Meet the cap collectors who turned their passion into a career

I used to think I had a large cap collection. Walk into my apartment, and you're bound to find caps hung on hangers, on the backs of doors, and spilling out of organizing bins, threatening to tumble to the floor with the slightest provocation or a particularly strong gust of wind.

After speaking with cap collectors-turned-cap dealers and designers Pierre Morin and John Jang, I no longer think my collection is very big at all. If anything, it's woefully small.

"It was a way to put food on the table. Our parents worked their butts off," Jang told MLB.com about the clothing business his parents owned which would one day become his current company, MyFitteds. "It just gets ingrained in you because you're exposed to it literally daily. [Me and my brother's] interest was growing and we'd see caps on the wall. We're like, 'OK, I want this one.' 'Let me try this one today.' And then I would just take caps from the wall without telling my parents to keep them at home. My collection started growing and growing and growing and ... I probably have literally thousands of hats all throughout the last 30 years."

Morin also caught the collecting bug from his father, who would bring caps home from his travels. But it all took off once the Red Sox broke the curse and won the 2004 World Series, with Morin's father bringing home one of the World Series champions' caps that the players wore in the clubhouse.

"I've always collected, but it got really serious in 2004 when I started to collect the Red Sox -- all the Red Sox on-fields, but also the postseason stuff, anything with the postseason patches -- I was collecting those," Morin, now the CEO of Topperz Store USA, said. "So, then it just grew and grew and grew. The collection started out just Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics but now ... I mean, I have 15,000 hats."

Perhaps not surprisingly, Jang's favorite cap is from the World Series, too. It's one you probably won't find in Morin's collection.

"I remember this vividly," Jang said about the cap that kicked off his collection and remains his favorite to this day. "I remember us stocking it for the first time ever. This was the Yankees versus the Atlanta Braves in '96. I believe that's the first year they started incorporating patches onto the on-field caps. That was my first hat."

Despite growing up in Flushing, just a 10 minute walk from Shea Stadium, Jang was all in on the Bronx Bombers.

"That was my first foray into New Era caps as a 13-year-old," Jang said. "Wearing a 1996 World Series cap just like the players wear on the field. That's where it just went off."

While New Era was originally known for their on-field caps -- which are still the standard, even for Jang's own children who prefer the classic Yankees cap to anything he's designed -- it was Spike Lee's request for a red Yankees cap that ushered in the custom cap game that has forever changed cap collecting. The ability to use new colorways and unique materials led designers to look at the cap as a billboard to launch new ideas.

"He had a huge impact on fitted caps," Morin said. "The custom cap game was really built around what he did with New Era."

With support from the viewers of his YouTube channel, Views from the Vault, Morin released a collection called "Generational Legends." These caps came with a classic green under brim, special Legends patch on the side, and a stamped date highlighting a momentous occasion like Pedro Martinez's 17-strikeout one-hitter he pitched against the Yankees on Sept. 10, 1999.

"I love green. Green's classic, It's what I grew up on. We did the Seattle Mariners' with Griffey's debut. We did Derek Jeter when he dove into the crowd -- as much as I hate that play," Morin joked.

Jang likes to take inspiration from whatever he's around when it comes to his caps.

"If I see different cool colors, like, for example, at a museum or I'll go to the Lego Store with my kids, [I'll think] 'Oh, wow, that's a good color. How can I translate that into a hat?'" Jang explained.

He pointed to one cap that comes complete with a utility belt that was inspired by the manga series "My Hero Academia," as well as his recent Northwest Arkansas Naturals cap as an example.

"This is what I dubbed 'Scouts pack,'" Jang said. "Both of my kids are in the Boy Scouts and I just love working with Scout colors. They have their uniform with all these different merit badges and whatnot that are ironed on embroidered onto the uniform. I'll see those colors and I'm like, 'I could incorporate that into that." And this is the result."

While fashion trends come and go, the baseball cap endures. Despite new colors, patches, and styles, the canvas remains remarkably similar to New Era's original 59FIFTY cap that first came out in 1954.

"People think a cap is basically an accessory, but it completes the outfit," Jang said. "That's what I noticed over the years. You could just have a really nice hat on and people will come up to you, it'll be a conversation starter. Plus, baseball is America's favorite sport. That helps. You're wearing something that everybody knows what it is."

With so many thousands of caps in their collections, the desire to snag the newest, freshest lid will always be there. But these days, Jang and Morin are spending more time thinking of new looks and designs to bring to people. Where they once were filling their own homes with new caps, now they're making the caps that other people are hoping to snag.

"The unique thing I bring to the table -- and this isn't to pat myself on the back, it's just reality -- is I was a collector. I'm not trying to create things that people can't have," Morin said. "I've transitioned from wanting things to wanting to make things that people want. I'm still a collector at heart, but I've transitioned in my life to a point where I want to see other people happy."