Cap” label and logo stamped on the leather band. “It wasn’t easy until the 1990s to get professional, pre-fitted caps,” Heffner said.

“The ones from the ‘50s through the ‘70s were issued to the teams and none were in retail stores. The ones in retail stores were different, lower quality and usually adjustable rather than pre-fitted.” In other words, a crook looking to scam couldn’t mess with a real cap because pro models weren’t available.

Cap Characteristics

Whether or not forgers could buy professional model caps and fake them as gamers is a small bone of contention between experts. Andy Sorber, who lives in Hunlock Creek, Pa., runs a top-notch website called tip-of-the-cap.com that corrects mistakes about “authentic” caps on eBay and in auctions. Sorber has determined – through information from KM Pro’s former co-owner, Paul Kaufman – that the company took out advertisements for pro model caps in The Sporting News sporadically from 1973-1975, but no other company did. As a result, forgers could only buy KM Pro caps from that brief period, but couldn’t from other manufacturers until, as Heffner noted, New Era in the 1990s.

The wear and sweat stains looked authentic on Brock’s cap and his signature on the brim’s underside had been authenticated by JSA. The uniform number 20 showed proper bleeding and fading over time and was written fluidly rather than slowly, as if done by a forger. And it matched the style on Brock bat knobs inscribed by him or the Cardinals’ equipment manager.

If things aren’t tough enough, there also is the location of the number on the cap. “Certain teams wrote cap numbers in the mesh up in the body of the cap,” Heffner adds. “Sometimes they wrote in the brim or didn’t even put the number anywhere. Players would just keep their caps in their lockers.”

It turned out there was a catch with the Brock cap, after all. The brim’s gray underside actually dated it to the latter part of Brock’s career, not his prime as the description stated. “This is really tricky,” Hefner said. “And I’ve been collecting caps for 30 to 40 years.”

Today teams and MLB Authentication sell caps at ballparks and through auctions worn for single games. New Era ships boxes to players with six to eight caps. “There’s a lot out there,” Heffner says.

While there’s no question about the authenticity of the Brock cap, there’s virtually no sign of wear, either. “You know a player wore it on his head for at least an inning or two,” Heffner says. “I would rather have a cap worn for at least a month or two.”

There’s no shortage of Mike Trout hats, which are on Heffner’s wish list. They retail from $1500-$2,000— some signed, some not.

Due to their complexity, the price of caps has remained relatively flat over the years, except rare styles which are picking up.

“I think people look at caps as second-rate collectibles,” Heffner admits. “Guys just get confused and worried about them. That’s why they have not increased in value. There are very few collectors who only collect caps. Usually, team collectors get them along with bats and uniforms. I hate to say this as a cap collector. I don’t think they will ever play more than second fiddle to bats or jerseys. That has been pounded into peoples’ heads. Entire books have been written on bats and jerseys.”

Sorber, of tip-of-the-cap.com, doesn’t need a book.

Over the past 30 years, he has amassed about 2,500 caps, which he splits between his man cave, basement and storage. “I would be surprised if you come across someone who is more passionate about baseball caps than me,” he says. “To me that baseball cap is sacred, like a preacher holds the Bible sacred.”

His “Hatorium,” as his wife dubs it, brings back memories to his childhood when he drew team logos.

Sorber’s favorites are extreme rarities, many of which have come through his website. He owns prototypes for the Los Angeles Angels in 1961, the year before they became the California Angels, with the white halo on top. On eBay he found an original 1961 cap promoting the Katz Drug store in Kansas City, which sponsored the Ban Johnson League and featured a crazy white cat logo.

Sorber’s was worn by a future big leaguer.

There’s an ultra-rare 1976 White Sox cap worn for eight games before it was banned because the hitters couldn’t pick up the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hands against the predominantly white cap. “The gem of my collection is the 1972 Padres ‘Sunday Special’ that is the first version of the Taco Bell that was popular in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s,” he says. “Worn only on Sundays, the bright yellow extended far across the cap which was shaped like a bell.

The One-Year Wonder Pilots

A popular model for Heffner and Sorber is the flashy Seattle Pilots cap, a franchise which lasted just one season – 1969. Against a royal blue backdrop are a gold S and a gold line bracketed by pilot wings on the brim. While on a visit to the Hall of Fame, Sorber spotted a Pilots model on display with a plastic snapback, a model the team never wore. After thanking him for pointing out the Hall’s errors, a curator let him donate a real pro model from his collection for permanent display along with dozens of other caps it exhibits.

For his part, Heffner has no plans to stop fueling his passion, given caps’ rarity, beauty, and utility. He estimates that in the past players wore about a half dozen caps per season, compared to two home and road jerseys. Sorber discovered in the Baseball Hall of Fame that in the 1950s and 1960s, McAuliffe gave three per player and charged them five or six dollars per extra one.

“They should be more valuable,” Heffner said. “Some players may have fallen in love and liked the fit. They got all sweaty and dirty. I love the challenge. At the Strongsville, Ohio, show I just picked up a really rare Cleveland Indians pillbox from the early 1970s used for a game or two.

“A cap is part of the uniform,” he adds. “Jerseys are really expensive. Caps are much better than pants. They have the team logo. In the early days, players wore them at the plate be- cause they didn’t have batting helmets.

“Every time they took the field, they had a cap on!”