black armband for joan payson and casey stengel

the new york mets wore black armbands on their left sleeves during the 1976 season to pay tribute to some pretty important people in their franchise's history - joan payson and casey stengel.  here is joe torre's 1977 topps card with the armband prominently featured

joan payson was a shareholder of the new york giants baseball club, and she opposed their move to san francisco.  her efforts in bringing another team to new york were successful when her group was awarded the expansion mets in 1962.  she thus became the first female owner of an mlb franchise, and remained the majority owner until her death in october of 1975.

casey stengel was the first manager in mets' history, and is known for his colorful quotes about their ineptitude.  he managed the amazin' mets from their inception until the end of august, 1965.  shortly thereafter, the team (which had not won more than 53 games during any of the 3-plus seasons in which he managed them) retired his number.  stengel was diagnosed with cancer in september of 1975 and died from the disease just a couple of weeks later.

and, lest you think that the cards i choose to represent these memorials are opportunistic or random, allow me to point out that joe torre, just like casey stengel, managed the yankees, braves, dodgers, and mets.

now let me admit that a lot of the time, i just have to go with a card that shows the memorial, whether there is a good connection to the person(s) being memorialized or not.