Nigel Cabourn SS Baseball Shirt

The baseball shirt is one of the few garment patterns that came out of a sport and then survived leaving it, and what survived is a specific set of proportions: a body cut fuller than a dress shirt, a shoulder that sits slightly wide, and a placket that runs the full length of the front. Made short sleeved and in a plain cotton, it becomes something more useful than its origins suggest, which is a summer shirt that does not read as a polo and does not read as a dress shirt with the sleeves removed. The cloth here is one hundred percent cotton and the front buttons rather than zipping, which is worth saying plainly because the other baseball shirt in this house's work does the opposite. Light grey, and made in Japan.

Short-sleeved shirts are difficult to buy without looking either sporting or corporate, and the baseball pattern is one of the few that avoids both. The button front is what keeps this one from tipping into sportswear.

American sportswear is a smaller strand in Cabourn's archive than the military and working sources, and this is where it surfaces.

One hundred percent cotton. Short sleeves, relaxed fit, button-up front. Made in Japan. The color is a light grey.

Relaxed through the body by pattern rather than by grading, so it will feel fuller than a shirt of the same nominal size. Sizing runs 50, 52, and 56 on the house's shirt scale. Cotton at an unstated weight will shrink once on a hot wash, so wash it cool from the start.

With the Officer's Pant or the Army Cargo Pant. Under the 50's Cardigan when the evening turns. Light grey against charcoal is the version we would argue for over grey against black.

Cool wash, gentle cycle, dry flat or on a line rather than hot. Press on the reverse. Our care guidance covers cotton in more detail.

The Baseball Shirt LS is cotton with a zip front rather than buttons, and the 9.5oz Basic T-Shirt is a heavyweight cotton. Everything we carry from Nigel Cabourn is listed together.