1944 Zippers v. Buttons, Update

More information on the 1944 Pepper Martin jersey up for auction over at Heritage Auctions. If you missed our first article on that jersey, click Zippers v. Buttons link below.

1944 Cardinals Zippers v. Buttons

Today we received an email from the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum’s Curator, Amy Berra. Amy is awesome and dug through over 8000 photos in the Cardinals archive to find this 1944 Pepper Martin photograph. This effort was to try match up the jersey at auction with some photographic evidence. Check it out.

Based on Heritage Auction’s research, they surmise that the Cardinals wore zippered jerseys in the first half of 1944, and button-down jerseys in the second half after the All Star Game.

I asked Amy if there was a specific date associated with this photo, but did some sleuthing myself while waiting for a reply… Take a look at the scoreboard in the background.

With those American League teams in mind, I went through and cross referenced all of their schedules side-by-side to see which dates lined up. Luckily two different series came up. June 8 through June 11, and July 15 through July 16.

I then took a look at the Cardinals schedule to see if it also lined up. The Cardinals were in Cincinnati for the June dates, and in St. Louis for the July dates, meaning this photo was likely taken on either July 15 or July 16, 1944.

And knowing that the 1944 All Star Game was played on July 11, this would corroborate Heritage Auction’s research on when the zipper to button change took place.

Awesome stuff! With all this information, we can definitively say that the 1944 Cardinals wore zippered jerseys in the first half of 1944 before the All Star Game, and switched to button-down jerseys in the second half after the All Star Game.

Huge thanks to everyone involved in researching this, including Amy Berra at the Cardinals, Jeff Scott at birdbats.com, and Heritage Auctions.