In 1968, the St. Joe’s Hawks baseball team had a record season, while each player wore a crimson-colored baseball cap, embroidered with a gray St. Joe’s College logo.
One of the Wilson Sporting Goods branded caps now resides in the St. Joe’s Archives Collection, located in the Drexel Library. The hat, with its base crimson and its logo slightly discolored, commemorates a record season for the Hawks, played at Latshaw-McCarthy Field, now home to the Chestnut Hill College Griffins.
Led by Head Coach Harry Booth ’62 and team captain Bill DeAngelis ’68, the team went 15-7-1 overall and finished the season sixth in the Middle Atlantic Conference, with a record of 6-5. At the time, the Hawks had the most wins and the best record in St. Joe’s College baseball history, until the 1970 season. Outfielder Jim Clouser ’67 led the NCAA University Division with a batting average of .464. The 1968 Hawks baseball team had five players who received All-Middle Atlantic Conference Honors that year.
The baseball hat is part of the uniform worn by the 1968 roster, including John Smithson ’68, a 2005 St. Joe’s Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, former chairman of the Board of Trustees and St. Joe’s interim president from May 2011 to June 2012. The current St. Joe’s baseball field, Smithson Field, located on the Maguire Campus, is named after him.
Smithson’s teammates from the ’68 season include DeAngelis and Jerry Benetatos ’69, who were also inducted into the St. Joe’s Baseball Hall of Fame. Benetatos was a part of the 2002 induction class, and DeAngelis was inducted the following year in 2003. Booth was among the inaugural class to receive Hall of Fame Honors in 1997.
