17 May 2013

wearing the memorials on their sleeves

last night i finally was able to post the list of known memorial armbands and patches in major league history.  my goal is to collect a card showing each and every one, so it doubles as a want list.  i will track the ones i own, but if you  have a better example than the one i have, let's make a trade.

here are a couple examples from 19991 upper deck.

late in the 1989 season, the cardinals' owner, august a busch, grandson of busch brewery founder adolphus busch, passed away at the age of 90.  he oversaw the cardinals from 1953 until his death, presiding over six pennant winners and three world championship teams.  for the 1990 season, the cardinals wore an 'aab' patch on the left sleeves of their regular jerseys and a black armband on the left sleeves of their batting practice jerseys.  southpaws frank dipino and ken dayley model each case very well.

about two years after busch died, the pirates lost a long time member of their family.  their 64 year old equipment manager, john 'hoolie' hallahan passed away in september of 1991, and the pirates recognized the man who began his career with the team in 1941 as a visiting team batboy with a memorial patch as seen on orlando merced's 1992 topps card.
i believe that the patches were only worn for the last few weeks of the season, so it's fortunate to have such a nice display as seen on that card.

in april of 1992, the angels lost coach deron johnson to cancer, and wore a 'dj' patch on their right sleeve as seen on scott lewis' 1993 topps card
the mets also wore a memorial patch in 1992, as seen on dick schofield's 1993 topps card.
actually, you can see it better on howard johnson's 1992 o-pee-chee premier card, so that's the one that goes in the binder.

it's an 's' for william shea, the co-founder (with branch rickey) of the continental league, whose creation led to the expansion of the major leagues and the return of national league baseball to new york - which was shea's goal all along.  he was the namesake of the mets' stadium, and, in a way, of chipper jones' kid.

i'll show one more of these, because  i think you get the point by now.  this is a 2007 upper deck card of chris britton.
britton is wearing a '44' patch for former oriole great elrod hendricks.  hendricks, who passed away in december of 2005, had three tours of duty with the orioles as a player, and was the team's bullpen coach for 28 years after his retirement. the orioles wore his number during the 2006 season, and i am on the lookout for the orange version of the patch, which was worn on the orioles' black jerseys, and i will soon be looking for a new oriole card showing one of this years' players wearing the '4' patch for earl weaver.

check out the list and see if you can help a blogger out!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I could have sworn Minnesota had a 35W patch for the collapsed bridge the same year they had the Herb Carmeal microphone patch.

gcrl said...

I think they had a sticker on their helmets in 07 maybe? And then the patch on the one year anniversary.

'30-Year Old Cardboard said...

A very interesting, and tough, set to go after. I like it!!!

Good luck!