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The Ridiculous History of Baseball Caps: How One Hat Traveled the World · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Tip of the cap to our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams oh Man.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I had this whole like fantasy that I
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  Speaker 2: was gonna bring in an example of every one of
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  Speaker 2: the hats we talk about today from my collection and like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, show them to you guys. This is a snapback.
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  Speaker 3: This is a trucker whatever.
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  Speaker 2: This is a fitted. I mean not that you guys
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  Speaker 2: didn't know, but I really wanted to do a bit
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  Speaker 2: and I just didn't do it.
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  Speaker 3: It's cold, I have a headache, but it's.
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  Speaker 2: The thought that counts.
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  Speaker 3: I do love a baseball cap.
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  Speaker 2: You have a hat on at least? Well, this is
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  Speaker 2: not This is a beanie. This is a beanie though
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  Speaker 2: Ben's the only one on brand with his proper atl
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  Speaker 2: represent hat. What do you call that, Ben? Is that
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  Speaker 2: a fitted? Hata?
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  Speaker 1: This is a fitted. This is what they would sell
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  Speaker 1: at Lidd's. Got this from my fantastic friend, the mayor
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  Speaker 1: of Ponce, Harold. You can find him as number four
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  Speaker 1: are locals on a vote Instagram. Yeah, I'd vote for
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  Speaker 1: him too, at least for comptroller, because I don't really
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  Speaker 1: understand I voted well, okay, oh great, Well, God knows
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta needs the help. I am Ben Bollen, joined with
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  Speaker 1: the one and only mister Noel Brown, a man of
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  Speaker 1: many hats, and today we are bringing to you, fellow
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, something that we have idly speculated on off
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  Speaker 1: air for quite some time. Baseball caps. Baseball caps are
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  Speaker 1: freaking everywhere, right, And the weird thing is most people
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  Speaker 1: who wear them spoiler don't actually play baseball, have you know?
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  Speaker 2: Man? It's sort of like me and all my Vans stuff.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if I told you guys this. I
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  Speaker 2: went into a Vans store and I bought this Van's
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  Speaker 2: jacket and I was wearing my Vans slip ons and
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  Speaker 2: a Van's little bag. And the guy very sort of
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  Speaker 2: snarkily said, all you need now is a skateboard, bro, remember, yeah?
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  Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, Van's is more
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  Speaker 2: of a lifestyle brand at this point, my guy. And
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  Speaker 2: that's the same with baseball. No one's gonna gonna rag
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  Speaker 2: you for wearing a baseball cap if you're not like
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  Speaker 2: a slugger.
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  Speaker 1: Right, right, right. You don't have to be Mickey Mantle there,
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  Speaker 1: go to casual wear. These days, a baseball cap is
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  Speaker 1: a fashion statement. It's a multi billion dollar industry. And
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  Speaker 1: even people who don't give a flip about since we're
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  Speaker 1: family show, who don't give a flip about baseball, will
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  Speaker 1: probably have a baseball cap in their house somewhere in
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  Speaker 1: the Western world because it's perfect for yardwork.
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  Speaker 2: It's a functional item. It shields your eyes from the
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  Speaker 2: sude if it's if you live in places like you know, Georgia,
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  Speaker 2: for example, where it gets blazing hot, that sun will
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  Speaker 2: fry pale vampiric, you know, creatures like the Three of Us. No, no,
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  Speaker 2: on the sun. It's not my fault.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Swedish.
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  Speaker 1: Do you guys see this freckle? You're you're both? I
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  Speaker 1: think of Northern European extraction. Uh, I am not, but
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  Speaker 1: I do. I do crisp quite quickly. And I've been
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  Speaker 1: deviled because I had to spend some time on my
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  Speaker 1: rooftop recently and the freckles just blossom. I have a
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  Speaker 1: freckle on the tip of my nose right now, and
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  Speaker 1: it's driving me crazy.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's driving me gaga because I think it is adorbs.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, thanks man, No.
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  Speaker 2: It's true. Man. You know, baseball caps or hats or
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  Speaker 2: whatever there's I mean, people generally just call them baseball
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  Speaker 2: caps are a very universally beloved thing, whether or not
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  Speaker 2: they're using it purely for function. And we have.
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  Speaker 3: An Tristine's story to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Let's cast our memories back there, folks, to the early
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  Speaker 1: days of the American institution known as baseball. Now, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of this is going to be old beans for
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  Speaker 1: pal Max. But Noel, did you know that baseball has
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  Speaker 1: this really murky origin.
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  Speaker 2: It kind of makes sense because it, I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: maybe it feels like the kind of thing that could
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  Speaker 2: be played in various ways, with stuff just kind of
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  Speaker 2: laying around, Like you know, every kid loves to play
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  Speaker 2: with sticks and swing them around, and balls, you know,
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  Speaker 2: were obviously a very early popular toy. So I can
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  Speaker 2: imagine putting one and one together. You take the ball,
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  Speaker 2: you throw up here, you hit it. Wait a minute,
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  Speaker 2: how can we take this a little further? And before
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  Speaker 2: you know it, you've got these kind of parallel versions
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  Speaker 2: of what might resemble today's baseball.
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  Speaker 4: So what I've learned and just some like you know
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  Speaker 4: fan hood deep dives is there's this concept of this
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  Speaker 4: sport called town ball in New England areas. The reason
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  Speaker 4: we know about this is like changing of laws, so
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  Speaker 4: like people would get together on the weekend and all
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  Speaker 4: going in the middle of town and play ball.
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  Speaker 2: But changing the laws comes into the puritanical laws.
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  Speaker 4: Against stuff on Sundays, and that's when they wanted to
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  Speaker 4: play because everyone was more or less off like or dancing.
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  Speaker 2: So there's these.
