the rickey henderson memorial patch

it still seems very surreal that rickey henderson is no longer with us. 

rickey passed away on december 20, 2024 - just a few days shy of his 66th birthday. it was no surprise that the a's - the team that rickey was most closely associated with - announced that they would wear a memorial patch in his honor during the 2025 season. and, as some of the later-year card releases came out last year, i kept my eyes open for cards featuring the patch (a gold circular patch surrounded in green with "rickey 24" in green text).

one of the first cards i saw was nick kurtz's 2025 topps heritage high number card. the image used on his chrome parallels was a bit better, so i set aside this light blue sparkle refractor

the card also features the sacramento patch that the team (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly?) wore.

once 2026 topps heritage was released, however, i decided to put this jacob wilson dark gray parallel 

in the memorials collection. there's a lot going on on this card for sure, but the rickey patch is in a prominent spot on the card.

in related news, i pulled this insert from 2026 topps chrome

i am a fan of cards featuring a "past to present" type theme, and the fact that this card features rickey along with lawrence butler who is wearing the rickey memorial patch makes it a winner in my book. it's not going to replace the wilson card in the memorials collection, but it might find its way into my collection somewhere else.

i would also gladly add this 2026 topps dynasty kurtz card

to my collection, but i could not afford it even if the person who pulled it put it up for sale. i saw the image on a post by topps a couple of months ago. the only similar card i have is an orel hershiser relic from leaf that features part of the rangers' memorial patch for johnny oates (hershiser was a pitching coach for the rangers for a spell). it would be cool to have a card featuring a full memorial relic like this one.

anyway, rickey is missed.