Trade with the Card Chop

Steve from The Card Chop has an excellent blog for Braves collectors.  I collect a little bit of Braves stuff -- only Milwaukee Braves, of course.  It all started with this pennant from my Mom's childhood in the 1950s.

That said, I like the Atlanta Braves.  I mean, I've lived in Georgia for 19 years and I've gone to games at Turner Field nearly every year since 1998.  But the Atlanta Braves have always been secondary to the Brewers to me.

When I started blogging, one of the first people in the blogosphere to reach out to me and welcome me was Steve (right after ARPSmith did).  Anyway, Steve just out of the blue offered to send me a big-time short print card from 2010 -- and the envelope with this beauty and a few other fun cards came yesterday.

That's a great old school Robin Yount photo -- from no later than 1977, since in 1978 the Brewers changed their uniforms to their more recognizable pinstripes and MB logo modeled below by Mark Clear in 1989.

Steve did not send me that Fleer-junk-wax Mark Clear though.  The cards he sent me are much better:

I don't like that Ryan Braun is an admitted, confirmed, finger-wagging PED user, but that said, he still has a contract that will keep him with the Brewers until 2020 or 2021.  I don't know whether that contract will be tradeable during that time, but Braun will have plenty of opportunity to redeem himself in that time in the eyes of Brewers fans.

I guess I like him like wrestling fans like heels or like Duke Basketball fans embrace guys like Steve Wojciechowski -- he's an annoying pain in the butt and a jerk, but dammit, he's our annoying pain in the butt and jerk.

While Prince got out of Milwaukee as quickly as he could, he was a great player for Milwaukee for the years he was with the team.  He stayed around long enough that he is one of my secondary collections as a long-serving Brewers player (nearly 1000 games in 7 seasons -- top 15 all time in terms of games for the team).

I want to thank Steve for the great cards he sent and for his kindness.  Thanks also for reading the blog, Steve!