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  Speaker 4: Small like old town laws where they say no activity
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  Speaker 4: outside of town ball is permitted.
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  Speaker 2: Town ball was deemed spiritually clean enough.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's stories of like people playing baseball in
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  Speaker 4: the background of Civil War like battles and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: It was. It's a strange.
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  Speaker 1: Puritans were like, this is the this is the game
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  Speaker 1: Jesus would play.
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  Speaker 2: A million percent. Jesus. He was a pretty good runner probably,
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  Speaker 2: and he liked to hit things something involving sticks. But
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  Speaker 2: we don't have to get boy a bit of a bummer, guys,
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  Speaker 2: spoiler worth But no, seriously, like this early version, you know,
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  Speaker 2: did it involve something resembling bases and the scoring system
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  Speaker 2: of what we know today or that seems like the
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  Speaker 2: kind of aspect much like, you know, the way basketball
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  Speaker 2: evolved even after it left the hands of you know,
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  Speaker 2: the inventor. That's the kind of stuff that changes to
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  Speaker 2: suit the times, you know that to make it more exciting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was similar to they did have two opposing teams.
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  Speaker 1: It was similar to the game called rounders. But if
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  Speaker 1: you looked at it now, like if you looked at
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  Speaker 1: the way the game town ball is arranged, then you
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  Speaker 1: would see, like there's there's a sticky evolution, and it's
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  Speaker 1: because the older baton ball games go back for centuries,
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  Speaker 1: your earlier point. Somebody finds a stick somewhat invents a
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  Speaker 1: recreational ball, it doesn't take long. I there's a French
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  Speaker 1: manuscript from like thirteen forty four that shows a game
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  Speaker 1: called Las Soul, which is probably one of the many
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  Speaker 1: things that informed the town ball of the of the
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  Speaker 1: immigrants who came to the United States, and I think
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  Speaker 1: town ball was it was called Philly ball or Philly
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  Speaker 1: town ball for a second.
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  Speaker 3: Philly like Philadelphia.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a town that loves name and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: They do, really do. Philly's an awesome city, you know.
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  Speaker 2: But even the part you said about the game rounders,
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  Speaker 2: you know, you can see all kinds of analogs to
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  Speaker 2: that aspect of the game, and things even like Duck
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  Speaker 2: Duck Goose, or like children's sort of nursery rhyme type games,
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  Speaker 2: things where you're rounding certain set locations, or even like tag.
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  Speaker 2: You know, And again we're not here to litigate the
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  Speaker 2: entire history of all games, but it does appear that
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  Speaker 2: there are little snippets of things that could have just
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  Speaker 2: kind of sprung from people's surroundings that are the basis
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  Speaker 2: of a lot of the games that we know today.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, man, that's beautifully put. And to Max's point,
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  Speaker 1: this was a situation wherein the rules for or one
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  Speaker 1: kind of bat and ball game in one town may
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  Speaker 1: not be the same in another locale. And what another
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  Speaker 1: thing that didn't happen yet at this point in time
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  Speaker 1: was the idea of uniforms. People just had free time,
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  Speaker 1: and if they're sometimes puritantical social orders were okay with it,
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  Speaker 1: they would show up with whatever clothing they had access.
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  Speaker 2: To, hair shirts and skins. Yeah, that was a religious
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  Speaker 2: sports joke, which is the origin of the mascot. The
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  Speaker 2: hairshirt was not a thing that like, it was like
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  Speaker 2: a garment that Puritans wore to frustrate themselves. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if I don't remember if it was Puritans, but
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  Speaker 2: it was definitely a really itchy discussed It's a very
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  Speaker 2: unpleasant shirt's intentionally uncomfortable. Yeah, it's sort of the idea
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  Speaker 2: of self flagellation, but a little bit like more minor
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  Speaker 2: kinds of you know, let me make myself eternally uncomfortable,
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  Speaker 2: but not necessarily whip.
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  Speaker 1: Myself mortification and penance.
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  Speaker 4: It's not very comfortable. Like this beautiful baseball roto where
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  Speaker 4: shirt that I'm wearing right now. If you want cool
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  Speaker 4: baseball shirts getting from rodal Wear. They are not paying
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  Speaker 4: us for this.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Wow, Okay, Okay, let's get Max some shirts.
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  Speaker 2: Max with the facts and it's true. Uniforms were not
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  Speaker 2: a thing. Therefore, there was no need for a head
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  Speaker 2: worn piece of accoutrement. Yet, you know, to be a
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  Speaker 2: part of that ensemble.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. The earliest what we could call the earliest modern
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  Speaker 1: baseball teams start to agglomerate around eighteen hundred, and then
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  Speaker 1: the National League is formed in eighteen seventy six, and
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  Speaker 1: even then, no state hats. You just most people again
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  Speaker 1: to the point of function, they're going to wear some
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  Speaker 1: sort of hat with a brim just to keep that
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  Speaker 1: sun out of their eyes. We went to MLB dot
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  Speaker 1: com where they have this great interview with a guy
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  Speaker 1: named Tom Scheiber who's the senior curator for the National
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  Speaker 1: Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and he kind of
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  Speaker 1: he talks about it in a couple of different ways,
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  Speaker 1: and he says, look, the New York wait for it, knickerbockers.
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  Speaker 1: We brought back knickerbockers.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, we had to thought it was done.
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  Speaker 1: Huh, such a great word.
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  Speaker 2: They were, according to MLB dot com, the first team
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  Speaker 2: to have an official uniform. But you mentioned the idea
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  Speaker 2: of people wearing bringing their own kind of brimmed hat
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  Speaker 2: from home. That would more likely have been something resembling
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  Speaker 2: sort of a floppy beach hat or like a farmer's
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  Speaker 2: straw hat or something right.
