A Little Bit of eBay in My Life f/Robin Yount

Yes, more eBay purchases. My apologies to all of you for what is about to happen. If you didn't get where this is going, musically, well, it's not good.

You see, I like playing trivia on Sporcle. It's a good unwind for me when I don't have it in me to interact with other people on Twitter or Facebook or some other medium. It's got a badge-collection game within a game that appeals to me as well. What can I say -- I'm a collector.

Anyway, I accidentally ran into this quiz -- naming all the Mambo No. 5 girls from Lou Bega's earworm song of the same name:

The good thing that getting this damn song stuck in my head did was lead me to Google "Worst Earworm Songs of All Time." It led me to a C|NET article that said that Mambo No. 5 was determined scientifically to be the second catchiest song of all time. What were the other catchiest/songs that people could identify most quickly?

Let's find out by looking at some Robin Yount stuff I've bought on eBay recently. I'll spare you all of the 20 songs from the earworm list, but here are 5 more from that list:

17. Britney Spears, "Baby One More Time"

Is it weird to look at a dolled up teenager showing off her midriff the way Britney did in this video and think, "Oh, that's the sweet innocent Britney..." and then have your mind go to this fact: the song was released on October 23, 1998, and it is now older than Britney was when it was released. 

Holy crap that makes me feel old.

Just like this card has to make Robin Yount feel old. It came out in 1975 and pictures Yount when he was slightly older than when Britney released her song. I have a confession, though -- I bought this as part of the entire panel and cut up the panel. Seriously. I have the panel already in my collection, and, to be honest, the cost for this panel was not super high. I didn't feel bad and still don't feel bad.

16. Culture Club - "Karma Chameleon"

Karma Chameleon was such an earworm that my little brother -- who was about a year old at the time -- would repeat the "Karma Karma Karma Chameleon" part over and over. It apparently got stuck in his little year-old head. I don't think he had the opportunity to see Boy George prancing around ostensibly in 1870 Mississippi, though.

Let's be clear: if Boy George really were in 1870 Mississippi -- hell, 1984 Mississippi even -- he would have gotten the crap beaten out of him. I mean, when I was at Vanderbilt in the early 1990s, people at Ole Miss were a long way from admitting that they needed to stop using the Rebel Flag as a university symbol. 

Seriously -- this discussion is still ongoing at Ole Miss. In fact, as that article points out, even the school name "Ole Miss" is a reference to a term slaves used when addressing the wife of a plantation owner. 

I recall one of our African-American football players at Vanderbilt -- Carlos Thomas was his name -- called out the Rebels and said that he hated Ole Miss because of the Confederate ties. While that football team was not great, Carlos and ten of his football-playing friends eventually ended up being featured in a book about their experiences at Vanderbilt and in life that his friend Derrick Gragg wrote called 40 Days of Direction: Life Lessons from the Talented Ten. Carlos got his doctorate in business from LSU.

Vanderbilt: we play football in the SEC, but our football players are smarter than yours. Well, except for Jordan Rodgers, Mr. Bachelorette Contest.

And wow, did that stray from Culture Club.

As a reference to the early 1990s and late 1980s, let's look at a glossy Broder-type completely unlicensed card. I got this cheap, to be fair. Part of me really wonders how different all those unlicensed Broder cards from the late 1980s really are from the great customs that folks around the internet have created. Well, except for the fact that the ones available today are far better designs than anything those Broder guys came up with. This card isn't a bad design -- but it's just kind of boring.

9. Human League - "Don't You Want Me"

I really did not like this song as a kid. I think it was the combination of being a total earworm and that the local Top 40 station played the song about once every 12 minutes. Of course, I hated the Thompson Twins more, so at least this song was more palatable than "Doctor Doctor" or some other crap like that.

I feel like Topps and its high-end cards -- its neverending conveyor belt of Triple Threads, Museum Collection, Dynasty, and before those, this brand called Sterling -- are sort of like this Human League song. I mean, I really don't like Dynasty and its $400 a pack cards and, unless I win the lottery (which I don't play) I will probably never buy those. But that serves to make cards like this Sterling and some of the Museum Collection base cards seem much more palatable.

