St Louis Cardinals Wearing Oscar Taveras Memorial Patch

This morning we got our first look at the special memorial patch for Oscar Taveras which the St. Louis Cardinals will be wearing on all their jerseys throughout the upcoming 2015 season.

Taveras, who was only 22 and coming off his rookie season, was killed shortly after the Cardinals were eliminated from the 2014 postseason in a car accident along with his 18-year-old girlfriend.

The patch will read “OT” in white within a black circle, his uniform number 18 was not included as it has been re-assigned, in his memory to Cardinals pitcher and Taveras’ friend Carlos Martinez.

There was some debate a few months back about whether the Cardinals should wear a patch honouring a man who essentially killed another person, Tavares was reportedly extremely intoxicated while behind the wheel that night and likely would have been charged/convicted of vehicular homicide had he survived.

(Photo of Cardinals OT patch courtesy Jenifer Langosch – Twitter/@LangoschMLB)