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  Speaker 1: Or barbershop quartet hat.
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  Speaker 3: He go, yes, one of those flat top ones.
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  Speaker 2: Those are great. I just pictured like a stand in
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  Speaker 2: a parade. I do love a parade. But yeah, at
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  Speaker 2: this point they were wearing what would be called at
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  Speaker 2: the time chip hats or of course straw hats. But
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  Speaker 2: these would have been brimmed, you know, in three hundred
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  Speaker 2: and sixty degrees.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's go to Charles A. Peverly. He wrote
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  Speaker 1: a book called the Book of American Pastimes in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty six, and he says, look the Knickerbockers over in
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  Speaker 1: New York. They said, we need uniforms. So they have
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  Speaker 1: blue woolen pantaloons, another beautiful word. They have white flannel shirts.
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  Speaker 1: And then they had like you described Noel, the chip,
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  Speaker 1: and the chip was seriously, it was like this old
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  Speaker 1: school straw hat, flat flat atop or flat crowned, and
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  Speaker 1: then with that three hundred and sixty degree brim. And
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  Speaker 1: all I can imagine is that they would play baseball
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  Speaker 1: and then go sing at the barber shop. We don't
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  Speaker 1: know if that's true, but that's how I'd like to
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  Speaker 1: picture it.
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  Speaker 2: They definitely had the mustaches for it, likely at this time,
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  Speaker 2: and riding their Penny Farthing bicycles around town. But you
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  Speaker 2: could you can picture already what the issues might be.
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  Speaker 2: You know, straw hat is not particularly durable. I mean
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  Speaker 2: it is relatively durable, I guess for the rain over
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  Speaker 2: top the rain, and yeah, we would in one strand
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  Speaker 2: can come freight and then all of a sudden the
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  Speaker 2: whole thing comes apart. But most importantly it was about
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  Speaker 2: the tightness of the fit, and also that three hundred
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  Speaker 2: and sixty degrees of brim gives the wind three hundred
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  Speaker 2: and sixty degrees of surface area to blast that thing
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  Speaker 2: off your head or just you know, knocking it off
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  Speaker 2: by doing a slide or whatever it might be. There's
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  Speaker 2: an a number of ways you could have an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, diving.
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  Speaker 1: For a ball, you know, next thing you know, you've
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  Speaker 1: you've lost your cap, you've lost your hat.
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  Speaker 2: Worse than a cowboy fallen off his horse.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, that's bad, very embarrassing.
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  Speaker 1: It's worse than a clown without the right shoes or
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  Speaker 1: without their pink limitade.
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  Speaker 2: Oh boy.
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  Speaker 1: No, So this uh, this uniful stuff is important because
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  Speaker 1: it also functions as a sort of proof of membership.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of an ID card, you would see the uniform,
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  Speaker 1: me like, oh, that guy's for the he plays for
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  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Excelsiors. That's a real thing. Yeah, well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they're real. They're a real team.
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  Speaker 2: And wasn't that what's his name? Marvel Guy's favorite word, Stanley.
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  Speaker 2: He would always sign everything with excelsior. Doesn't it just
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  Speaker 2: mean kind of excellence, just like yeah, fabulousness. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: it's a good name for a team, right, definitely. So
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  Speaker 2: it would have been a word in popular use at
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  Speaker 2: the time too, right. That strikes me as the way
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  Speaker 2: that stan Lee was probably a lad. He probably attended
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  Speaker 2: some of these games.
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  Speaker 1: You know, tan Lee is eternal, so so this is Oh,
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  Speaker 1: excelsior is also a word for type of wood shaving.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, etymology is so weird, man.
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  Speaker 3: And it's also a good medication for if you have
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  Speaker 3: an upset tummy.
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  Speaker 1: Is that true?
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  Speaker 3: No, that's alcus Elzer.
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  Speaker 2: You had me. That was good.
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  Speaker 3: So this Max made the deepest cringe I've ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: Just yeah, he's holding I know what that hand signal means,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, Max, I get it. So the we'll
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  Speaker 1: call it a victory sign since where family shows. So
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  Speaker 1: this team, if we fast forward to the eighteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: let's get to the Excelsiors. They first wore what we
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  Speaker 1: would call the predecessor of the modern baseball cap. But
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  Speaker 1: this was a little more floppity, kind of like a
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  Speaker 1: deflated soufle or a beret.
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  Speaker 3: It's called like a chef cap that's sort of flopped
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  Speaker 3: over like.
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  Speaker 1: A tiny you like a tiny leady.
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  Speaker 2: Chef, tiny floppy beret. Who came up with this didn't
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  Speaker 2: berets already exist. Surely they had examples to turn to
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  Speaker 2: that would have generated something less awkward than that, I
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  Speaker 2: guess not. I mean, that's right here in the history.
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  Speaker 1: Hat technology was in its infancy, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's funny though, because we think of hats, you know,
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  Speaker 2: as in popular you know, culture and history, as being
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  Speaker 2: something that you wore to look fancy, and it wasn't
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  Speaker 2: necessarily something you wore in a fight or like in battle.
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  Speaker 2: That's what helmets were for, you know. So it does
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  Speaker 2: make sense that they had a little bit of I guess,
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  Speaker 2: growing pains when it came to figuring out the right
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  Speaker 2: type of hat that would be you know, suited for
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  Speaker 2: this kind of sport.
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  Speaker 3: Trial and error.
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  Speaker 2: They obviously decided, no, we're not doing helmets, guys, we're
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  Speaker 2: not doing helmets. Because you know, football was a thing,
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  Speaker 2: American football with those leather type helmets, and you wonder
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  Speaker 2: why they didn't go with that with baseball. They decided
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  Speaker 2: they wanted to differentiate themselves as a sport perhaps I'm
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  Speaker 2: just conjecturing.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, let's also consider that the baseball glove,
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  Speaker 1: which is biquitous today on the field, wasn't a thing
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  Speaker 1: when baseball first year round. In fact, it was considered
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  Speaker 1: unmanly an unsportsmanlike to use a glove.
