National League Pillow Fights

If you are not a fan either of the Milwaukee Brewers or the Philadelphia Phillies, you are excused if you did not realize that those two teams are squaring off against one another. The Brewers and Phillies are the owners of the two worst records in baseball, though (oddly enough) the Brewers actually own the longest winning streak in the majors at 4 (and I know that means that the Brewers will lose tonight).  

With such bad records, fans like myself and Brad -- the proprietor of the Phillies-centric and eponymous Brad's Blog -- are left to focus on our baseball card collecting and the race to see who will own the right to select perhaps A.J. Puk from the University of Criminal Activity....I mean, Florida or high school pitchers Riley Pint or Austin Bergner or whomever emerges as the top pick next season.

That "in the meantime" for Brad and me means that we get to swap cards. I sent Brad a ton of cards that he needed, and he returned the favor recently.  Here are a few of the highlights.

Rickie Weeks looks so happy that he was not involved in this week's series in Philly. He should really calm down -- it's not like the Mariners are above .500 or anything.  Maybe he is in Philly and thought that the Pillow fight would look like this:

Clickbait?  Of course.

Ryan Braun is in Philadelphia. He and Ryan Howard are likely to be trading stories about snookering their respective teams into long-term contracts far longer than they ever should have received.  But, at least Braun didn't get tackled by a pitcher...

It's the little victories that matter.

Brad also sent me a couple of Greinke cards, as if to remind me of the time when the Brewers had a pitching staff that did not require heavy doses of morphine to get through the pain:

Finally, my favorite card from all of the ones Brad sent is a parallel from the 2014 Topps set:

Back when the Brewers actually won more games than they lost and had reason to celebrate, Getty Images captured an overjoyed Jonathan Lucroy getting mobbed by his teammates and, directly behind him, a guy who looks like the lead singer from the Spin Doctors.

Brad, thank you very much for the great cards and the great trade.  Hope we can trade again soon!

And so do they: