Celebrate 100 Years of Negro League Baseball

All across the MLB today teams will be wearing special patches on their jerseys to celebrate 100 years of Negro League baseball.  A lot of baseball greats that played in the majors began their careers in the Negro Leagues.  Players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Larry Do by, and of course Jackie Robinson all began their professional baseball careers playing first in the Negro Leagues. 

There are also countless numbers of players who never got to play in the majors but were all time greats.  Players like Judy Johnson, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell are just a few.

Over the years Topps has produced jersey relic cards of a throwback pinstripe Pittsburgh Crawfords jersey of Andrew McCutchen.  I've talked about it a few times while also discussing the Negro Leagues powerhouse Pittsburgh Crawfords here.

Above is a sample of a pinstripe jersey swatch on a card I have rarely shown off.  It is a jersey relic from 2016 Topps Laser booklet.

Panini has used old Negro League uniform swatches too though.  And it never crossed my mind until I came across this old game used jersey of James McDonald on eBay. 

I was always a big fan of JMac when he was pitching for those horrendous Pirates teams of 2010 and 2011.  He had a nasty curveball and looked like an early season All-Star in 2012.  Prior to pitchers like AJ Burnett, Francisco Liriano, Gerrit Cole, and Charlie Morton becoming part of a top 5 MLB pitching staff, the fans of the Steel City had James McDonald to cheer for and call their ace.

I wanted to get a jersey of his to wear around if I could find one cheap enough, then I stumbled on this.

I recognize that laundry tag.

I've seen that before on my McCutchen cards from Panini, but could never figure out what it's from.

With the knowledge of knowing that this is from a throwback jersey, I also was able to determine this cream colored jersey swatch with a blue patch is in fact from a 2012 Grays jersey worn by Cutch against the KC Royals.

I always wondered what this odd blue patch and cream jersey was from.

Now I know.

And Panini has used it on many of their products over the years.