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  Speaker 4: And to continue on Nole's point there, it wasn't until
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  Speaker 4: the nineteen hundreds that they started wearing helmets when they batted, right, Yeah, And.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know anything about the history
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  Speaker 2: of football, Max, but like that movie Leatherheads, you know,
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  Speaker 2: that era seems roughly around this time we're talking, but
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  Speaker 2: that was probably a little more early nineteen hundreds too.
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  Speaker 2: So I wonder if early football they weren't they were
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  Speaker 2: wearing helmets for a while, because you know, that's obviously
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  Speaker 2: always been a bit of a controversy with that sport
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  Speaker 2: about head injuries. It it would definitely be like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: we gotta wear helmets.
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  Speaker 4: So the first widely believed to be the first like
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  Speaker 4: organized football game is Rutgers versus Princeton, all New Jersey
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  Speaker 4: at time, which is November sixth, eighteen sixty nine.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so we're the same ballpark.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but leather helmets was around for way later than
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  Speaker 4: you think. I think we're talking good bit like they
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  Speaker 4: were wearing helmets in baseball before they got actual real
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  Speaker 4: helmets in football. Okay, that makes sense too, that makes
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  Speaker 4: but football was also very different back then, very much
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  Speaker 4: that football was not.
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  Speaker 1: Was it rough just fewer commercials it was.
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  Speaker 4: Uh, it was more similar to rugby, and there wasn't
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  Speaker 4: like the forward passing game was a relatively recent development.
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  Speaker 4: It's a lot more running around people, Like the big
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  Speaker 4: guys in the field are like two hundred and ten
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  Speaker 4: silence or more, do you think.
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  Speaker 1: Also, also, wearing a hat in Western society at this
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  Speaker 1: time is considered sort of derriga. If you are absolutely
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  Speaker 1: a person who is not a passive trash, yeah, you're
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  Speaker 1: supposed to have a hat. So it makes sense all.
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  Speaker 2: The time, like you know, hat in hand expressions like that,
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  Speaker 2: I mean to me, cap and all that exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So these uh, these these excelsior folks in Brooklyn, they
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  Speaker 1: are first to the plate with the idea of matching hats,
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  Speaker 1: but they are not by any means alone. There are
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  Speaker 1: also groups like the New York Mutuals. This team says,
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  Speaker 1: we like this whole a different time. These teams like, yeah,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: these teams, I mean, good on them for not picking
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: some terrible racial thing. But they they said, Okay, we
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: like this idea. We like the idea of these floppity caps.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: The Marino cap becomes the number one go to choice.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: There has always been an attempt at monopolization of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: baseball cap, and all these caps were made by a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: sporting goods company in New York named Peck and Snyder.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: They sold a cap called the Number one. It costs
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: between a dollar twenty five and two bucks. So if
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you look at to get a sense of it, this
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: is around like let's do a boot, let's do an
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: inflation calculator, huh.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: And a dude and a boop.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So in just for funzies in eighteen sixty or so,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: two dollars then is worth about seventy six dollars and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: thirty one cents today. So these were not cheap for people,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: but they were official.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, And I just googled marino caps kind
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: of wanted to see what it looked like. And if
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: I'm correct, there's a bunch of different ones and it's
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: obviously you know, a long time ago, but it's probably
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: become a brand as well. But it looks a lot
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: like the kind of hat slash helmets that jockeys wore. Yes,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: And when I was looking through this research material originally,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that seems so obvious when you think about it, that
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: they borrowed the design from horse racing.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: But I never would have put the two together, you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: because it's almost a.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Little bit more of a nub of a brim rather
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: than like the longer brim that you know that it
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: kind of evolved into. But that was a real aha
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: moment for him, like, oh, of course, yes, jockeys have
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: been doing the single outward brim and yeah, I mean
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: definitely older than we're talking here, dating back to around
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the late seventeenth century.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And you can see versions of that specific type of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: hat in bicycling communities today, going to be rounded, fitting
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: close to the crown. It has that abbreviated bill that
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: goes a little bit down. And this is also the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: era when people start wearing what you might think of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: as valet caps, like the flat topped cylindrical things that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: still have a bill. The Marino cap number one by
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Pecken Snyder is the gold standard for a while, and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: if we fast forward to nineteen hundred, it becomes known
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: as the Brooklyn style cap. And this the big breakthrough
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: for all of this stuff is that directional bill, the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: bill that just covers over the front of your face
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: instead of all the way around. And now you know what,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Let's go to a quote from our pal Tom he
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: talks about I just love his conversational tone, you guys.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: He has a great quotation about the horse racing that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you're mentioning though.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's specifically referring to just the fact that
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: by a little later in the eighteen fifties, you had
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: more images of this stuff that we could refer back to.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: So he says, you're definitely seeing people wearing what you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: and I would think of as a baseball cap, which
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: is a crown with a bill that comes out just
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: one direction instead of all the way around. This is
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: not a particularly groundbreaking object. Really, something like that had
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: been worn in horse racing by jockeys for many years.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: We call it a baseball cap because we're Americans and
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: it's just been associated with baseball for a long time.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Little micro snark there.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I thought you guys would like that. Max, I saw
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you laughing.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But It's not like it was invented for baseball. The
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: cat had just been around a very long time, which
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: makes sense. We do that all the time with stuff,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the victor, the victor go, the spoils and
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: all of that. Right, whatever thing gets associated with a
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: thing in a bigly enough way, that becomes the thing
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that people you know, think of first. And often what
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: it's called.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: History is written by the winners, right, history is history
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: is retold by the victors. And this is true in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: so many as The name I was trying to look
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: for earlier was pillbox. The pillbox version of the cap
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: becomes popular in the late eighteen eighties, and then that ultimately,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm mapping this out on my
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: own cap right now, but that ultimately gives way to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the sort of six paneled round baseball cap so ubiquitous today.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Dude Pecken Snyder as a brand still around, Yeah, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: they deal in kind of vintage style baseball caps. So
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: they also make jackets and sweatshirts and sweatpants, pretty pricey stuff.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: A New York Bulldog hooded sweatshirt nineteen forty nine, one
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: hundred and sixty two dollars and it appears that it's
