i was watching a clip from trevor bauer's introductory press conference this past spring and noticed the two patches on the jersey he was wearing - one for tommy lasorda and one for don sutton. i was pleased to see that, as the patches matched the design used for don newcombe's memorial patch worn by the club in 2019, and avoided the combination of memorials as they had done for roy campanella and don drysdale who passed away within a couple of weeks of each other back in 1993.
for the majority of the season, the dodgers wore these patches stacked - tommy's on top - on their right sleeves.
during their first home series against the nationals (april 9-11), the patches were worn side by side, with the 2020 world champions patch being worn below them. you can see this on clayton kershaw's topps now card
i was a little surprised that the braves didn't include a memorial for sutton, but they had two bigger legends to remember in hank aaron and phil niekro. in my opinion, they didn't do enough as i mentioned in a previous post.
of the nearly 100 former major leaguers who passed away in 2021, many wore dodger blue at one time - it wasn't just lasorda and sutton that the franchise lost. from cy young award winner mike marshall to personal favorite joe beckwith to willard hunter, who appeared in just one game for the dodgers, they all are missed.
I was going to say that I was surprised the Dodgers didn't make a patch for Marshall, but after checking his Baseball Reference page I discovered he only played 3 games in LA. That's really weird since they are the only team I associate him with.
ReplyDeleteover the last 45 years or so, outside of tim crews and don newcombe, the dodgers haven't recognized any former players with a patch who don't have their number retired by the club. not even willie davis which was a shock to me.
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