a short lived memorial patch for bruce sutter

in recent years, one of the teams that has been the most consistent in the styling of their memorial patches has been, in my opinion, the cardinals. they use simple black circular patches with white initials or numbering for some of their patches, but for team icons whose numbers have been retired, they have a more elaborate patch scheme.

hall of famer bruce sutter is the latest cardinal to receive this treatment, although the team only wore a patch in his honor for the first part of the month of april 2023, rather than the full season. here's a 2023 topps now card of nolan gorman that shows the patch on his left sleeve

this style of patch - color coded to the uniform worn, with the player's number embroidered under their facsimile signature - first appeared in 2013 with stan musial's patch. since then, the style has been applied to red schoendienst, lou brock, bob gibson, and now sutter.

the cardinals stopped wearing the patch just before they began sporting their paid advertiser patch, but the team said it was just a coincidence and that the limited duration of the sutter patch was based on his tenure and stature with the franchise. he wasn't the franchise icon that the four mentioned above were, so i suppose their reasoning holds a bit of water. still, it's quite a coincidence.  i'm just glad the patch was captured on cardboard.