Who decides which hat Baseball Hall of Famers get on their plaques? Here’s how Cooperstown makes the call

Later today, we’ll finally learn the results of the BBWAA vote for the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class. We’ve compared the statistics and debated the legacies. Now we get to discuss…fashion?

Every inductee to the Baseball Hall of Famers is given a plaque that ends up in the physical Cooperstown building, engraved with a picture of the player. The players wear hats in the engraving, as they did while playing. Most have logos, traditionally the team with which the player spent most or all of their career, or with which they had the greatest impact.

So how is the logo or lack of a logo chosen? Let’s dive in.

It can be a controversial topic every once in a while, never more than around the induction of Wade Boggs. As lore has it, Boggs was allegedly offered money from the Tampa Bay Rays to pick a Rays cap for his Hall of Fame plaque, but the Hall of Fame had to step in and say no. After all, Boggs spent 11 of his 18 seasons with the Red Sox, winning all five of his batting titles there and collecting 2,098 of his career 3,010 hits there. He spent the last two seasons of his major-league career with the then-Devil Rays, putting up slightly below-average offense.

Boggs wears a Red Sox cap in his Hall of Fame plaque. The Rays rumor was fake.

“This was never, ever a subject,” Boggs said in 2017. “I think it came from when Jose Canseco said, ‘If I get in the Hall of Fame, I’m going in as a Devil Ray,’ And someone probably misconstrued that I said that and that Mr. (Vincent) Naimoli [then-owner of the Rays] offered me a million dollars to be the first Devil Ray to go into the Hall of Fame, and that conversation never took place.”

As noted, some players can choose a blank logo. Greg Maddux did. He played 11 years for the Braves and 10 for the Cubs and didn’t want to choose between the two. 

That gets us to our main point. Yes, player input is considered, but they don’t get the last word.

“The Hall of Fame provides guidance to each new inductee as to which logo, if any, may be represented on the cap of his plaque,” Jon Shestakofsky, Baseball Hall of Fame vice president of communications and content, told CBS Sports. “While the Hall of Fame has the final say as to which logo is depicted, we work with the electee to reach an appropriate conclusion that accurately reflects the new electee’s career in the game. All teams, however, are listed in the text of the plaque.” 

In terms of who is going in this year, we already know that Dick Allen and Dave Parker have been elected via the Era Committee. 

Allen, who died just over four years ago, played nine years with the Phillies, three with the White Sox and no more than one for three other teams. He’s certainly going to wear a Phillies cap in his plaque depiction.

Parker was with the Pirates for 11 years, Reds for four and A’s for two with three other stints of no more than a season. He won an MVP, made four of his seven All-Star Games and won a World Series with Pittsburgh, so the choice there seems obvious. 

On the BBWAA vote, it looks like Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner might be the inductees. 

Ichiro is an easy and obvious Mariners selection.

Sabathia has said he “absolutely” wants to wear a Yankees cap on his plaque, should he make it. An argument could be made for a blank cap. He won a Cy Young with Cleveland and spent parts of eight seasons there compared to 11 with New York. He also had perhaps his most impactful run in his half-season with the Brewers in 2008, when he went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA after a deadline trade helped Milwaukee get to the playoffs. Despite spending just a few months in the National League, he finished fifth in the NL Cy Young Award voting and sixth in the NL MVP vote.

On the other hand, Sabathia did win a ring with the Yankees in 2009 and twice led the AL in wins during his time in New York. He got more career value there than anywhere else and spent more time there than anywhere else. Given the Hall of Fame’s decision to work with the electee, it’s likely Sabathia will get his choice. And while I noted that there’s an argument for a blank cap, I think if we were to picture Sabathia on one team, we would all immediately think Yankees. 

Wagner spent parts of 16 seasons in the majors, nine of which came with the Astros. He had four years with the Mets and two with the Phillies. Most of his career value came in Houston, as did 225 of his 422 saves. He expressed interest last week in wearing an Astros cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, so that seems to be the obvious course of action. 

Down the ballot, Andruw Jones would be an easy Braves cap, as would Chase Utley with the Phillies. An interesting one would be Carlos Beltrán. He had seven years with the Mets, seven with the Royals, three with the Yankees, two with the Cardinals and a few other smaller stints elsewhere. He feels like a blank cap, but perhaps he has strong feelings for or against either the Mets or Royals? We might find out in a year or two. 

The bottom line here is it’s a joint effort between the Hall of Fame and the player inducted, as it always has been. And if you hear rumors of tomfoolery, they likely aren’t true.