Certified Angus Cards

Back during my "War" with Jaybarkerfan, the final shot in the battle came from a foreign country. It wasn't quite like the shot that Bob Walk the Plank fired -- I mean, it's tough to top getting someone who is French involved in any war (sorry, Mr. Card Papoy, for the low blow). 

But I was lucky enough to enlist a volunteer from Canada named Angus to join in the battle.  Angus had sent me cards before that he is much more easily able to find -- in particular, the O-Pee-Chees that never get as far south at Atlanta -- and to JBF, he sent action figures of prime ministers.  You gotta love it.

Well, Angus finally became a blogger recently.  He's not a baseball card collector to any great extent, but rather, he's a football card collector.  Specifically, he collects the Cleveland Browns, and his blog name references the famous Dawg Pound -- it's Dawg Day Cards.  I'm proud and lucky enough to be one of six blogs currently on Angus's blog roll.  So, if you have extra Cleveland Browns cards, I'm sure you can entice Angus to take them off your hands.

Perhaps to celebrate his newly christened blog, Angus sent me a package of cards that he picked up at his local card show on the US side of the border.  I think to myself about what that must be like -- having to leave the country, clear customs, maybe even get a passport stamped -- and all just to get the mail (since Angus has a US mailing address for all of us to send him cards) and to go to a card show.

Anyway, whenever I hear the name Angus, I don't think about that movie from the 1990s with the fat Minnesota kid who is really smart and with George C. Scott ambling through it with his eye trained off screen at the check that the producer was holding in his hands to ensure that George would stay on set and not mumble, "I was Patton, dammit. And I know...I returned the Academy Award for that role, but Christ on a bike, I'm a real ACTOR!"

I think, instead, about AC/DC and Angus Young.  I'm sure that Angus of Dawg Day Cards has heard that one plenty, but tough -- it's time for AC/DC plus Brewers and Braves!

"Who Made Who"

I'm pretty old school when it comes to AC/DC.  I stopped listening when "Thunderstruck" made it big -- it was just nothing special to me...sorry to all you fans.  But I listened like crazy to the album "Who Made Who," which was actually the soundtrack to the movie "Maximum Overdrive."  So, let's start with the title track to that album:

For that song -- which is really underrated, in my opinion -- we get a group of oddballs that are underrated in my opinion too: Topps Stamps.

I dabbled in philately as a kid -- my grandmother was a notorious packrat who kept letters that she had received as a kid or that her parents had received when she was a kid...and she was born in 1909. So it made for a pretty decent collection.  But these 1961 Topps Baseball Stamps (more info here from the fantastic Net54 forum) eluded me until Angus's package arrived.

Man, I could get lost on that Net54 forum.  I love history stuff, especially history stuff about things like baseball and baseball cards that I really enjoy.

"Big Balls"

The song that every teenage guy thought was super funny due to the double entendre filling the song And, with lyrics like "I've got big balls/I've got big balls/And they're such big balls/Dirty big balls", it wasn't like it took a genius to figure out the joke.  So, I'd call it pretty juvenile, generally.

Kinda like the guy who posted the video who said, "This song is funny as hell!"  

Hello? Hell isn't funny, dude.  

Now, baseball cards on the back of a cereal box -- that's funny!

Especially when you get a card of a future manager of the Seattle Mariners (for all of 217 games, mind you).  But really, was Post hard up for players to put on the cards in 1961? Seriously, Cottier hit .227/.273/.301 in 254 plate appearances.  By the time this card came out, it was not Cottier's third season with the Braves, either -- he was traded in December of 1960 with Bill Bruton, Dick Brown, and Terry Fox to the Detroit Tigers for Frank Bolling and Neil Chrisley.  Then, two months into the 1961 season, Cottier was sent to the Washington Senators for Hal Woodeshick.  

No matter -- these cards are awesome...even if Al Spangler is trying to catch flies with his open mouth.

"T.N.T."

T.N.T. was always a favorite song of mine.  I love the introduction in particular -- great guitar riff, the chorus of "oi!" over and over, building to the first stanza of the song.  Just a fantastic song.

To go with it?  A fantastic card:

A 2005 Topps Finest Blue Refractor serial numbered out of 299, of course.  The blue refractor here is a very busy design, but it goes well with the Brewers blue jersey that Ben Sheets is wearing in this photo.  

"Chase the Ace"

A strange instrumental on the "Who Made Who" album.  It's not strange musically, to be fair, but it's just weird to have a band putting out a 3-minute-long instrumental.  Perhaps it was a song that they liked the guitar lick but couldn't come up with any lyrics for Brian Johnson to choke out for it.  Maybe it was just filler.  Who knows...

It's the way I feel about this card too:

The whole "Sample" card fad that Donruss in particular engaged in during the 1980s and 1990s -- ostensibly to promote their new releases to card shops but more likely just an excuse to get collectors thinking that there were really rare cards to chase.  This one, for instance, says "Promo/5000" on the back.  It's cool and all -- I'm glad to add it to my Molitor collection.  

It's just makes me scratch my head a little bit.  Then again, Angus warned me that he likes oddballs like I do, so I should have expected this, right?

"Back in Black"

If you're going to listen to AC/DC, you are going to hear "Back in Black." It's what they do, and it's the album that made them even more famous than before.  It also let the world know that all Aussie singers pretty much can scream equally as well when Brian Johnson replaced the deceased Bon Scott after Scott died from acute alcohol poisoning.  Mutt Lange produced the album, so there are plenty of hooks and catchy sounding songs.

If you're getting cards from Angus -- well, if I am getting cards from Angus -- I get a lot of O-Pee-Chee.  It's what I need.

I do love these O-Pee-Chees, even O-Pee-Chees might have been the second showing of Topps parallels (the Venezuelan cards are the first, I guess).  It's strange -- I don't mind the O-Pee-Chees (or the 1984 Nestle, even), but the rash of parallels in nearly every product these days can get a bit annoying to me.  It might be the serial numbered stuff -- I like to feel like I have a chance to get the cards, I suppose.

Still, who would turn away an O-Pee-Chee?

"You Shook Me All Night Long"

I am a total sucker for this song. Always have been.  From the first time I recall hearing it, I was hooked.  It's a Mutt Lange special -- catchy, plenty of guitar riffs and hooks that stick in your head, and generally a fun song.  

What cards am I a total sucker for?

Well, to be fair, I'm pretty much a total sucker for anything that pictures a Milwaukee Brewers player, but to be more specific, I love the Archives stuff.  Whether it's the "Fan Favorites" version of Paul Molitor here, or the more recent incarnations of Archives (about which my main beef is "Too many Yankees. Not enough Brewers."), I love the reuse of 1970s and 1980s (and early 1990s) designs.  That's because that is when I collected initially, of course -- it's the love of the familiar.  

Not unlike listening to AC/DC's songs from the early 1980s.  It makes me feel like a 16-year-old high school kid just a little bit.  And as I trudge loudly into my mid-40s, I rather enjoy that little bit of the Fountain of Youth.

Thanks, Angus!