Ball Cap Nation

I'm not going to beat around the bush.  I absolutely love this book.

If you have found this blog, you should check it out. 

I learned about the importance of Magnum P.I., the story behind Hat World, New Era, and the proper care and maintenance of caps.

I reached out to author James Lilliefors for a quick interview::

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I was having lunch with my girlfriend one day and she glanced around the restaurant and said, “Look at all the people wearing baseball caps. "

Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that. She was right. What had changed in our culture during that time to make ball caps so prevalent?

The book started with that question. As I began to look into the history of the ball cap, the story branched off in other directions and it soon became clear that the ball cap was a part of American cultural history that hadn’t really been written about.

I’d recently done a book on boardwalks and was looking for another topic about American culture; ball caps seemed to fit the bill (okay, sorry, bad pun).

Are you a cap collector?

I have a large but not especially distinguished collection of ball caps. Mostly I collect caps as souvenirs of places

I’ve traveled. I always buy at least one cap on vacation.

Are you a baseball fan, what team do you wear?

As a kid, I was a huge baseball fan, as were most of my friends. I’d often spend more time studying baseball stats than school assignments.

But then my home team, the Washington Senators, abandoned us and became the Texas Rangers.

During the 33 years that Washington was without a baseball team, I lost most of my interest in the sport.

I sort of follow the Nationals now, and also a couple of the teams in Florida (where I live), but not closely.

So I don’t wear any team’s cap, no. But I do still wear a Redskins cap in the fall.

Favorite thing you learned from writing?

That writing can take you anywhere and teach you anything.

Specifically from the cap book: that the baseball cap has become an apt symbol of our country (and one of our chief cultural exports), but that its meaning changes depending on the wearer.

I like the basic contradiction inherent in cap-wearing: ball caps are a way of expressing our individuality and at the same time our sense of being part of a larger community.

Names and genres of other books you have written?

I’m writing novels these days, including a mystery series about a pastor and a homicide investigator (The Psalmist and The Tempest) and a geopolitical thriller series featuring a former CIA operative and his journalist brother (The Leviathan Effect and Viral).

I’ve also written books on Americana and on art, including America’s Boardwalks.

Thank You James!!