memorial patches for the pohlads

eloise pohlad, the wife of twins' owner carl pohlad, passed away in november of 2003, and the club added memorial patches to their right sleeves for the following season in memory of her.  they were simple patches, with the first name of her signature stitched inside a color coded rectangle - one for the away grays, one for the alternate blues, and one for the home whites.  you can see the gray patch on lew ford's 2005 fleer flair card

and the blue one is visible on torii hunter's 2005 donruss timeless treasures card

both of those cards are in my memorials binder, but i haven't been able to find a card that shows the white patch.  there weren't too many baseball card photographers at the metrodome in 2004, i suppose.  here's a picture of hunter at home from the 2004 alds against the yankees that shows the white patch.

and here's a better look at all three versions of the patch

in 2009, the twins wore a very similar patch for eloise's husband carl, who passed away at the age of 93 in january.  there was only one version of his patch, however.

had there been a white version to go with the home uniforms, we would have had a card showing it, as nick punto's 2010 upper deck card

features a photo from inside the metrodome with nicky wearing the 1983 throwback home whites.  speaking of the metrodome, the patch above the 'carl' patch is the 'final season of the metrodome' patch.  even old, multi-purpose dome stadiums got the commemorative patch treatment.

here's the patch on the alternate blue jersey of joe mauer, courtesy of his 2010 bowman card

looks like joe is on tatooine there.

here's francisco liriano's 2009 topps allen & ginter national pride insert showing the patch on the home white pinstripes

the patch shows up again, this time on the away grays, on alexi casilla's 2010 topps card

on delmon young's 2010 topps card

and on justin morneau's 2010 topps opening day card

and his chrome card

which, even though it uses the same photo as the opening day card, it's cut a little tighter so the patch is a little bigger.

i've got liriano's 2010 allen & ginter card in the binder

carl pohlad was the guy who bought the twins from calvin griffith in 1984 to keep them in minnesota, but he was also the guy who almost sold the team to a north carolina group in 1997, and the guy who was willing to let the team contract in 2001.  still, he was the owner during their run to two world championships (1987 and 1991), and despite his willingness to sell or contract the team,  pohlad oversaw the run of division titles in the 2000's, with the last under his watch coming in 2006.

the construction of target field began in 2007, and although carl pohlad did not live to see it completed, a statue of him and his wife was erected in the plaza outside gate 34 - the main entrance to the stadium.

meanwhile, back on tatooine...

…baseball players are still looking for those pesky droids.

1993 upper deck had a few shots from the desert planet - bret saberhagen

jeff blauser

damon buford

and ron darling

two years later, they were back with sandy alomar in their flagship set

and ivan rodriguez in the collector's choice special edition set

along with lou whitaker, although this one is a silver signature parallel

1999 topps featured albert belle running from sand people

and 2000 fleer impact has sean casey sliding somewhere outside mos eisley

just as carlos beltran is doing on his 2000 topps stadium club

jason bay is making good time out running in for some of aunt beru's home cooking on his 2010 topps chrome card

finally, here's ernie banks kicking up some dust on a 2001 topps archives card

still no sign of the droids or those stolen plans, though.

a patch for ted

ted rogers was the founder of rogers communications and the owner of the toronto blue jays from 2000 until the time of his death from heart failure in december of 2008.  in his memory, the jays wore 'ted' patches on their left sleeves during the 2009 season.

 

aaron hill is wearing it on this 2010 bowman card while doubling up bobby abreu in the bronx

and he's still wearing it on this 2010 topps chrome card as he slides into third base in oakland.

that card is kind of neat because the a's player is also wearing a memorial patch. not that you can tell from the scan, though.

 

for this memorial, though, i wanted to find a card featuring a shot of a blue jay at home, in rogers centre which was re-named after ted and his company bought the stadium and the naming rights.  here's a 2010 upper deck roy halladay card that seems to fit the bill

although the patch is much more visible on the team checklist card from that set, thanks to aaron hill again.

in the end, it's another card of halladay from 2010 upper deck that will represent this memorial in the binder.

rogers communications continues to own the blue jays to this day, with paul beeston serving as president and ceo.  i am not sure who 'replaced' rogers as the figurehead of the corporate ownership, but it would appear that rogers' legacy in the world of management and entrepreneurship continues through donations made to a couple of canadian universities which is pretty cool. it would also be nice to see the jays win the al east sometime soon.

i can't begin to imagine how cool next year's version of this card will be

topps put an opening day highlights card of clayton kershaw in their 2013 opening day set.  that makes sense, but what doesn't compute for me is that it was a super short print.  why put ssp's in a set like opening day?  why put them in any set, really.  anyway, i picked one up for a reasonable price.

