the phillies' 'b' memorial patch

two of the three buck brothers who purchased the phillies back in 1981 died during the 2010 offseason.  alexander 'whip' buck passed away in october 2010, while jim buck died in march of 2011.  as far as i can tell, the third brother - william - is still alive today.  they were the heirs to what is now known as the glaxosmithkline pharmaceutical company, and used a small amount of their fortunes to buy the phillies in 1981.

for the 2011 season, the phillies wore a circular patch with the letter 'b' inside to remember the two brothers.  the patch is visible on a whole mess of 2012 cards, including this 2012 topps heritage charlie manuel card

roy halladay is wearing it on this 2012 topps league leader card

clayton kershaw is also wearing a memorial patch - his is for duke snider.

here's a nice 2012 topps target red parallel of jose contreras with the patch

and a regular 2012 topps card of joe savery

i thought about using ryan howard's 2012 topps chrome card as the example in the memorial binder

but shane victorino's card from the same set is better

i'm not a victorino fan, so i kept looking.  here's a 2012 topps gypsy queen jimmy rollins card

and a couple of hunter pence cards - 2012 topps opening day

and 2012 topps archives

i probably like pence less than victorino, so i'll go with jimmy rollins' 2012 topps opening day card

as the representative card in the collection.

with all the talk about the new dodgers' ownership and the finances that the guggenheim group has, the buck brothers were also venture capitalists and have apparently set the phillies up with a vast amount of resources to remain competitive for a long time.