throwback pirates hats
I’m going to one or two Pirates games a year so I figured I should be able to outfit myself for the event. I was looking at getting the old 70s Pirates high top hat (below) but found a bunch of great throwback caps. I particularly like 1901-06, 1915-19, 1940-41, 1947, and the 70s high top. I think the winner may be the 1940-41. It’s just so classy.
Update: 1940-41 Road Cap ordered. I’ll consider picking up the 70s high top cap in Pittsburgh on the cheap.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Hey … do you think they went with the gold/black colors to match the steelers?
May 30th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
I got this when I went back to Pittsburgh for the home opener: http://imladris.mit.edu/pirates/pillbox.jpg
I’m a little confused about the stars or lack thereof. I’ve seen pictures of Willie Stargell wearing a hat with no stars (http://www.jimpoz.com/quotes/images/speakers/stargell.jpg), a star on only one side of the P (http://pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com/images/2004/08/03/FAk7wKTq.jpg) and one with tons of stars (http://www.steelertribute.com/brad001.jpg). Most of the currently available pillbox hats have one star on each side of the P. A guy at LIDS told me that the designs from each year back then were somewhat different. Mine is from 1980, I guess. It has 1980 embroidered on the back.
I did a little looking around and I think the variable number of stars may be attributed to “stargell stars”, which were given to players for outstanding performance in a game. (http://home.mindspring.com/~gearhard/piuniform.html)
Anyway, I like my pillbox and I think it’s more recognizable as a Pirates hat than some of the more short-lived and obscure throwbacks. That said, I have considered getting others, but I think the pillbox is the place to start.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
I’m just testing the comments here–I’ve had some people having saying there were errors.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:39 pm
hmm. One of those pages that Colin linked says that the Pirates took their colors from the Pittsburgh flag.
The Penguins also have black and gold as their colors, making Pittsburgh’s sports teams the only ones to all have the same colors, I believe. They started out in blue (with black and gold in the logo though). They apparently changed their uniform in 1980 to a black and gold one because the Steelers and Pirates were both national champions and they hoped to gain fan base by aligning themselves with those teams (which were both black and gold at that stage).
So by my count, the Steelers were in black in gold from 1933, the beginning. The Pirates switched over in 1948 and the Penguins in 1980. The Pirates had the longest time in non-black and gold, from 1900-1948. The Penguins only had about 13 years in the blue.
(Another interesting note I found in those pages is that there was a Pirates hockey team in the 1920s that played in black and gold. The football team was also called the Pirates for a time (until 1940), so all three sports have been represented by a team called the Pirates at some point.
What’s with Pittsburgh and pirates?
June 26th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
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