A Package from Chavez Ravine-ing

I received an envelope full of Brewers this past week from Alex at Chavez Ravining.  Alex and I have been swapping envelopes recently, so I was very pleased to get another jam-packed envelope from him. 

In honor of one of the items in the envelope -- my first ever Topps Chip (do you drop the "Z" off the end if you have just one?), I thought I'd start with a little music appropriate to that Chipz piece.  Yeah, it's an earworm and it's not from 1978, but Lady Gaga has a formula for her songs that work -- minor chords, lots of overdubbing and electronica -- you know instantly that you are listening to one of her songs.  It's like a piece of candy musically after listening to, say, Led Zeppelin or AC/DC.  And, it's fun.  Here's the video for "Poker Face":

So, that Chip:

Rickie Weeks may be down to, as the line in poker goes, a chip and a chair right now on his Brewers career. He's done well in a limited role, but the team is committed to Scooter Gennett at second -- so committed, in fact, that they are planning to have him play more against the lefthanders that Weeks has eaten alive this year.  With the team struggling lately, I'm good with switching stuff up.  The team needs it. But, Rickie's contributions to the organization cannot be ignored and deserve to be celebrated when he does leave.

I talk a lot about Rickie here, though, so let's move on to the rest of the cards.  First, there is a Paul Molitor from The Upper Deck Iooss Collection:

Walter Iooss is a true icon in American photography and especially in sports, having been Sports Illustrated's top photog for over forty years.  And, now he is selling photos himself on his website, like this Sandy Koufax beauty.  They are pricey as all get-out -- $2000 for an 11x14 print! -- but maybe you have a rich friend/relative looking for an excuse to spend a bunch of money on you.

Then Alex helped me out with a Robin Yount parallel from the mid-1990s that I did not have in my collection.  This one from Upper Deck is an "Electric Diamond" parallel, which for some reason makes me think of that seminal 1980s film: Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.  My brain scares me some times.

Alex is the first person to send me a Carlos Gomez card of Gomez on the Twins since I said here and made the decision to collect all of Gomez's cards. These are both cards that I needed for my player collections.

 

This group of Braun are the final cards I'm going to highlight from the big package I got -- there are still probably another 30 cards in the package, but a lot of them are actually ones I had already in some form.  Now, the ones above, though, are ones I think I needed. The 2011 A&G goes to my team set, as does the Braun All-Star short print from the 2012 Topps Update set.  The other two go into the Braun player collection, as I did not have the Hometown Heroes or the Baseball Highlight Sketches inserts.

Alex, thanks again for all the cards.  I hope that we continue to swap cards with one another.