it's not often that memorial patches span seasons. but it does happen. the dodgers are doing it now with their fernando valenzuela patch, and i can think of a couple of other instances when the yankees did it. usually it's because the person being honored passed away late in the previous season, and the franchise wants to give them their due.
back in 2021, the braves and brewers wore memorials for hank aaron, who had passed away that january. aaron, of course, began his career with the milwaukee braves, and then finished it with the milwaukee brewers in 1976. the braves added his number (along with phil niekro's) to the backs of their hats. their sleeves were dedicated to other patches, although once the all-star game was removed from their stadium, they stopped wearing that patch and could have shifted gears. the brewers, on the other hand, wore a more traditional patch with aaron's number 44 on their sleeves for the entire season.
in may of 2022, the two teams squared off in a series in milwaukee, and the brewers decided to wear the patches again. in one of those games (the game played three years ago tomorrow, actually), keston hiura (zot!) hit an extra innings walk-off home run, and so the patch was captured on a 2022 topps now card
i picked up the blue parallel version a few months ago for very cheap. here's the back more 44!
as far as i can tell, the braves did not revisit their aaron memorial for this series.
Kudos to the Brewers for bringing back that patch for their series against the Braves. Don't remember that walk-off... but that's a cool card of Hiura. Sure hope he gets another shot at the MLB level.
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