4. Lady Gaga -- "Just Dance"

I wonder if this song was super popular around the time that the earworm study was done. I mean, it's catchy and all, but I don't feel like it hit the level of ubiquity that songs like, say, "Call Me Maybe" hit. Yet, there it is on the list and Carly Rae Jepsen wasn't. 

Of course, as I write this, I listen to the songs that play after I find the videos on YouTube to embed here, and I'm finding this song implanting itself in my head like that ear bug in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan did in Chekov's head. 

AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH make it stop please make it stop it hurts I promise I'll be good just get it out.........

So, I'd never seen this insert at all anywhere before. I snapped it up when I did see it on eBay as part of this group of items. It's apparently from 2006 and was a regular Upper Deck Insert only in Fat Packs. This one, numbered DD82, was in Series 2. The overall odds of getting one of these (according to Baseball Card Pedia.com) was two in every pack. So, perhaps this is sort of hard to find, and perhaps it is not.

1. Spice Girls -- "Wannabe"

The one thing I most recall about the Spice Girls is being able to figure out what kind of guy your pals were based on which Spice Girl they found most attractive. It's sort of like that scene in the original Total Recall movie where Arnold is in the Recall store and they go through his mental requests for what woman he wants...and one of his attributes is "slutty."

I mean, I found Baby Spice (the blond, a/k/a Emma Bunton) and Ginger Spice (the redhead, a/k/a Geri Halliwell) more attractive than the other women in the group. Then I found out that Geri Halliwell had been a Page 3 girl in her past and thought, "well, there's your slutty!" And the fact that I liked the youngest of the three -- at the time, Emma was just 20 years old -- probably was a reflection of the fact that I was in my first year of law school and was hanging around college bars in Athens, Georgia...a city filled with incredibly attractive 18-24 year olds. 

Of course, David Beckham found Victoria Adams a/k/a Posh Spice to be to his liking, and she wasn't bad either. There were times when she appealed to me as well -- I guess those were my "serious" times, right?

Appropriately for a 1990s song, this Legends Series card from Donruss -- rare in its day as being serial numbered to only 10,000! -- caps off the Robin Yount eBay extravaganza. I'm at 919 Yount items with these added in. I doubt I'm getting to 1000 by the end of the year, as was my goal earlier this year. I'd have to find a rich vein of Younts somewhere for that to happen.

All this discussion about the Spice Girls makes me wonder though: could picking out your favorite set from, say, 1996 when that Spice Girls song came out tell us about what kind of collector you are? So, if you were really into that Emotion XL set, does that say you collect emotionally? Or if you thought the best set of 1996 was Stadium Club, does that make you some sort of highbrow? Were King-B Discs sort of the hipster's set of the year?

Tell me -- who was your favorite Spice Girl? Or, are you too young/old to have cared?

I Wanna Baseball All Night

Peter from Baseball Every Night has been extremely generous to me. Hopefully, my latest envelope that was sent to him -- now, for a second time...thanks USPS! -- gets to him so that he can drink in all the Strawberry cards I've sent to him. 

Of course, with the title I've used here, there can only be one theme song for the second batch of cards Peter sent my way last week:

Here's the setup: the past two years, I have come out of the gate rockin' when it comes to collecting the Brewers for the Topps flagship set. By that, I mean that both in 2015 and 2016, I bought into case breaks for Series 1 and ended up with about a dozen of each of the base cards, about a half dozen of any inserts, and even a relic or two. 

By the time Series 2 rolls around, though, I miss it. I don't even notice it. Series 2 sneaks out into the world like the stealthiest of leopards, unleashing itself on an unsuspecting collecting public.

Or, at least unleashing itself on me.

I mean, I think I still need a Jason Rogers from 2015 Series 2 at this point. Seriously. I haven't found one at my local show, and no one has sent me one either. I mean, I'll probably just end up getting it eventually if it doesn't show up, but that is pretty indicative of how Series 2 usually treats me.

Since that first song got me in the mood, how about a KISS-powered post to go with the 2016 Topps Series 2 cards that Peter sent my way?

