the cubs and marlins wore a patch on their jerseys on opening day of the 2018 season. no, the patch was not to mark the start of another baseball season. it was instead to honor the 17 individuals killed at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida on february 14.
ian happ hit a home run on the first pitch of the season, and was given this 2018 topps now card as a result.
here's a 2018 topps fire lewis brinson card
the parkland shooting joins columbine, virginia tech, northern illinois university, and sandy hook as school shootings to have generated a memorial patch and/or other means of recognition by major league baseball and its players, and those are just a small sampling of the similar occurrences over the last few years.
Nice card, but yeah...it makes me sick at how often this occurs. I thought a similar thing during the NHL Awards: the season started in the shadow of the Las Vegas massacre and didn't finish until there had been another one in Parkland.
ReplyDeleteagreed. i deleted my commentary from the post since i collect these armband/memorial patch cards just because i was curious as to what certain patches represented when i was younger and couldn't find the information i was after. i sincerely hope that there are no more reasons to see these patches in play, but when nothing changes nothing changes.
DeleteAll of these shootings that seem to pop up at least a once every other month is super disheartening. That's why I sometimes bury myself in our hobby to block out reality. This card is a great example of you can run, but can't hide from reality.
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