a memorial patch for ed farmer

ed farmer was a major league pitcher in 11 big league seasons, but spent 29 years following his retirement as a broadcaster for the chicago white sox. he passed away during spring training last year, and the white sox wore a black diamond shaped patch with farmer's nickname - "farmio" - in white text on their right sleeves during the 2020 season. here's a 2021 topps silver pack yoan moncada card that shows the patch:

this has become the standard memorial patch for the white sox over the last several seasons as far as the shape goes, anyway. they used numbers for minnie minoso and billy pierce in 2015, but names or initials for other (mostly non-players) in recent years.

my first awareness of farmer came during the 1980 season when he was piling up saves early in the season for the white sox. i had no idea that he had debuted in the majors during the 1971 season since i had not seen a baseball card of his yet (he wasn't included in the 1978 or 1979 topps sets as he appeared in only 1 game in 1977 and 3 in 1978 after missing the previous three seasons), so he was not on my radar at all. in fact, it was later in the 1980 season that i saw his 1972 topps card at the local card and comic shop and my mind was blown. 

farmer made the all-star team in 1980, and appeared in the game at dodger stadium. he allowed an inherited runner to score and give the national league the lead (although that occurred on an error) and then gave up an infield single to keith hernandez. however, he got pete rose to ground in to an inning ending double play.

in addition to the white sox, farmer pitched for cleveland, the tigers, the phillies (in two different stints), the orioles, the brewers, the rangers, and the a's. he was 70 years old when he passed away, and was one of many to receive a memorial patch during the 2020 season. so far, i've added cards showing the david glass patch and farmer's patch to my memorials mini-collection, with a couple more to be added soon.

speaking of adding cards showing memorials - the other day, i listened to the "unified" podcast (watched it, actually) featuring paul lukas from uni watch and chris creamer from sports logos that discussed 2021 mlb uniforms. they had a pretty good segment on patches, and in addition to the tommy lasorda and don sutton patches that i knew the dodgers were wearing, they confirmed the bob gibson memorial patch for the cardinals and a hank aaron patch for the brewers. they assume (as do i) that the braves will wear something for aaron and phil niekro (and perhaps sutton, too), but the team is already wearing the all-star game patch on one sleeve and their 150th anniversary patch on the other. they also figure that the yankees will carry the whitey ford patch over to 2021, since they only wore the "16" during their final game of the 2020 postseason. other possibilities include joe morgan memorial patches for the reds and astros, and a dick allen memorial patch for the phillies and white sox. i think it is likely, but who knows with the phillies, as they didn't add a patch for jim bunning a few years ago. whatever happens, i am looking forward to adding cards to my mini-collection!