j.d. martinez hit three home runs in a game five years ago today. i know this because i found this card in a dig box at the february twin cities club card show.
it's from 2022 topps heritage high numbers, and it's a now & then insert, the likes of which have since been discontinued by topps, much to my chagrin. to be honest, i was a bigger fan of the then & now inserts, but these were ok, too.
the reason that i flagged it for my collection is not because i was at that game, or am suddenly collecting red sox cards or heritage sets to completion, but rather because of the umpire in the background. that's andy fletcher who was working home plate in the game (thanks baseball reference!) by the way. on fletcher's left sleeve is a patch that is tough to make out, but we recognize it as the umpires' standard square initials memorial patch.
i went to getty images to find the raw image, and the patch is much clearer
cousins was 74 when he passed away in october of 2020, and the umpires wore the same patch during game 6 of the 2020 world series. they chose to honor him for more than that one game, and so kept the patch for the first month of the 2021 season. cousins was working first base when dallas braden threw a perfect game, and then was at third base a few weeks later when armando galarraga nearly did the same. had cousins been at first instead of jim joyce, perhaps the outcome would have been different.
schrieber passed away in november of 2020 at the age of 54. he worked 2,207 major league games, but i'll mention one of his minor league contests. he was the home plate umpire in birmingham when michael jordan hit his first home run during his baseball stint in the white sox organization. according to schrieber, jordan asked for the lineup card from the game, and schrieber obliged in exchange for some autographs from jordan himself. not a bad trade.
here's a different j.d. martinez card from my dodger collection that i've not shown before
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