29 July 2013

a memorial patch for tom cheek

last weekend, the widow of former blue jays' broadcaster tom cheek accepted the ford c. frick award from the national baseball hall of fame on his behalf.  cheek had broadcast every blue jays game from their inaugural contest in 1977 until the 2004 season when he took some time off after his father's death.  later that year, cheek was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  he passed away in 2005.  he is perhaps best known south of the border for his call of joe carter's world series winning home run in 1993.

in 2006, the blue jays wore a patch to honor their broadcaster.  they wore a white patch on their black jerseys and a black patch on their home whites.

here is a 2006 fleer tradition bj ryan card that shows the white patch.
hard to tell for sure, but i assume that ryan is also wearing a breast cancer pin.

another example is the 2006 upper deck francisco rosario card
but the card that will represent the white patch in the binder is this 2007 upper deck vernon wells card (sent to me by jeff of 2x3 heroes)
as for the black patch version, no card is better than this one, frank catalanotto's 2007 upper deck card
that might be even better than the rod beck/harry caray card.

here's to you tom cheek, and congratulations on the frick award.

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