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: one of those brands like Supreme or whatever where you
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: go to their website and everything's just marked sold out
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: right right right, So it's like, thank you for the
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: helpful listings.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Well, they've relaunched.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: They make sense they went dark. They relaunched in twenty
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: twenty because of the nostalgia and the interest in that,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and that's why you can you can still see some
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: teams playing in old school baseball uniforms. It's a big draw.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Actually to that point, I just sent in the chat
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: here the twenty seventeen Pittsburgh Pirates hat, because Pittsburgh Pirates
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: is like in one of the original NL teams they've
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: been around for or not original, there's no original NL
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: teams like the al. The Ale had like eight teams
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: that came out, but they were really old school team
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: and so they brought back the pillbox hats, which is
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: just like, I have my feelings about the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: I will not air them here, but I like them.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: I like I like Pittsburgh Pirate fans. Let's just say,
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: but yeah, and I like players on the team. It's
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: not the problem. We can probably figure out my lemonade.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can kind of tell. Yeah.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: I think they're just a cool team. They have beautiful ballpark,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: and like this is like a hat I would love
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: to have because it's such a cool hat.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Because you want to look like you work on a train.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what'd you think? I would say? It?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: There funny, I know, funny part funny at side about Pittsburgh.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: So I was there on a weird on a weird
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: mission for a different show called Stuff They Want You
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to Know. I was very cold and I had to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: put on I went to the hotel and I was like,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I under a misunderestimated the weather, and I got a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: hoodie that just had you know me, I'm not a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: logo guy, So I got a hoodie that just had
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a pee on it. I didn't know it was the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Pirates. And I went to like, I went to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: one of the only places open late at night to
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: get food, which was a dive bar, and this bartender
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: instantly became friends with me. It was like, not a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people have the sand to wear that hoodie
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: around me around these questions, except in a Pittsburgh accent.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, like, you know, like Pittsburgh's one of those cities,
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: the chart's very much the same way. Cleveland's the same
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: way where their teams are like the number one team dining,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: you know, Atlanta's kind of that way. But that was
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Midwestern teams. Oh, they love their baseball teams, they do.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And it's no surprise that this this hat still has
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: an evolution to go through because as surprise as weird
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: as it is to point this out, at this time,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: no team had a logo on their hat yet. It
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: was just a color that was the differentiation. It wasn't
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: until eighteen ninety four, when the then Boston Braves put
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: letter forms on their caps that people started saying, okay,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: let's get some branding on here.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: You know, it makes me picture the letterman's jackets of
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you know, Ivy League colleges and universities and all of
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: that stuff. And I believe that stuff dates back to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: the mid to lay eighteen hundreds as well. So it
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: almost seems like these things were happening concurrently and then
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: maybe one sort of influenced the other as they started
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: to evolve, because I guess it probably wasn't until the
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: fifties or so that like high school letterman jackets became
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: a thing, you know, with varsity cheerleaders and the like.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it's such a feat loop, right, These things
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: feed onto each other. Think about this. If you're a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: fan of your local sports team in any decade, especially
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: before this, this kind of merchandise came out. That is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the coolest flex for you to show up with them
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: on your shirt, or to show up and say, hey,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I've got a hat from the Boston Braves And someone says,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: won't they move to Atlanta later? And you say, I
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: don't know, carpet, Yeah.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: They got to stop in Milwaukee at some point, sure,
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: But you know, of course there's that like it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It makes you feel connected with the players too, because
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you're oftentimes wearing the same You can buy the same
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: one that they wear by the same jerseys. That's why
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: those things, you know, the nice ones go for a
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: pretty penny. But that is the flex in and of
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: itself to be like, I'm on the team too, you know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So by just one year after eighteen ninety four, I
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: don't know why I said it that way. Eighteen ninety five,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: three more teams, three more teams have done the same thing.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Fast forward, it's nineteen oh one. This is another Easter
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: egg for U Max. The Detroit Tigers are officially the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: first major league team to put a mascot on their caps.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: It only lasts for a little bit because, like I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: think two years later they say, man, mascot, that's really
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that's busy, you know, that's just the design is complicated.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Let's just put a D on there, D for Detroit,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: just to D this is the big D. Give them
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: the big D, y'all. That's all we need for Detroit.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's still what they rock to this day.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: But also as an additional note, if it's nineteen oh
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: one American League just did this off off top a head,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: that would be their first season too. So they walked
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: in there because this is what we're doing. They're coming
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: in a loud and processsh and I believe they're also
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: using that sick, classic old English font, that kind of Gothic,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: kind of very seraphy font. And that's the thing that
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: is the very definition of branding. Taking a letter that
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: belongs to literally everyone, yeah, and making it yours and
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: making it associate, you know, with you and your whole thing.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: That is brilliant and everybody couldn't do that. You know.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, you had to be kind of first to
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: market to be able to claim the D.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: We could do it like we.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Get the A here in Atlanta, and that people say it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: When people say the A, they are referring to Atlanta.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: That's also how we know you're not from here.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: But that's also true.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: But people do say that outside also Hotlanta.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: We don't like that, y'all.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: We don't think it's funny. It's a big cringe.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: If you're a band and you say Hotlanta, right, those
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: sounds emanating from the audience, and they're they're they're cringes.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine she got back into online dating,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and she told me that the most obnoxious like online
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: dating is apparently a minefield. I've never done it, as
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you guys know, but like she was telling me that
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: she had learned these weird red flags, and one of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: them dating in Atlanta was when a guy she was
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: going to meet was like, I love the atl Atlanta.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: It's like one you're not from here too. I don't
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: think we get along.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I will say atl in texts and as an abbreviation,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: but I'll also say NYC or LA or SF. But
