Remembering Patches, Vol. 1

Good morning, Uni Watchers — it’s Friday. We made it!

As I had mentioned yesterday, I’m currently in the middle of another curling bonspiel, so my time on the boards will be somewhat limited today (as was my ability to produce articles for today). However, the UW staff have all stepped up (thanks again, guys!) to provide us with lots of content for today. First up will be new Ticker Assistant Mike Engle, who will be kicking off a new series that will take a look at jersey patches and design features from the past. Mike hopes you guys will also provide him with feedback as well as suggestions for future entries on the series.

As you guys are likely aware, I’m not a jersey collector, but I do know many of you are, so I’m happy Mike will be taking the reins for this. Having read Paul’s series with the ever-awesome Bill Henderson (Tales from the Dream Shop), and of course having access to his “Game Worn Guide to MLB Jerseys” database, I’m well aware of how seriously collectors take their jerseys and appreciative of his efforts both to document MLB jerseys and to restore them as well. If you’re a jersey collector, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Let me now turn this over to Mike as he brings us the first of his series…

• • • • •Remembering Patches, Vol. 1
by Mike Engle

In a new periodic series (please provide feedback and suggestions!), I’ll be taking trips down Uni Watch memory lane, looking at certain patches and other design features from yesteryear. Ideally, I’d like to stumble upon things for which I have no current memories, so that I can look at them with a blank slate and a fresh perspective. Most of my inspirations will probably come from my game-worn jersey communities, for which we have private Facebook groups.

By way of background, in the game-used community, the word “patched” refers to a commemorative logo. We use this term for anniversary patches, inaugural season patches, final season patches, memorial patches, etc. We do not use this term for logos that are standard from year to year, so regular team logos, regular league logos, advertisements, etc., do not qualify here. Patched jerseys are treasured in the collecting hobby, because they can be easily dated to a more specific time, and that’s what makes them special. Jerseys can be double-patched, triple-patched, or theoretically infinitely patched, as long as there is enough room!

In this Detroit Red Wings example, Andreas Athanasiou’s jersey is triple-patched: the NHL 100 logo is a special league logo, the Little Caesars Arena inaugural season patch on the right shoulder is also special for the year, and the Mike “Mr. I.” Ilitch memorial patch on the left shoulder is the third patch. The NHL patch in the neckline doesn’t count, because that’s present from year to year, and it doesn’t inherently tell us which exact year the jersey comes from, even though it can narrow down an era. If Athanasiou were the captain of the Red Wings here, that C wouldn’t be a “patch” to count here…but it would be a captain’s jersey, which is an entirely different matter. But what about the NFL captain patches, with different numbers of stars? I’ll admit, I don’t collect NFL stuff, so that’s a good question. But let’s move on.

For my inaugural post in this series, let’s look at one particular patch that caught my eye and inspired this whole series. Front view up top, and more photos in the following gallery.

This is a game-used home Boston Red Sox jersey, worn by #34 at the time…nope, not David Ortiz, Rich Garces. The “jock tag” says that the jersey was produced in 2002, but just in case the Red Sox might have had an old jersey in Garces’s size to give him later, the memorial patch is useful to confirm the year. Indeed, Ted Williams died on July 5, 2002, so the patch being on the jersey suggests use from July 5, 2002 to September 29 when the Red Sox season ended.

Now let’s specifically look at that patch, not with a historian’s eye to date the jersey, but with a Uni Watch eye to critique the design. As a Yankees fan, I love the simplicity of the armband and the retired number, and I love that the Red Sox are copying their more successful rival. Also as a Yankees fan, I’m thrown off for a minute about why it’s on the right sleeve, and not the left. But it makes sense. I always have to remind myself that the Yankees were an exception to the general rule, because they didn’t have manufacturers’ logos on the left sleeve. They had all blank real estate on the left sleeve, so they could and did have armbands there. Other teams had a maker’s mark there, so their armbands would have to go on the right. My childhood was spent obsessing over the Yankees from afar in New Orleans, so that’s why I naturally think the Yankees’ way is “default,” and it’s also why I don’t remember this Ted Williams patch at all from my youth.

But now let’s really hone in on the #9, as seen again here:

What a time in 2002! I love everything about this. I’d imagine that the Red Sox didn’t give any thought to designing a special patch for Ted, and since Ted was a very private man and a Veteran of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, a gaudy patch wouldn’t have fit the occasion anyway. So I’m sure the Red Sox ordered a big stack of stock black #9’s to sew onto the jerseys. And now, look again! These #9’s have a trimmed stem, to mimic the end point in the McAuliffe (“Red Sox”) font! The rest of the digit’s proportions suggest that these #9’s were in a more typical block font. Once received, I’d bet that some very talented staff member who clearly Gets It™ made sure to make the #9’s look like Red Sox #9’s.

In context, how did this patch look on the Boston Red Sox uniforms? Well, the home jerseys have a headspoon but no sleeve stripes, while the road jerseys have sleeve stripes but no headspoon. So while the patched home jerseys looked like this, this, and this in action, the patched road jerseys looked like this, this, and this. As someone who truly doesn’t remember this patch at all from 2002, and after checking all of my anti-Red Sox bias at the door, the patch looks just about perfect, and perfect for Ted Williams.

The look is simple, dignified, and crystal clear about for whom it is. And once again, I can’t stress enough how much I love how the patches were ordered as “nothing special,” only for them to get modified into “something special.” The only little quibble I might have is that the red stripe on the right sleeve can get a little lost on the road shirts.

One last thing I noticed, among all of the above images from the era: I didn’t see any external inscriptions on any of the caps, but I did catch a silver Sharpie’d #9 on Manny Ramirez’s batting helmet, as seen here, and here. I laughed at Manny Being Manny, and I also realized that I don’t know of any other rogue tributes on batting helmets like that!

Frankly, batting helmet tributes seem rare as is (the Minnesota Twins did one for an Interstate 35-W collapse in 2007), and cap inscriptions used to be quite prevalent (the Atlanta Braves in 1999 come to mind, for Andrés Galarraga), so Manny memorializing Ted by himself is notable…until about September 2002, when the Red Sox made him get a new helmet.

• • • • •Thanks, Mike! Great stuff. Please give Mike a round of thanks for stepping up with this, and let him know what you think. If you have any suggestions for a future article in this vein, please let him know as well.