UPDATE HERE.

In 1976, several baseball teams wore sleeve patches commemorating the U.S. bicentennial. I always wondered about the Red Sox' version. It was red with a white star and dark writing that said, "Massachusetts Bicentennial." You can see it in the Hall of Fame Uniform Database here.

I think it was when I started to see the Mitchell & Ness 1975 Yaz jersey for sale with the patch that I started to wonder. Was that just a mistake, or did they wear it in '75, too? Like, maybe to get ready for the following year's celebration? I knew for sure that it was not on the uniforms in the World Series that season. On the pavilion level at Fenway, you can see a real '75 jersey, and it indeed has the patch. And I recently found a picture of Opening Day 1975, and everyone is wearing it on their left sleeve, as they are on the 1976 Topps Red Sox team card, which shows the '75 team picture. And this Globe photo from August 4th, 1975 of Denny Doyle gives you a nice shot of the patch on a real person:


So they definitely wore them in '75, making the new question: Did they wear it in '76 at all?

And what about the wording: Massachusetts Bicentennial? So they're really talking about the state's 200th birthday. But wouldn't that be 1976 anyway? The internet tells me Mass was admitted to the union in 1788. This is so confusing.

But it gets more confusing. Check out these pictures of some 1977 Topps cards:
The pictures should be from the previous season, 1976. The shots of Hobson and House are clearly from spring training. So were they just wearing some of the old '75 unis the following spring training? Or are they older pictures, from spring training of '75? Well, Tom House wasn't on the Red Sox until 1976. So these photos have to be from '76. Also note that House is wearing the patch on THE WRONG SLEEVE.

So the timeline looks like this: They wore them starting with Opening Day 1975 and running through the regular season, then removed them for the '75 playoffs, then broke them out again for '76 spring training. Right?

Right, we think, but there's more. Yaz wore the patch in 1976 on the left sleeve in the regular season along with the Tom Yawkey memorial armband, which was worn from July 1976 through the end of that season ('77 yearbook pic would be from '76):


And leave it to Spaceman Lee to wear both the band and the patch on the OTHER SLEEVE:

(He and House were left-handed pitchers, so maybe they were allowed to put any extra stuff on the sleeve of their non-pitching arm.) So the patches were worn well into 1976.

But we're still not done. All the photos of the Red Sox from the '76 Topps card set show patchless uniforms. Which means that during part of the '75 season, they didn't wear the patch. (Could those be pics from '74? This one was hard to prove, as most of the players on the '75 team were also on the '74 team. But I finally came across a guy--Jim Burton--who had never played a big league game before 1975, who had a 1976 card. That means most of the '76 card shots are definitely from '75, as a lot of them are pretty clearly taken on the same day in Oakland. There was only one series in Oakland that included day games that year, so I'd say these pics are from August 9th or 10th, 1975.)

So they wore it at some points but not others in both 1975 and 1976. That's what we can say for sure. I know what you're saying. Not you, the really nerdy guy behind you. "I don't see any road jerseys with the patch. Maybe they wore the patch for all of '75 and '76, but only at home. Like, when they were in Massachusetts." Okay, could be. But they didn't wear it at home in the '75 World Series. And the Mitchell & Ness version makes a road version with the patch. (Note that the URL says '75 but on the page it says '76, as if they've been wrestling with this "which year was it?" controversy themselves.) And the uniform database linked above also shows it on both the home and away jersey (again, in '76 only). So a lot of people think it was worn on the road. But here's Dwight Evans in '76 (see armband, so it's at least July) without the patch, in Yankee Stadium:And here's Fisk, same deal ('76 regular season, road game, armband, no patch), about to tag Willie Randolph:
So there may be some truth to the home/road theory. In fact, that would be my guess: The bicentennial patch was worn, at home only, for 1975 and 1976, excluding the World Series. Which means the state of Massachusetts was "born" in 1775 and 1776. And 1788. So...

But what about the '75 ALCS? I can't find any pics of that at all. I think I've seen a shot of the Sox celebrating ending Oakland's three-year championship run, but that's about all I've ever seen. Whenever it was I saw that, I wasn't looking for the patch. And it's not like the team took off the patch to wear a World Series patch. That trend didn't start until 1987. There's clearly no patch worn in the '75 Series. (There is a patch commemorating the series, but it was made later.)

Just to add one final bit of mystery, someone on ebay is currently selling the patch. Only instead of red, it's white with blue writing! Where did these come from?


If anyone has any further info or ideas, feel free to add them in the comments.

Bonus Monty section: Hey, eagle eyes, you've noticed that the '77 card of Bob Montgomery looks like it's from the same day as the bulk of the '76 cards. Looks like it to me, too. Just proves again that Topps does break out older photos occasionally. Watch for that when doing your own research projects.