It is a little-known fact that infamous Yankees didn’t start off as the Yankees at all.

Hell, they haven’t even always been in New York. In fact, they were previously the Baltimore Orioles as early as 1901. Gross, right? When the American League (AL) wanted to join forces with the National League (NL) to establish the World Series in 1903, the AL also stated that they wanted a team in New York, but the National League’s New York Giants were not with the idea of having another team on their turf. Luckily, the AL and NL soon came to an agreement that year that allowed Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery to purchase the struggling Orioles and move the team to New York, where they would become the Highlanders.

Why the Highlanders, you ask? Because their newly-built ballpark on Broadway between 165th and 168th St. sat on top of one of the highest points in all of Manhattan. Hence the Highlanders, who played at Hilltop Park.

The Highlanders were not always well-received in New York, oftentimes referred to as the “Invaders” by the press. Even referred to as the “Yankees” from time-to-time, unofficially. Although they had a decent first few seasons, they did not see a ton of success over the next decade, finishing in the “Top 3” just twice over that time span. However, without the Highlanders early onset woes, we would not have been blessed with the most iconic logo in all of sports.

After a 103-loss season, Devery decided they needed to switch it up a bit. So before the 1909 season, the team changed their logo, adopting the infamous interlocking “NY” emblem; designed in 1877 by Louis B. Tiffany, the logo was commonly used to memorialize police officers shot in the line of duty on their medal of honor. While this change definitely added a cool factor, along with pinstripes that were added before the 1912 season, they still had their ups-and-downs without ultimate success. Eventually the club moved from Hilltop Park to play at the Polo Grounds and went through another name-change, adopting the unofficial nickname given to them by the NY press. It was at this point that the club was—officially—known as the New York Yankees.

It wouldn’t be until 1920 where the team really came into the national limelight and start their reign of terror on the American League, making a historic trade with the Boston Red Sox by paying $125,000 (approximately $1.6 million today) for George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr., along with 86 years of seemingly irrevocably bad luck for their rival known as “the Curse of the Bambino.”

Babe Ruth’s popularity with the Yankees is often attributed to creating the very first baseball cap craze, because only America’s pastime afforded you the opportunity to wear the exact same hat as your favorite player and pay homage to your respective team; it just so happened that Babe Ruth’s Yankees were the team to adore the most. So, sorry Jay Z, but it can be argued that you didn’t make the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.

The Yankees dominated the MLB over the next 60 years, winning 33 American League pennants between 1921—their first, which consequently was also the year their popularity caused their in-town NL rivals to evict them from the Polo Grounds and forced them into their new ballpark, Yankee Stadium, in 1922— and 1978, along with 22 World Series championships on the backs of greats like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Ford, Mantle, Howard, Maris, Munson, Jackson and many others that helped put the franchise on the pedestal of excellence. This dominance over the time period kept them at center stage in baseball and only catapulted them to the limelight in pop culture. They didn’t need to win a World Series in the 1980s to maintain status as the most popular team in all of sports. When the venerable “Core Four” of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettite and Jorge Posada stormed through the AL and went on to win four World Series championships from 1996 to 2000, the club’s stardom only continued to grow on a global scale—and into a new millennium.

Television. Film. Art. Music. National press. Global platforms. There is nowhere on earth you can go without coming across some reference to the Yankees. And how could they not be? The club’s success since the ’20s is unparalleled. Coupled with the fact the Yankees reside and represent one of the most recognizable cultural hubs in the global economy pretty much solidifies it.

The Yankees aren’t just a baseball team. They’re an objective. An obtainable myth. A priceless idea. This was especially true as people began to popularize that idea through films like The Pride of the Yankees— a 1942 film telling the story of the late great Lou Gehrig while using the Yankee name as leverage, knowing it had garnered enough devotees (baseball fans and otherwise) to draw the viewership.

It certainly didn’t stop there. Even Yankees legends who were still alive and well were under public scrutiny as they began to show that they, too, have lives that can crossover into the glitzy lights of Hollywood. 1952, soon after Joe DiMaggio had retired and gone down in Yankees history, he began dating a bright, up-and-coming young starlet by the name of Marilyn Monroe. Monroe even understood the power of Yankees baseball, quoted as saying she expected DiMaggio to be “a flashy New York sports type” before meeting him, which signified that the Yankees were seen, and often publicized, as a different breed. They were married and divorced within nine months, and their rocky marriage was documented extensively by the press and tabloids—something extremely uncommon in the sports world. The price you pay when you’re a beautiful actress mixed up with a Yankee, right?

