when did they start wearing helmets in baseball
Batting helmet In 1905, Mogridge[1] created the first crude protective head gear and was granted patent No. 780899 for a "head protector." This first attempt at a batting helmet was said to look like an "inflatable boxing glove that wrapped around the hitters head."[2] Roger Bresnahan, Hall of Fame catcher who was injured after being struck in the head with a pitch, developed a leather-batting helmet in 1908 which he began using.[1] The helmets were not so much helmets as they were protective earmuffs. They did not protect the actual head of the batter but rather protected the ear and temple region.
Baseball uniform In 1916, the Cleveland Indians became the first team to add numbers on their uniforms, positioned on the left sleeve of the home uniforms only. (Okkonen, p. 36, p. 120)[3] In 1929, numbers were first added on the backs of uniforms by the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. By 1932, all major league baseball teams had numbers on their players' uniforms.[3] The Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1952, became the first baseball team to add numbers to the fronts of their uniforms.[3][7] In 1960, the Chicago White Sox were the first team to place players' names on the back of their jerseys, doing so on their road jerseys; within a few years, this practice became almost universal in MLB, though to this day the Yankees only wear names on their uniforms for Players Weekend, a yearly event where alternate uniforms with nicknames are used.[10]