the memorial patch for ed kranepool

here's another post to document a 2025 memorial patch. this time, it's the patch that the mets wore for ed kranepool, a new york metropolitan lifer who passed away in september of 2024. the mets added a black rectangular patch with kranepool's number 7 in white to their jerseys for the entire season. it was a different design than what they used for the jerry grote and bud harrelson patches, but it served its purpose as a recognizable memorial better than either of those patches did, in my opinion.

i've seen the patch on several cards now, and i really wish that brett baty's 2025 topps heritage high number card (this is the blue border parallel)

were cropped just a little less tightly so that the full patch would be visible. this 2025 topps chrome update ryan helsley xfractor

also shows the patch, although it gets lost with the black jersey.

so, the card that i have in my collection to represent kranepool's patch is this 2026 topps 1991 35th anniversary insert of pete alonso

there is a lot going on here with the poppy patch worn on memorial day, but the kranepool patch shows well against the mets' home pinstriped whites. and, with alonso having played kranepool's old position, it makes even more sense.

kranepool debuted with the mets late in their inaugural season as a 17-year old, and retired from the game and team as a 34-year old at the conclusion of the 1979 campaign. he was 79 when he passed away, and the team had flowers on his mets' hall of fame plaque when i visited citi field last year. he is still the franchise's all-time leader in games played, although he has been passed on other team leaderboards by david wright and others.

to me, it's nice for the club to honor a player like kranepool (as they did with grote and harrelson) whose number is not retired but was still a franchise icon. the dodgers appear to do this for the "legends of dodger baseball" members, but not for folks like davey lopes, for example. i would have expected lopes to enter that "legends of dodger baseball" at some point, but they don't seem to do it posthumously. i'll have more on that in a future post. stay tuned!