the card celebrates his 7-inning, 9 strikeout, no runs allowed performance against the giants on opening day 2011.  he picked up the win as the dodgers beat the no-cals 2-1.  next year's card should be spectacular, as on opening day this year, kershaw shut the giants out and provided the first sign of any dodger offense with an 8th inning solo home run.  that whole game was an opening day highlight for sure.

since opening day, however, i've been feeling a bit blue about the team's performance.  things are starting to look up, but maybe a different type of blue will cheer me up

like a 2007 topps chrome blue refractor jeff kent card

that blue scans so much better than the 2010 topps chrome blue refractors.  here's russell martin's card to prove it.

and then there are the walmart blue bordered cards, like this 2012 topps hong-chih kuo

and these 2013 topps josh beckett

and aj ellis cards

walmart went with a different shade of blue for the 2013 topps heritage parallels, of which i have the matt kemp specimen

although it's no chrome refractor, i like the looks of that card.  hopefully kemp doesn't make me blue by blowing out his hamstring.

black as night

proving that it sometimes pays to comment, night owl sent me some cards after i gave an opinion on one of his 'name the design' posts.  these cards included this 2010 topps jon garland walmart black parallel which is not a night card.

the package also included this 1993 topps dave hansen gold card

and, lookie here!  another parallel card, although this 1997 score showcase series artist's proof ismael valdes card is not your typical black, gold, red, blue, green, pink, or camo parallel!

that card looks like it should have been made by pacific in 1993 or so.

moving on to the hologram portion of the post, here is a 1996 upper deck spx mike piazza card

this one is marked as a 'tribute' which is odd since he had only 3 full seasons under his belt when the card was released.  by the way, what is piazza thinking in blaming vin scully for some sort of falling out with the fans?  i never stopped cheering for piazza - i think the vast majority of fans realized that the fox group was wrong and didn't blame piazza for wanting a ton of money.  i guess he really is a met.

this here is a 2010 topps chrome clayton kershaw card (obviously)

and this is a 2012 topps sticker james loney...sticker.

i have to admit that i didn't know what this thing was, though.

i picked up some singles of 2010 topps pro debut, but didn't realize that they had made another set in 2011.  welcome to the blog, scott schebler.  see you again in a few years, hopefully.

i will end this post with a 2000 pacific omega adrian beltre card

not as garish as many other pacific cards, and i miss having beltre at third for the dodgers.  it would have been nice to avoid the revolving door at the hot corner that existed prior to his arrival and that has returned since he left.  which gets me to thinking that i need to do the evolution of the third baseman series of posts.  stay tuned.

thanks greg!

almost a turnabout turn

as you can tell, i enjoy finding cards that show the same play, or continuation of plays, or complement each other in some fashion like that.  i thought that i might have found another matching pair of cards when i first saw these two from 2008 upper deck - yuniesky betancourt

and wilson betemit

both feature double play action from yankee stadium, with slightly different camera angles, as the canon sign attests.  i was hoping for a mariner/yankee double play and a yankee/mariner double play, but alas, betemit appears to be doubling up a tiger.  oh well, the two cards still look nice together.

here's another double play turn from yankee stadium - it's ray durham and his 1997 pinnacle card

i don't think that's jeter sliding in - the '2' looks like part of a two digit number.  tino martinez maybe?

here's a card from 2008 upper deck documentary featuring brandon phillips and darin erstad

as is the case with this set, it features a photo from an entirely different game and series than the one described on the card.  also, there should be about 20 other cards in the set with this same photo.  i guess i need all of those, too.

from 2009 topps chrome, we get this alexei ramirez card

with jd drew actually trying to break up the double play.

this next one is one of my favorites.  it's brett butler's 1990 upper deck card

with roberto alomar laying on the ground and both players looking for the call at first base.  there's a good chance that this play comes from the april 5, 1989 game at jack murphy stadium.  in the third inning, butler drew a lead-off walk and robby thompson hit a ground ball to short.  the padres got the force out at second base, but thompson was safe at first.  well done, brett butler.

moving on, we have a 2004 fleer ultra barry larkin

and some cards from 2009 topps update - alex gonzalez

and cesar izturis

from 2009 upper deck, we get another yuniesky betancourt dp card

along with a howie kendrick card

and a jimmy rollins award winner subset card

i'll finish up with a couple of cards from 2010 topps chrome - including another card of rollins

and one of yunel escobar

don't worry - not too many more double play posts ahead.