By Grace Gilrane
If you wear a 90s Baltimore Ravens jacket to a tailgate outside of M&T Bank Stadium, there is a good chance MJ Broderick will approach you and ask to buy it off your back.
“They never want to sell,” he said. “But I’m always going to try.”
Broderick is the owner of Retrospect MD, a vintage clothing store in Federal Hill which sells all kinds of clothing but specializes in sportswear. The tags on his denim rack are fashioned from baseball cards, and one of the signature motifs of the store is a pinwheel formed from vintage team pennants that greet entering shoppers.
Broderick’s primary focus is 90s clothing, reflected in the era’s movie posters lining the walls, but since the Ravens came to Baltimore in 1996 he only has a few years from which to source his merchandise. His Ravens apparel serves as the centerpiece to the store and he claims it to be the largest selection of vintage Ravens gear in the world — even though it’s confined to a single rack.
“It sounds a lot crazier than it is,” Broderick said. “But that just goes to show how rare this stuff is.”
In recent years, vintage shopping has become increasingly popular, with some industry analysts eporting the secondhand apparel market grew from $28 billion in 2019 to $49 billion in 2024. In 2025, the market is projected to reach $56 billion.
This boom has allowed merchants like Broderick to become a full-time vintage sellers, and for others in Baltimore to create side gigs that can supplement their income with the potential to turn into full time jobs.
“Vintage is in trend right now,” Broderick said.
Sportwear has become a niche for vintage sellers, and Broderick thinks teams have been inspired to recreate retro apparel to benefit from the trend.
“I feel like a lot of teams are starting to do some sort of throwback jerseys or some sort of retro logo,” he said. “I think a lot of teams are definitely taking notice as vintage kind of becomes something that people are interested in and they’re just trying to figure out how they can capitalize on it.”
Better than fast fashion
For Ethan Staple, selling vintage sportswear looks a little different. He participates in pop-up sales and frequents markets including Bmore Flea at Broadway Market in Fells Point which boasts an impressive collection of vintage sports gear. Staple has also noticed the trend of teams creating retro-inspired apparel and how it has affected resellers while feeding into fast fashion.
While some buyers want to invest in their favorite team, “If you look at it from a vintage vendors’ perspective, we hate it because it’s just fast fashion with the old logo slapped on it,” Staple said.
Appealing factors of shopping vintage — for sports fans and others — include avoiding fast-fashion retailers in an effort to be eco-friendly, not having to break the bank for a piece you love, and finding higher quality garments.
“So many people hate going to a store like Forever 21, they hate going to like the Gap, and getting charged $50 for one t-shirt that’s gonna fall apart or shrink after one or two washes,” Staple said. “The whole thing about… really any vintage item is that they’re built to last.”
Since he began selling in 2023, Staple has found a specialty in vintage NASCAR gear.
“Maybe eight months into me selling I realized that NASCAR jackets and shirts and hats were a really sought-after item that not a lot of people were selling,” he said. “And I knew enough about NASCAR to start picking it up.”
After two years of selling NASCAR items and cultivating an extensive knowledge of the history of the sport and its intersections with fashion Staple said, “I’m one of the people that most people go to now for NASCAR apparel, and I even have, you know, sellers kind of pick up stuff more to sell to me rather than to sell to other people.”
Buying from other vintage shoppers or thrifters is one of the ways resellers ensconced in the community of secondhand shopping source their materials. Patrick Murnane dabbles in sports collectibles rather than apparel, but cultivates his sports-themed product in similar ways.
For a decade, Murnane has been buying and selling everything related to sports memorabilia. After graduating from Salisbury University, Murane raised extra money while working as a graduate assistant by selling old baseball cards. Since then, he has found his niche in bobbleheads.
“They have really gotten big in the past 20-25 years because bobbleheads got into being giveaways at games, like an incentive for fans to come out for a promotional item,” Murnane said.
Yankees fans eschew O’s bobbleheads
Murnane conducts his business entirely online, and has shipped to customers in all 50 states and seven countries. He focuses on merchandise giveaways at games to build his inventory. Leveraging fan loyalty can help him buy a giveaway item off someone in Camden Yards rooting for the opposing team. He’s had the most luck with Yankees and Red Sox fans.
“Those fan bases are so committed to their team that they don’t want to touch something Orioles,” he said. “Like, they are so ready to give it to you.”
All three sports-item sellers frequent flea markets, thrift stores, and online spaces for rare items, collecting stories along the way.
“I’m a part of people’s wills,” said Murname. “Like, ‘when I die, please reach out to Patrick at this number. He will either help you sell my collection or help make an offer on all of it, so it doesn’t burden you.’”
Murnane has a customer in Indiana particularly interested in Orioles games giveaways. “At the beginning of every season, he was like ‘I’ll take one of everything.’”
Broderick’s store is close to M&T Bank Stadium and Camden Yards attracting fans of both teams, who sometimes even travel overseas to attend games.
He recalled one customer browsing the racks, who “didn’t say anything at first,” but then began speaking with a Scottish accent. “And I was like, ‘Wait, are you the guy I’ve been talking to?’” The two had been communicating for months online.
Other buyers just like the distinctive color and style of Baltimore gear. “I have had people come up and they go, ‘I have no idea what this team is but I love how it looks.’ Staple said. “And they’ll buy it from me.”
‘Business of Sports’ is a series produced as a senior capstone project by the Loyola University Maryland Department of Communication.s and Media, under the supervision of April Newton.
