when i was just starting to follow baseball, it was sensible to me to compare the dodgers and yankees. meaning i would look at the players from each team as competing against each other. the yankees had reggie jackson, and the dodgers had reggie smith. graig nettles and ron cey. bucky dent and bill russell. chris chambliss and steve garvey. you get the idea. when it came to pitchers, it was jim hunter and don sutton.
as i learned more about dodger (and baseball) history, i continued this practice. i remember talking with my dad about the dodger teams of the 60's and asking him who the yankees had that would compare to sandy koufax. his response was that they had whitey ford.
i have to admit i didn't know too much about ford, and he wasn't a guy i spent a lot of time learning about. somewhere along the line i picked up a couple of his cards, including his 1960 topps card which i like very much, but i still didn't give him a lot of attention.
when he passed away in october of 2020, however, i read some of the articles that were written about him and came away with a better understanding of his career and accomplishments. he was the mvp of the 1961 world series but actually had a better series the year before when the yankees fell to the pirates. i understand that many were confused when casey stengel didn't start ford in game 1 of that series, and his two shutouts of the pirates later in the fall classic begged the question what if?
the day after ford passed away, the yankees played what turned out to be their final game of the 2020 season - game 6 of the alcs. it was october 9, 2020, and the team added ford's retired number 16 to their left sleeves as a memorial, just above the hank steinbrenner memorial patch. i was pleased to see that the memorial was captured on cardboard with this 2021 topps aaron judge 1965 redux insert
it's somewhat rare for a one-day memorial to make it on to cardboard.
[edit - i've replaced the judge card in the collection with this 2021 topps gypsy queen card of gerrit cole]
given ford's status within the franchise, the yankees continued to honor ford in 2021 with a different patch. it is seen on this 2021 topps update gerrit cole 1992 redux insert:
although i have since replaced it in my collection with this 2022 topps jordan montgomery card
this patch is a bit of a departure for the yankees who had in the last couple of decades used the memorial patch version shown on judge's card for their late players whose numbers had been retired. other players/managers received the traditional black armband. rest in peace, whitey!
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