McAuliffe Caps, etc.
If one individual stands out above all others in the history of the baseball cap, it's Tim McAuliffe. According to several sources available, Tim got his start in the cap business sometime in the late 1930s. After selling caps and jerseys made by other manufacturers to the Boston Red Sox, he started his own cap label in the 1940s, and began selling his caps made by Spalding to the Red Sox. By the early 1950s, he had teamed up with Jacob Kaufman of the Leslie Company, which began making the caps he sold. Before long, McAuliffe was selling his caps to more than half the teams in the major leagues.
From the number of salesman's samples that can be found today, it was clear McAuliffe was trying to expand his business. In 1953, "KM Pro" — which stands for "Kaufman and McAuliffe" — was first stamped into the sweatbands of caps. In 1957, the label became square, and in 1958, the lettering becomes red (see below). Besides making caps for many major league teams, McAuliffe also made caps for an array of minor league and college teams. He is generally credited with coming up with the idea of the high-crowned cap, in contrast to the low profile caps that were previously popular. He also took out classified ads in the Sporting News offering caps for sale. Leslie also produced college caps under its own label. After McAuliffe died (in late 1968 or early 1969), Leslie changed the McAuliffe label to the KM Pro label (see below), and continued making caps for major and minor league teams. But the rise of New Era caps soon pushed KM Pro aside, and the company made its last caps in 1976. Also in the 1970s, Stahl & Dean — a company with roots that back to 1898 — created the Pro McAuliffe label and sewed it into caps made by New Era.
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