But the Yankees publicity and the clout they held throughout the world wasn’t all for not. In 1990, Nelson Mandela stood in Yankees Stadium, donning a Yankees warm-up jacket and ball cap, and spoke to 55,000 listeners as a part of his six-week Freedom Tour to end apartheid in South Africa, the country he had just finished a 27-year prison sentence in. He knew that he was speaking—not just to New Yorkers—but to a global audience that yearned to have a piece of the American pie. And what better way to represent the global impact the United States had than draping himself with the Yankees insignia which, to many, was synonymous with the freedom the United States provided to its citizens.

While Mandela’s image in that navy blue cap will go down in history, other black men fighting for a different kind of freedom had similar, symbolic impacts when it came to the iconic ball cap. Spike Lee is widely known for his role in popularizing the cap in hip-hop culture, when he asked New Era for a customized version of the cap in 1996. Instead of the customary navy wool, he requested a red version. It’s absolutely insane to think that, prior to that moment, the on-field cap giant had never made an alternate version of ANY cap, let alone a Yankees cap, outside of the traditional team colors.

This moment, and this moment alone, is the precipice of what would become “The Fitted Frenzy” that couldn’t have come at a better time as the Yankees mid-to-late ’90s dominance only took the craze to new heights. And while Spike created the spark, the New York hip-hop syndicate showed us how to turn it into fire. From the Wu-Tang Clan to Cam’ron and, of course, Jay Z, the Yankee fitted represented a multitude of things they embodied; New York. Hip-Hop. Fashion. Hell, even the iconic NY-based comedy sitcom Seinfeld got in on the cultural phenomenon as George Constanza’s role often revolved around his relationship with the organization. Often tumultuous, he just couldn’t seem to rid himself of the club—something often represented by his relationship with his Yankees cap.

The obvious point is that the Yankee fitted, in and of itself, became bigger than the game it represented, often being seen as a statement piece comparable to a Gucci’s interlocking-G belt or the Jumpman on Air Jordans. But in many minds, these items aren’t just complementary. They are synonymous.

The Yankees just might be the only sports team who’s insignia doesn’t necessarily trigger people to assume you are a fan.

That is how salient, multi-faceted and culturally significant the Yankees brand has become. So it should come as no shock that the fashion world has succumbed to the logo’s gravitational pull. From streetwear to prep to luxury, there is no division, no fashion category that is immune to the Yankees’ Midas touch.
To commemorate his company’s 50th anniversary in 2018, one NYC juggernaut paid homage to another as Ralph Lauren released a Yankees collection with a prep twist. Given Lauren’s own history growing up in the Bronx, Lauren’s connection to the Yankees goes much deeper than their status as American icons—it’s a hometown hero paying homage to his favorite club.

Alessandro Michele took a unique approach with Gucci in 2018, combining the street-savvy nature the Yankees emblem symbolizes and put a luxury spin on it, turning your run-of-the-mill Yankee cap into a $500 ticket item with a butterfly stitched on the side, or embroidering the logo onto the chest of a $5,500 houndstooth coat and on the top of the brand’s $900 loafer. Nevermind that the collaboration was with the MLB and also included pieces for the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals. It was the Yankees pieces that everyone gravitated toward, and that Michele eventually extended to current day.
Ultimately it all starts with and frequently comes back to one item; the fitted. The Yankees fitted has commonly been used by NYC-based streetwear brands as a signifier that they, “get it,” really becoming a right of passage for anyone who wants to be taken seriously. From Kith to recent addition—and NYC cult favorite—Aimé Leon Dore—they’ve all provided their interpretations of what the Yankees represent to streetwear culture with simple script or designs on the side of the fitted cap.

Even the Museum of Modern Art and Japanese brand BAPE, who commonly emulated New York culture as a sign of respect, have recently (proverbially) “tipped their caps” with their versions of the Yankee fitted. For the MoMA, the collaboration hinged on the Yankees hat’s inclusion (by way of the New Era fitted) into the Item: Is Fashion Modern?, turning the Yankees cap from streetwear staple and into a definitive symbol of American art and culture.

However, no brand has amalgamated with that with which the organization represents quite like Supreme. “By Any Means,” an early brand mantra that promptly communicated its counter-culture, anti-establishment outlook that embodied the New York streets. As the brand matured, so did its collaborations with the Yankees, introducing full collections that proudly featured the revered logo on box logo T-shirts, hoodies, leather jackets, even jerseys. One of the first, and still quite possibly the most sought after Yankees-adorned pieces ever were born from two brands that are deeply ingrained in the heart of New York and all that it represents.

Success is center to the Yankees mythos. A symbol of both on-field victories, but also the grit and determination native to New York (and, some might say, the “American Dream” writ large), it’s no wonder that the Yankees logo has transcended the baseball diamond. From the “RE2PECT” afforded to Derek Jeter, to Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”, to Gucci’s Florentine design headquarters, the Yankees hat is one New York export that never goes out of style.