A good question with a few different answers.
For a long time, Baseball was more popular in general.
Pro football was almost an afterthought until fairly recently, and to some extent even today draws fewer fans than college football.
And there's part of the answer.
The equipment for football was for some items more expensive, and for others it was treated far more roughly than baseball equipment.
Helmets being expensive were probably reused year to year, until new ones were needed. College would have for sure, and I think pros as the teams didn't have much money.
For comparison, motorpacing helmets (similar in construction to a football helmet but with some added external padding) from the 1920's to probably 1950's were both expensive and used continually over a riders career. I've seen a few, maybe 5-10? And only saw one for sale. That one was a converted Spanish military or police helmet.
So a team only buying a few helmets and using them until they were almost useless seems reasonable.
Uniforms wouldn't have survived early foot ball well at all.
And the rest of the stuff, balls, cleats, noseguards, all would have been used as long as possible, and even a personally owned item after a couple years use wouldn't have been likely to get much care. And being leather after a while there wouldn't be much left that wasn't dried out and brittle.
Baseball stuff on the other hand, had a gentler existence (Compared to Football ) So uniforms while passed down from major league to minor league had a better chance of surviving.
Bats were mostly personally owned, and a player usually had several, replacing broken ones with a new batch once in a while.
Cleats would have the same problem as Football cleats, but with the larger popularity I'd think fewer got consigned to the ex-players garage or shed.
Similar things happen with cycling stuff, Jerseys survive pretty well, with silk jerseys surviving better than wool ones. The shoes and gloves weren't much use once the riders career was over, plus there was the whole "drenched in sweat" issue so worn ones wouldn't be saved.(Some riders drilled holes in the sole of the shoe as a drain!) The bikes even into the 1980's were considered and treated as tools. I heard of one rider who had about 10-15 bikes from his career that he piled behind his garage. The bike he won the Tour de France on got city bike handlebars and a luggage rack, and was used to get groceries from the local store for maybe 20 years until it was replaced with a cheap department store mountain bike that the rider was really happy with. (Happy ending to the story though, a fan who knew him rescued a couple of the bikes, and the price offered prompted the rider to sell the rest of the pile behind the garage to collectors)
So I'm not surprised if football stuff is harder to find.
Steve B
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