Posted on April 2, 2010 – 16:03 in Features | Stephan
Mitchell and Ness pt. II
TRC: Is this more a question of economics than style?
PC: Back in those days, you know it would seem someone thought a little about style. They could have just made that hat out of red or blue wool surge with a manufacturer who was probably making thousands of them rather than sending custom fabric. There certainly was some fashion flare among the ownership or management of some teams in that period. The Reds, the Brooklyn Dodger, and maybe seven other teams between the 1930s and 1970s did that. I thought it was cool and different.
And, in 1976 as a tribute to 1876 (the founding of the founding the national league) and also the bicentennial, both teams in the American and National League wore the stovetop style hat.
TRC: Which the Pirates wear for a little longer.
PC: Oh yeah, the Pirates wear it up to 1980. I have pictures of the Yankees and White Sox wearing them too. Every team did do it.
TRC: It seems theirs a great tradition in Baseball of national celebration, like the patches or something more esoteric like the stovetop hat.
PC: Absolutely. Patches are the most fun thing to research. The patch on the shirt helps date the shirt.
One last story, Mickey Mantle won the triple crown in 1956. If you get from us a 1956 Mickey Mantle shirt, you’re not going to get any patches. It has his name and the year embroidered on the front tail. But, you get a 1951 rookie jersey you get (and this is why I think it is possibly one of the most popular jerseys in the company) this patch. Every team in the American League celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the American League which officially began in 1901. If you get a Mantle rookie shirt, you get this patch. It also happens to be Joe DiMaggio’s final year. And, you get it on Mantle’s rookie shirt because that’s what he wore in 1951.
The Yankees wore fewer patches than any other team in baseball. They always wanted to keep their uniforms clean. One thing they did though, in 1952, for their 50th anniversary was wear a patch to commemorate that. Sometimes people will buy a Mantle 1951 and sometimes a 1952. The other piece of trivia that the baseball guys who follow numbers get into with the rookie jersey is this – form April to June Mantle wore number 6. Then he went down. When Stengel brought him back he started wearing his famous number 7.
You can possibly get a Mantel number 6 from 1951 or a number 7. And the patches are a nice accessory.
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