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't speak SF out loud or say ATL out loud.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: These are shorthands for brevity. San fran Sand's even worse.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, let's get to Jim Lilllyfores and ball Cap Nation,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: a journey through the world of America's national hat, national hat.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: He gives a lot of reasons to the rising popularity
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: of the baseball hat and its adoption as like we
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: were talking about at the top of the show, more
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: of a lifestyle brand. Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's the big question, right. We know it
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: has functionality for baseball players, we know it functions on
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: several levels. But why did it become a thing? Why
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: do the majority of people buying and war baseball caps
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: now have nothing to do with baseball?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: It's this is weird.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It's kind of the same reason that smoking became popular. Because, yeah,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: because baseball hits television. Television is invented by Philip Farnsworth.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: He never really gets credit for it, but television explodes,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and so does the American obsession with baseball. Now you
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: can watch it, you don't have to drive into town.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: So folks began wanting that association we're talking about. We
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: want to show support for our teams through their hats.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It's being depicted as cool. Also, baseball caps start going
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to other non sports shows on television and in film.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Tom Selleck has a baseball cap on Magnum p I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: mcgiver has a baseball cap. And mcguiver's awesome guys.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: He has mode. He does all kind There was this
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: one episode. I've probably talked about this before, maybe when
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: mcgiver came up with this one episode. It's burned into
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: my memory. He does something to the like junction box
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: at a at a busy intersection where he opens it
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: up and like monkeys with it a little bit, and
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: it causes a giant pilotup accident, and he's doing it
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: to create a diversion. And I'm just like mcguy for
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: that is not cool. He could have hurt some minist
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: and bystanders. Of course, nobody gets hurt. But he didn't know.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I thought that was a little bit an
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: anarchist cookbook of him.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I like that reference stool. Yeah, mcguiver.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to say about him. He also did
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: clearly continue like propagating interest in the baseball cap.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: There were pilots right, you know, specifically in pop culture,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: like Tom Cruise, the coolest guy around at the time.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Even now, every single Marvel movie character who needs to
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: travel incognito or in disguise, they've got a baseball cap
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and sunglasses. Take that, Clark Kent. Yeah, same with celebrities
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: in general.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: You'll often see like paparazzi photos, you know, on TMZ
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: or whatever of like, you know, Nick Nolty, what am
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I saying, Nick Nolty, what is it at the airport?
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: You know, with a hat like a like a baseball
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: cap and sunware. Michael Jackson used to do it. I
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: mean it was pretty much the disguise Derrek Gore. But
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: it makes sense functionally for that too, because you can
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: pull that brim down and it shadows your face.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: You know, Anthony Mackie, I think we were we were
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: flying out of Texas or.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Something that's on the plane, and he was certainly wearing
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: a hat.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: So there's also another thing that occurs in this midiu.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, agriculture companies start saying, hey, this
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is this could be another business card for us. This
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: is a great way to advertise stuff like John Deere.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. And today those.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: That hipsters will end up wearing them ironically later.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And they'll still pay money. Because money is spent ironically
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: or unronically, still much still matters.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: So just like an action done long enough ironically just
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: becomes a thing you do right.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: And that's why agricultural companies are the basis of what
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: we call trucker hats today, which are sort of a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: kissing cousin of the baseball cat, like alligators, crocodiles, crows, ravens,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the very very similar. And so with this the cap
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: becomes more and more mainstream and the men and women
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: start to play with it for style. This is where you, oh,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. This is just for the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: like the four of us because we're not a visual podcast,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: but this is where you get it turned to the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: side and like it looks like.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: With your hands on your headphones like that, it just
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: like you're making some sick beats.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: You're ready to like spit some fire bars.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: But that's the thing though, I mean in hip hop
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: culture too, the hat and the baseball hat, whether it
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: be sports related or just kind of like cool streetwear
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: brand related, it is a huge part of that uniform.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: And not to mention that like a lot of British
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: urban Britage kids also developed, you know, started wearing it
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: around the time of like grime music and a lot
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: of the kind of electronic hip hop stuff, kind of
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: crossover stuff of the early two thousands and beyond in
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: the UK.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, And that point about musicians is excellent.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Punk rockers are wearing baseball hats. Grunge singers in the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: nineties are wearing baseball hats. Pop stars are showing up
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: to seeing the national anthem with surprise baseball cap. It's
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: just the marketing is there, and this means that it
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: gets incredibly popular. It starts to fragment as people take
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: their own spin on this. And that's why now in
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: general and we get this. According to our good friends
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: at Vogue, there are four major types of baseball hat.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: We've named each of them kind of in the course
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of this episode.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: What is there.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: There's snap back, adjustable, flex fit, fitted, full disclosure, or
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: pal nol has an example of all of these. Because
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: you're a man of many hats, I like hats, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I was thinking back, you know, and researching this episode
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: about like when did I make the conscious decision to
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: become a hat guy, Like a baseball hat guy. And
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I remember around roughly around the time, and it wasn't
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: because of anything functional. I just decided one day I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: was playing in bands and stuff like I'm gonna be
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: a guy that wears hats. And for a long time
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I had really long hair too, and I think the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: hat started entering my life when I cut my hair short,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, before I had my long hair,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: that was my thing, and now I've got hats so
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and I've never looked back. I've probably got dozens, and
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I've got examples of all of these. The flex fit
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: is a fun one that I don't have very many of,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: but it's sort of a stretch here hat that would
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: maybe be considered a little sporty or something that's weather proof,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you know, for like hiking and better at soaking up
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: sweat and not staining, you know, the fabric stuff like that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Vined kind of somebody to associate with, like an active
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: wear brand like Lululemon or something. And Max and I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: were talking off here too. I was a little bit
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: surprised because I came in hot, and I was like, Max,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be such a great episode, bro, You're
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: gonna love this. How many baseball caps do you own?
