Fashion Lessons from Baseball: Trucker Caps Are In (And So Are Holes In Your Shirt Apparently)

Brendan Menapace

The MLB All-Star game is just a couple of weeks away. It’s a fun break from the regular season, a chance to see some of our favorite rival players take the field together, and of course the Home Run Derby rules for obvious reasons.

This year, the All-Star Game is also a chance for us to get a better look at the evolving fashion of caps. It used to be that every player just wore their normal team cap, but within the last few years they started wearing special-edition caps. This year’s design is a black-and-gold color scheme with a gold star next to the logo, and features a trucker-like mesh in the back.

There’s also a nifty under-brim design.

But, unlike normal trucker caps, it’s still a fitted cap with the MLB seal on the back.

For other events during the break, like workouts and the Home Run Derby, players will wear caps that resemble their normal team cap, but with that mesh trucker back. They’ll also feature the star motif, but within the team’s color scheme.

What this says to us is two things. The MLB knows that people will want special-edition hats, the same way people do for things like the NFL Draft, and it creates demand that otherwise wouldn’t exist if the players just wore their normal caps. It also tells us that trucker hats are really, truly, back in style.

Hey, fanny packs came back, didn’t they?

The design is divisive on social media (but isn’t everything?). Some people like the neo-retro vibe of the trucker design, others think it’s corny and should have been left in the early ’00s. Some people like the star placement, others joke that it looks like an asterisk on the Astros hat.

It’s not the only divisive piece of MLB fashion right now, either.

The MLB and New Era just partnered with designer brand Off-White for jerseys, hats and T-shirts featuring teams like the Dodgers, Marlins and White Sox. At first glance, it doesn’t look that different than normal team apparel, but on further inspection you might notice a few holes.

Each item features a design element called the “meteor hole,” which is literally just a circular hole as if it had been hit by a hot rock. The brims of the hat have a chunk taken out of them, too.

If you can believe it, some of the products are a little expensive.

Does this mean that everyone is going to start wearing holes in their shirt, and trucker hats are going to replace a classic fitted or hat? No, it doesn’t. But, it means that some people are looking for more than just the standards and the classics. Even an organization as steeped in tradition as Major League Baseball isn’t afraid to get weird with it every once in a while.

So, neither should you. Swing for the fences every now and then.

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