William F. (Bill) Henderson
Bill has been studying, researching and collecting Major League Baseball jerseys since the late 1970s. His fascination grew witnessing the rapid transition that MLB went through in the early 1970s, abandoning crew cuts, stodgy wool flannels and a traditional image and plunging headlong into a new world of bright colors and mod designs.
In the 1970s and for most of the 1980s, game jerseys were not marketed to the public and had little cachet to anyone off the ball field. Original jerseys made for the teams and players were the only jerseys made during this time. Authentic replica jerseys had no market among consumers up until the late 1980s when Rawlings began limited marketing of game-spec apparel to fans. Prior to then The idea that anyone would want to wear a baseball jersey as an item of clothing seemed absurd to most.
In attempting to research and restore original jerseys of the 1970s and 1980s, Henderson was surprised to find that the original patterns for most teams' jersey lettering were unknown and seemingly lost forever. Shops that advertised authentic lettering often did not even know what colors the numbers were supposed to be, let alone whether player names were used and what font they may have been rendered in. His research started as a personal project to find out how to properly restore old and well-worn jerseys he had acquired in his collection.
Today, this research has grown into a 1500-plus page volume chronicling every nuance and change in every team's game jerseys from the start of the Double Knit era in 1970 to the present. Separately, Henderson has also recreated the original player name and number font patterns for nearly every team from this era. In recent years, his detailed artwork has been used by MLB and its official suppliers in properly recreating on-field versions of period uniforms worn by the players for Turn Back the Clock contests. His body of research has been reviewed by USA Today Sports Weekly and by ESPN.com, who listed MLB Game Worn Jerseys of the Double Knit Era among its top holiday gifts for sports enthusiasts in 2008.
A baseball researcher and author by hobby, Bill is also an executive with a global medical assistance company, and resides with his family in the Philadelphia area. He graduated Drexel University with a degree in Marketing in 1984 and has spent twenty five years invested in the professions of Sales and Marketing in several industries, including Information Technology, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Services. He is a member of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research (www.sabr.org)