the hunt for tom clancy's oriole memorial

best-selling novelist tom clancy, who once made some moves towards purchasing the minnesota vikings, realized his goal of professional sports ownership as an investor in the baltimore orioles.  after clancy passed away on october 1, 2013, the orioles decided to add a memorial to their jerseys for the 2014 season. rather than a black armband (as they had done for jim mckay, another investor), the team went with a patch on the right sleeve bearing the name 'tom clancy'.

the patch shows up on some 2015 topps cards that i have seen, such as this alejandro de aza card

but right now i have this 2014 topps update adam jones power players card

and this 2014 topps stadium club chris davis card

in my memorials binder.  these cards represent the away and home versions of the patch, which would be black text on gray and black text on white.  there are two other versions of the patch that have also found their way onto cardboard at some point.  there is the orange text on black worn on their black alternate jerseys, as seen on kevin gausman's 2015 topps stadium club card

and black on orange worn on their orange alternate jerseys, represented by chris davis' 2015 bowman card.

i'm glad to have cardboard examples of all four.

clancy was best known for his series of novels involving cia operative jack ryan, including 'the hunt for red october', 'patriot games', clear and present danger', and 'the sum of all fears', each of which were made into major motion pictures.  clancy was 66 years old at the time of his death.