The Pecan Park Eagle

Ebbets Field Flannels Credits This Logo & Color Scheme to the 1959 Buffs.

I get a number of questions about the availability of replica caps and jerseys for the old minor league Houston Buffs that are available for sale to fans who want to help keep the flame of their memory alive. Sad to say, the retail access to these items has never been worse than it is now. I’m hopeful things won’t stay this way, but the prolonged damage to the economy from the recession seems to have cut deeply into certain manufactured collectible items.

Back on the first of the year, the wonderful Cooperstown Cap Company went out of business for all kinds of financial reasons, but that hit removed our source for Houston Buff caps from 1912, 1951, and 1954. The other big source, Ebbets Field Flannels, still offers a road game jersey from 1932, but they apparently have discontinued making the 1932 cap that goes with that fine replica of the wool flannel uniform shirt.

1932 Houston Buffs Jersey by Ebbets Field Flannels is Available for $185.

I’m not sure what happened to the cap that was available through “EFF” at about $28, but I no longer find it and numerous others among the choices listed on their website. My guess is that they would probably make one for you, if you really wanted one. They do a lot of custom work.

For a better look at the 1932 jersey logo, here it is. The colors differ, but this logo follows the sunburst orange and brown buffalo silhouette figures on the eighty 36″ medallions that once rimmed the exterior walls of the ballpark. The logo featured here for 1932 came out only four years after Buff Stadium opened on April 11, 1928:

1932 Houston Buffs Logo; it appears on the heart side of the Ebbets Field jersey.

For further information, here’s the Ebbets Field Flannels link to their two “Buff” for sale items:

http://www.ebbets.com/product/HoustonBuffs1959T/TShirts

From the T shirt link, you will be able move easily to an enlargement of the 1959 Buff T Shirt they are now selling (sizes S to XXL) for $18 and also click over to order details on the 1932 jersey. Speaking of such, here’s how that advertised T Shirt looks in full view:

Nice T Shirt, but the '59 Buffs never dressed out in the colors of the old St. Louis Browns.

Well, technically speaking, the old St. Louis Browns wore combos of the brown depicted in the T Shirt with orange trim, but this rendition comes close enough to invite the comparison. It’s still a nice shirt, but the ’59 Buffs dressed out exactly in the colors and uniform style of their new parent club by working agreement, the Chicago Cubs, in 1959. That put the Buffs into blue pin strips, blue trim, and bright blue caps – not brown with yellow trim.

One interesting feature of the ’59 logo that Ebbets Field used here is the little optical joke that it plays on you by the way two features come together, unintentionally, I feel sure. First we have the bat, lancing the circle as the arrow pierces the heart of most Valentines.  Then we have the script-tail of the word “Buffs” coming off the stylized point where the business end of the bat departs the circle. Look at these features together, carefully, at the bat exit point. Do you also see the feature of the apparent broken bat?

This would have been a great boken-bat logo for the 1949, 1950, or 1952 Houston Buffs clubs, just to name a few our more disappointing seasons from back then. That being said, I most probably will still order one of these “new” T Shirts. I love the buffalo.

Heck. I love the Houston Buffs. I just look forward to the day we have more choices again, but that’s the status of things for now. You may find something out there in broken size lots on caps and jerseys at Internet stores like “Dugout Memories” and the like. Just Google and you shall find the Buff gear sellers.

Have a great Tuesday and keep your heads above the frogs today, if you live in Houston. There’s a 70% chance of heavy rain in our area.

Tags: Baseball, Collectibles, Houston Buffs

This entry was posted on July 27, 2010 at 11:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.