Watch out, Governor Thompson; Darrel Bybee of Glen Ellyn is on your case. He has your phone number and a bone to pick.
”The governor made this comment at a press conference,” said Bybee.
”Somebody had given him a hat, and he said he has more hats than anybody in Illinois, because people are always giving him hats at functions.”
Bybee believes he has more hats than Gov. Thompson, more hats than anyone else in Illinois, maybe more hats than anybody in the whole world. Bybee has 1,428-no, wait, make that 1,430 (he just updated his computer records).
”I`ve talked to people with collections and seen some (press) articles on hat collections. I have the most of anybody I`ve ever heard of.”
We`re talking baseball-type hats here. They cover the ceiling and the upper walls of the Bybee basement, row upon row in every hue.
”My wife doesn`t mind,” he says. ”She kind of likes it. The basement isn`t finished, but nobody ever notices.”
He started his collection in 1977 with a state fair win. His first goal was to get a hundred, then one for every day in the year, then a thousand.
He has one firm rule: ”I have never bought a hat.”
Friends bestow hats upon him, he barters with strangers to acquire hats, his wife brakes on Illinois Highway 53 to retrieve hat road kills, but no hat- related silver has ever crossed his palm. ”Even when it was at 365
(hats),” he says proudly, ”it was point of honor not to buy one.”
Of course there was that time at the U.S. Open golf tournament at Medinah when Bybee persuaded his wife to buy a hat he wanted desperately.
To keep track of his collection, Bybee mastered a Lotus software program and borrowed the company computer. It was a lot of trouble, but worth it, he said.
He now accesses a whole new world of hat data: 307 people (”No, wait, make that 308”) have given him one hat; 146 people have given him 2 or more; 54 people have given him 50 or more; one person has given him 100 or more.
There is more: ”I have hats from nine countries. I have figures on how many mesh, half-mesh, winter, gold-braid captain`s and golf hats. White is the biggest color; I have 146 solid white hats.”
His favorite hat commemorates the first night game at Wrigley Field on Aug. 8, 1988, autographed by Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who threw the first pitch that night.
”It was back when I was on No. 995,” Bybee recalled. ”A neighbor got it and wanted to give it to me as number 1,000, but before he could, somebody else gave me a 25-hat collection, so I went from 995 to 1,020.”
Faced with such a dilemma, Bybee did the only decent thing: ”I logged the Wrigley Field hat in the computer as Honorary 1,000.”