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And for anybody who has not had the immense privilege
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: of seeing our friend Max in person, the guy's got long,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: shiny locks of hair. It's very lustrous.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was telling Ben, I'm like, yeah, I have
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: hat somewhere, but I haven't cut my hair in five years,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: so it's like I can't really wear a hat.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess put it down. I cook, well,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: a hat with a ponytail is definitely a vibe.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Brother, I'm just sure to put that out.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: That's very much a choice because you got to thread
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: it through the back.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a real thing.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: That's something I can see our long time friend Alan
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Finkbeiner doing absolutely absolutely.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Oh man, Alan, I hope you're enjoying your retirement.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Alan was our it's been our mutual Sweetwater Sound representative
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: collectively for about twenty years.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: He's candy without having to buy a gear. No, we
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: got some gear.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: That's what they do.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: They always appreciate it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: And we will give you a hat if you want.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: What should give ridiculous history hats.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: That'd be great, get old rest bututant on one. I'd
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: wear that, but with then the fitted hat. You know
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: what you're wearing, Ben, That is that is also a
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: fitted hat is kind of considered maybe a more high
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: end baseball hat because it's a specific size. So oftentimes
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: you've got to go to a place that has lots
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: of different options. There's going to be a little bit
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: more expensive. They're really durable. I only have like one
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: or two. I think one of them is a Supreme
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: hat and it has a baseball tie in. I am
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: not a sports fan, so I don't wear baseball hats
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: or sports hats. This is the only thing. But I
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: just really got it because of the logo and the colorway.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm a big Supreme fan, big Vans hat fan.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: And I just I like those. What are those ones
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: with the animals on them?
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Ben? You have one? To Goren brothers have a handful
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: of those. Those are fun, But I just think it's
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: a fun way to accessorize. You know, I was blessed
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: with perfect eye sights, so I can't wear glasses, so
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I gotta wear hats.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: You can still wear glasses if you want.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man, that's sort of like wearing a hat.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: And we'll stop a lot of people.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: Jersey if you're not really a follower of that scene.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I will, I will do that. That is one of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the This is like a bowling key to insulating or like,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I don't want to make it sound insidious, but to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: fitting in in a strange place, especially in the United States,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: if you want to fit in, no matter your demographic,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: wear something from the local sports team and they'll be like,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: he gets it.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: That's a good one. And oftentimes too you'll like in
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: the movie Drive, for example, when you know there's a
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: huge kind of chase sequence or he's running from the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: cops in the very first sequence of the film, which
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: is great. When he finally does his getaway, he parks
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: his car at La Dodgers Stadium and gets out right
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: as all of the sports fans are leaving the game.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: He's been listening to it on the radio the whole
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: time and gets there right as the crowd's letting out,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: and then he puts on on LA Dodgers of course
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: he does.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Also. Drive is a great film, and I have been
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: leaning hard on dressing as the protagonist to Drive. Whenever
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: I'm lazy. Come a Halloween.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure, you got that jacket with the scorpion
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and the leather fingerless gloves. All you need now is
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: a hammer. I'm sure you got a couple of those
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: laying around. All right, Well, this is not a court,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: so we're not going to answer that. What about what
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: about the snapback? I'm confused between the difference between snapback
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: and adjustable. They seem like they're a little bit the same.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: But I think maybe snapback literally is the plasticky, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: buttony thing snap yeah. Other, Yes, the other one might
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: be one with fabric that you have to cinch through
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: a little a little buckle belts.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Belt for your head belts, yeah, a head belt. Finally,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: this this stuff is so popular right now that if
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: we fast forward, even though we're a history show, if
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: we fast forward to the future, we can tell you
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: that despite a global pandemic, the global the world baseball
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: cap market was seventeen point ninety billion dollars in twenty
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: twenty one. By twenty twenty nine, it's going to be
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: twenty five point six four billion dollars. And there is
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: one company in particular that is super happy about that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: news because they are making a lot of that money.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: That's right. Since nineteen ninety three, the new era cap
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: company in Buffalo, New York, has been the exclusive cap
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: provider for Major League Baseball. So there's money in them.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Is money in those crowds.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I have a hard time with monopolies. I think we
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: all do. It reminds me of like the one place
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: that gets the mud for baseballs. Sure, so I'm talking
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: about I guess.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: So I guess that has made the mud by having
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: wet cleats.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like a secret it's mud from a secret location.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: No joke, no joke.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: This is Max. You're nodding, right, this is true.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm just gonna take a shot a new era.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: That's all I was gonna do. Shot.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Take it, take a shot.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: So so new era. This goes to the monopoly thing.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: Last year, the Atlanta Braves had a new home run celebration.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: You guys seeing those hilariously big hats. So you put
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: it on and it's like this big it's a massive hat,
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: his hands very far apart. Yes, yes, just type in
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: on a Brian Robinson big hat. He's a running back
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: for the Washington Commanders. And so the brands were wearing
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: these home runs and then new eras like.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: You can't wear that because it's not our hats.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Make one, may make.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: One then yeah, also era, Also the baseball mud thing
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: is true. Maybe that's a story for.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: A future episode for sure. Well, speaking of stories to
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: maybe round out this.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Episod, Yeah, we've talked about all the different types of hats.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: People may be screaming at their podcast device saying what
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: about them trucker hats? What's the difference? I mean that's
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: what got me started, honestly too. I'm remembering now when
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I started wearing hats. It was in an era where
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: there were a lot of like kind of cool bands
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: from like Athens, like the Drive By Truckers and like
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: bands like Granddaddy that were rock and trucker hats pretty
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: hard Will co. Yeah, it was just a vibe at
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: the time, So I think I was like, I want
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: to be on that, you know, hipster train. It's a
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: good vibe.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: It is a good vibe. But the trucker hat it's
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: sort of very much.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Like the baseball hat, but it just has a plastic
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: kind of mesh back to it. And that's right. And
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you also see some of these design choices being used
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: in what would be considered basically the lines can be blurry.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's such a it's it's like the what
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: is a sandwich question?
