Mendota Heights Company Puts Their Mark on Major League Baseball with an Unlikely Skill—Knitting

As baseball season— really, Twins season—steps into full swing, Minnesota Knitting Mills in Mendota Heights is also warming up for the busy part of the year for jersey-related orders. 

For the past 30 years, Minnesota Knitting Mills, located at 1450 Mendota Heights Road, has knit the braid detail for Majestic, the official uniform supplier of Major League Baseball. (Twins jerseys no longer sport the braiding detail.)

“These are worn by actual Major League players,” said company president Patrick Hickey.

Majestic also commissions Minnesota Knitting Mills to create the trim for fan jerseys, and the local company made hundreds of yards of trim for the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals fans last year, said Rochelle Walker, customer service coordinator.

When a team gets “hot,” Hickey said, Minnesota Knitting Mills receives a large order, causing their knitting machines to run 20 hours a day, four days a week “just to keep up with it.”

“The New York Yankees are always hot,” Walker added.

Sports run in the company’s blood. The company started in downtown Saint Paul making lettermen’s jackets for the University of St. Thomas and Macalester College, then moved to its current location in Mendota Heights in 1974.

In addition to baseball jersey trim, Minnesota Knitting Mills creates such common products as the cuff and collar on high school letter jackets, knit pieces on Carhart jackets and suits, knit decoration along the leg of track pants, gun socks and even oil filters. 

More unusual projects include mannequin covers, vacuum hose covers (so as not to scratch the furniture) and the cuff of Muttluks (dog booties), Hickey said. They’re working with Nike on football jersey contracts.

The company mainly makes parts for other manufacturers, according to the president, and very few complete products.

Contrary to what you might expect, you will not find a dozen 80-year-old ladies knitting ear-flap hats, tacky sweaters and baby booties at Minnesota Knitting Mills. The Mendota Heights factory houses 200 different knitting machines, some of which are nearly as old as the 103-year-old company.

Manufacturers look to Minnesota Knitting Mills to solve hi-tech needs with low-tech solutions, namely, knitting. Hickey said the company has government contracts to knit Kevlar products and fireproof pieces. He has seen projects that use yarn with conductivity and reflectivity. However, he could not divulge details because of confidentiality agreements with the companies.

“We get orders with specifications, but don’t know what or why,” Hickey said, adding some projects spend months in development. It can take a full day to set up machines to a project’s specifications and a few days to produce the order. 

The company ships orders as small as one jacket and as large as hundreds of thousands. All pieces are hand-cut, and each product can be dyed to match existing colors, according to Hickey.

Minnesota Knitting Mills employs fewer than 50 employees in 50,000 square feet of space but ships products worldwide, often to Mexico, Taiwan, Canada, Hong Kong and Europe. Each year, 3,000 to 5,000 different products are shipped to hundreds of clients worldwide, Walker said.

“It’s a blend of the past and the future,” Hickey said. “This is where you blend hi-tech and low-tech together.”