June 12 1909 -- Frank "Cap Dillon, manager of the Angels, makes his appearance in Herriman's "Guess Who" series.
What I found of curiosity value in this cartoon is that apparently even in 1909 baseball caps had those neat little circular air holes in them. Wonder when they originated? I googled "evolution of the baseball cap" and got only a bunch of half-assed links, none of which explained much of anything. So hey, you researchers out there, is there an opportunity to make a rare *new* contribution to the history of baseball here?
Here's a link to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and a discussion of the evolution of the baseball hat. You'll note that a 1903 advertisement for a "Philadelphia style" hat has the air holes; older ones don't seem to have them.
ReplyDeletehttp://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/caps.htm
Also worthy of note: the Library of Congress has a large collection online of the Spalding Baseball Guides from 1889 on, which have advertisements for hats.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.loc.gov/collections/spalding-base-ball-guides/