Info Needed Mazzilli '86 Mets Bench Jacket

[Swoboda4]

Doodles, thank you. Yes, there is what appears to be the original, or part of the original patch underneath. And the zig-zag sewing pattern underneath belongs to the underneath patch. I tried to see if the top patch can be carefully removed and it appear to have been heat pressed on after some poor sewing for placement with orange thread? But why the white-yellowish thread on the edge? Was that just an initial stitch for placement?
My Dykstra '86 Playoff home pinstripe jersey has the original patch and aside from it being smaller (as the underneath jacket patch also appears to be) I was more interested in what the underside looked like: it was orange thread. I'll post photos next. Im going to citifield for a couple of the White Sox games and you can be sure I look in the museum.

[Swoboda4]

The under side of the Dykstra '86 Playoff pinstripe (for sewing comparison).

[Swoboda4]

Again, what appears to be the original '86 anniversary patch is slightly visible under reproduction patch that for some reason was placed above, possibly heat pressed. Doodles (May I call you "dood"?) mentions that at CitiField there is on display an '86 jacket with possibly the same situation.

[Swoboda4]

David, thank you for the '86 gamer photo.

[Swoboda4]

the stitching for the 13 on the shoulder is white, the zig zag on the original patch edge is yellowish.

[Doodles]

Swoboda,

The Dykstra jersey patch is sewn on in a straight around orange stitch, not the "zig-zag" (is this the official term?) stitch that the original jacket patch used. The jersey patch was probably sewn on by Goodman or the Mets' stitcher. All the jerseys I have seen have had that straight stitch. I am almost positive the jacket's 13 and anniversary patch would have been sewn on by Starter. Looks like they used the same stitching for the 13 as for the patch, which I would expect. I have that same jacket from Starter, not team issued, but bought in 1988. It has the round baseball Met logo patch, no numbers or anniversary patch (I added that patch later myself). It too uses the zig-zag...which not to get too technical, but we must, actually uses two colors of thread somehow...the outside layer which is seen, is orange on mine. This makes sense as the patch edge is orange and you don't want to see the thread. On mine, the thread on the underside is blue...not so important as it would never be seen. When I had a sport shop sew my anniversary patch on years later, they used the same stitching...orange zig-zag on top, blue on underside. Here is my jacket:



So where do we go from here? If it were me, and I wanted to keep the jacket, I would try to remove the repro patch. You say it is heat pressed...perhaps heating it would loosen the adhesive. This jacket is polyester, so I would not heat it too much, as it may scorch. I would protect the areas around the patch if I did so...and heat from the underside possibly. If you are lucky, you can get that repro off and replace with a vintage real patch...I have an extra laying around somewhere. There are many repros out there, including a vintage, smaller fan club version that often confuses people.

[Doodles]

BTW, what very well may have happened is someone wanted the original patch to use on perhaps a jersey to make it a 1986 jersey when it wasn't, or perhaps replace a missing 1986 patch on a more valuable player jersey. They then could only find a repro to replace it with.