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: That's one we still don't know.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: We still uh And I actually I read a mathematical
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: paper about the definition of a sandwich.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: God's work.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: This job is so weird. But uh but yeah, these
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: these hats are these hats I saw, like that guy,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: what was that movie? Stand and deliver these kids and
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I know that one he saves the school.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's so thank you.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: So the uh, the Edward James almost it's all coming
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: back to me. You remember him, the actor.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: He was Edward James almost a pretty good actor. Oh wow,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: oh wow, he's actually good. I had to do it.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: But you know, those those design features of the the
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: humble trucker hat, we're all created for specific reasons. It
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: feels functions like the mesh was for breatheability. The foam
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: added a little bit of structure and stability and also
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: makes the hat keep its shape. Also gives a nice
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: solid foundation. They're they're taller trucker. Trucker hats are typically
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: a little bit high, high higher above your your forehead,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: and the foam also gave a nice solid foundation for
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: the logos. And again, much like that, I would consider
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: the John Deere type hats that we're talking about earlier
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: to be more in the vein of a trucker hat.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Sure they were, those were.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Meant to be worn by workmen, you know, like a
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Carhart hat.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: That's yeah, yeah, isn't it funny how car Hearts now
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: also become this weird lifestyle I'm wearing No, I'm not
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: wearing a car hert hat right now. But there's like
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: there's car Heart stores in like Soho in New York.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a total hipster mecca kind of brand.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: You see it the celebrities all the time.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: That takes us to the larger thing. We see this
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: in food and cuisine as well. I'm just very excited
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: about some barbecue ler today. It's which is the thing
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: that would be considered traditionally working class or even lower class,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: it becomes elevated, it becomes hoot cuisine like uh, like
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: New York went through this whole Ballooney sandwich phase. And
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: and we see that, I argue in fashion as well.
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: Plused up trash food or trash fashion.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because then you had like Von Dutch, you know,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: all of these kind of big like hip La brands
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: or whatever. I mean, arguably hip. I think they're kind
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: of done now, but there was a big period of
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: time where like justin Timberlake and Britney Spears and that
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: whole set, we're wearing these Von Dutch hats which were
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: trucker hats. I think it's actually a documentary about the
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: rise and fall of that company. I think something weird happened,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: like the owners or the founders were like sketchy in
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: some way. But point is the other feature is the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: snappy snap thing that makes it adjustable because you know
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: some some truckers heads are bigger than others. Yes, yes
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not a trucker, but I typically have to wear
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: my snappy snaps on, like the last two snaps. I
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: got a pretty big noggin.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: So this is that that goes back to the idea
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: of one size fits all. It means you can buy
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: there's another ubiquity or another advantage to the baseball cap
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: in general. Outside of the fitted, A lot of these
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: will be adjustable for old host any headsize. So you
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: can be a kid who wants to rep your your
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: team and your heroes, and that that hat can fit YouTube,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: which is really cool. Even it's super cute. You know,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: when it looks like kind of big.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Kind of big, I think it's cool.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you got this little guy.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: It's not considered like embarrassing or off working.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: It's cool, it's endearing. And so with that, of course,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: we're I think we've done a good job of not
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: fanboying too much about hats.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: I love hats.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: We also know, thankfully that we are not getting Max
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: a baseball hat for his birthday. I thought Max with
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the hats, I thought it was a real I thought
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it was a real home run. But but I was incorrect. Anyway,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: we hope you.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Enjoyly walk that one in. Wow.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Max turned off his camera and then turned it back
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: onto Layer at me for that one. I can't wait
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: for the sound cue boy. I also can't wait for
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: our next episode this week, where we're going to talk
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: about one of the most continually fascinating presidents in the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: history of the United States, the one and only, famously
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: uh famously talkative Calvin Coolidge.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Accent on the cool yes, yes accent.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: He's the coolest Calvin in town. Uh, he's probably heard.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Calvin Klein was literative.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: You've also probably heard of the religion that was started
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: just to worship this guy, Calvinism. Don't fat check us fat, big, big,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: big thanks to super producer mister Max Williams. Big big
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: thanks of course to uh a special announcement. We dragged
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: this guy so hard, but big big sincere shout out
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: to our dear friend Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist. Nobody
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: tell him we were nice to him, not even once
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: on the show. Okay, that dies with us.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Huge nights Chris Frosciotis and his fresh wizard Beard here
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: in spirit, Eves, Jeff Codes, Geez, Alex Williams, who composed
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: this banging theme. Max again, I don't remember if we
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: do already. You know the thanks is ever present for you,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Max and comes directly from our hearts and to you. Ben.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: This is a fun one.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Oh hey, right back at you. I am gonna do
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the joke again because it's so horrible. Well thanks to
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: our research associates as well. I think this episode was
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: a home run.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Indeed, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows,