23 December 2013

hall of famer ron santo's memorial patch

i am sure that many have said it, but i most recently recall bert blyleven noting that one is either a hall of famer or they're not.  the idea of being a hall of famer, but not a first ballot hall of famer, is silly.  you are or you aren't.  but, when people are involved, and in this case baseball writers and then veteran committee members, it sometimes takes a while to get things right.  ron santo was a hall of fame player. we didn't get to see him be recognized as such, however, until about a year after he passed away in 2010.

the cubs wore a '10' patch (santo's number) during the 2011 season.  you can kind of see it on starlin castro's right sleeve here on his 2012 topps card
he's turning two!

but it's much easier to see on castro's 2012 topps archives card
at the all-star game, the patch got moved to the left chest as memorial patches often do.  here's castro's 2011 topps update diamond anniversary cognac thingy to prove it.
before all that, the patch was on the left sleeve (spring training, i presume) as demonstrated by matthew szczur on his 2012 bowman chrome prospects card
szczur?  i would love to hear harry caray try to pronounce that.

i had the pleasure of meeting santo back in 2005 or so at a work related function.  he signed a ball for my son, and i told him that i hoped he would get the call from cooperstown.  it's too bad that call didn't come until 2011.

2 comments:

Once a Cub said...

Good selection of cards and patch locations.

And the last guy is Szczur (c not d) and pronounced like Caesar (Julius or Little, your pick). But yeah, Caray would probably come up with a dozen pronunciations.

gcrl said...

proper spelling noted - thanks! that foil got hard to read after it was scanned.