Gentlemen, Your Backward Baseball Hat Does Not Make You Cool.

Hey, you wouldn’t have to hold your hand up to your eyes if you wore your hat correctly.

OK, I’m just going to cut to the chase and say it. Gentlemen, there is no way that backward baseball cap makes you look cool. I’m sorry, it makes you look like an immature jackwagon that is trying to hard. If you are past your early teen years and you are wearing your hat backward you look like an idiot. I’m sorry that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Here are some things you should think about before turning that hat around and stepping out into the world at large.

  1. The bill on the hat has a purpose. It is designed to keep the sun out of your eyes so you can see better.
  2. If you need to shade your neck, get a hat with a brim that goes all the way around your head.
  3. This only looks good on children under the age of about 15, and 15 is pushing it.
  4. The only people that look OK with their ball hat turned around are baseball catchers and welders. By the way, most catchers and welders turn the hat front facing when their face mask comes off.
  5. Wearing your hat backward does not make you look like a rapper.
  6. Wearing your hat backward will not help you get laid
  7. Wearing your hat backward doesn’t make or work with any fashion statement you are trying to achieve or create.
  8. Wearing your hat backward in the car prevents you from comfortably resting your head on the head rest behind you.
  9. If you wear your hat backward for a long enough period of time on a sunny day, and it has an adjuster, you will sunburn a half circle on your forehead. This will make you look like an even bigger idiot when the hat is off.
  10. Wearing your hat backward doesn’t make you look bad ass, tough, or edgy. It won’t make you any of those things either. What it will do is make you look like an adolescent twerp.

So let’s look at the baseball hat from a historical and design perspective.

Around 1860, the Brooklyn Excelsiors added to their uniform what would become the modern day baseball hat. The original had a flat top, but the purpose was the same. “Keep the sun out of my eyes so I can catch the ball”. By 1900 the Brooklyn style hat had transformed to a look that is almost identical to what players wear today. It featured a vented round top, with a curved bill. During the 1940’s with the advent of new materials like latex rubber (used to stiffen the hat brim), the modern baseball hat was born. This new material allowed the brim of the hat to be lengthened to better shade the player’s eyes. A design enhancement that was never intended to shade a players neck.

Fitted baseball hats are normally sewn together from six wedge-shaped pieces of cloth. The six sections are matched to a top covering the “squatchee”, and they are vented with metal or fabric grommets to allow the hat to breathe on warm days. The curved bill is specifically designed to shield your eyes from sunlight allowing you to see better. The bill is stiffened with paperboard in order to hold the curved shape. The curved shape of the bill provides ample shade across the face without impeding peripheral vision.

The humble baseball hat was designed with a purpose and has a storied history. Wearing it backward ignores all of this and makes pretty much everyone who does it look like a fool. What I don’t get is, if you don’t want to wear the hat the way it was intended to be worn, why don’t you just wear a beanie? or cut the bill off the hat? You’ll pretty much achieve the same result if you do.

Oh and none of these guys would be caught dead with their hat on backward.

One comment

  1. What about if I wear my pants backwards? Will I look like a white, forty-something member of Kriss Kross? Or will it just be really awkward when I need to go to the bathroom?

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