Perhaps the most appropriate KISS song for the 2016 set -- I'll call it forevermore the "smoke" set -- this song from Animalize (which I owed and may still own on a 33-1/3 RPM record):

Let's go for the basic ones first:

That top card -- the Brewers Team card -- features Ryan Braun giving third base coach Ed Sedar a low five after hitting a homerun and passing third base. I'm now tied up in knots thinking of all of the terrible Passover puns (pass, seder/Sedar...) so I'd best move on.

Ariel Pena lasted one outing with the Brewers this year to start the season before getting sent to pitcher's hell, er, Colorado Springs. Interesting trivia tidbit: Colorado Springs is the highest elevation stadium featuring professional baseball. It's a full quarter mile higher in elevation than Coors Field. The Brewers ended up with a Triple-A team there thanks to the classless organization that is the Nashville Sounds -- which used the Brewers to get a new stadium built then promptly changed affiliations. 

Michael Blazek just returned to the bullpen from the disabled list. He's the rare player who started in St. Louis, left, and got better instead of worse!

Finally, Keon Broxton suffered one of the worst starts to a major league career that I could imagine. He went 0-for-2 last year with Pittsburgh, then went 0-for-16 to start the season this year with Milwaukee. He got sent down on April 16. He came back on May 20, and he went 0 for his next 6 before finally picking up his first major league hit in the 13th inning against the Atlanta Braves on May 25 (and giving Michael Blazek the win). Broxton's big problem so far is making contact. In 71 plate appearances, he has struck out a ridiculous 33 times. That is no way to make a major league career take off.

Okay, we need some help to get through these next cards...

How about a little Cold Gin? 

To be fair -- and I'm sure to the chagrin of at least a couple of you -- I'm not a huge KISS fan. This is probably the first time I've heard this song. It's not awful. It's okay. It's too repetitive in the guitar licks for my taste, though.

Peter sent me a couple of gold parallels as well. Topps has been doing these gold parallels for what -- fifteen or sixteen years? They are okay, I suppose. It's sort of like that guitar in Cold Gin. 

These two cards are of two guys having very different seasons. Jeremy Jeffress wasn't the experts' pick to be the closer this year -- Blazek, perhaps, might have been, or Will Smith, or maybe even Tyler Thornburg. But Jeffress ended up being the guy coming out of spring training almost by default being the only one healthy and pitching well. Lo and behold, as of June 27, Jeffress is in fifth place in the NL with 21 saves in 22 opportunities. Not too shabby.

On the other hand, Wily Peralta has been a train wreck wrapped in a volcano eruption thrown into a hurricane hit by a tornado. He looked like he might be a stud in the making in 2014 as his numbers looked pretty good -- 17-11, 3.53 ERA (4.11 FIP) 9 H/9, 1.0 HR/9, 2.8 BB/9, 7.0 K/9. He was hurt in 2015 and his numbers all went the wrong way -- 10.8 H/9, 1.2 HR/9, 4.84 FIP, 3.1 BB/9 and 5.0 K/9. 

Then, this year...UGLY: 6.68 ERA (5.60 FIP), 13.2 H/9, 1.6 HR/9, 3.7 BB/9 and 5.7 K/9. All of those numbers are terrible. Every single one of them. It has a lot of folks in the Brewers organization scratching their heads. It also is likely to end up with Wily getting non-tendered, joining the Cardinals, and winning the Cy Young in 2019.

I need a pick me up now.

  

At least it is an uptempo song. The more I listen to old KISS, the less I like it, to be honest. I know -- sacrilege, right? But the music is kind of...mediocre. Sorry guys and gals who have devoted your lives to KISS -- basically they are an average band with a great gimmick.

I'm probably wrong about that, so please -- attack me at will for that comment in the comments below. 

Speaking of repetitive and mediocre, I sure am glad that we have our 948th version of Robin Yount's rookie card making an appearance in the Berger's Best/Cards your Mom Threw Out/whatever the excuse is this year insert set. I think the real reason this is in the Series 2 inserts is to make up for the typo in Series 1 which said this card was from 1974. 

Of course, it also said that the mini 1974 version was highly sought after. And that is so true. I am still looking for it.

Peter -- thank you again for the great cards, and I hope that KISS isn't one of your favorite bands since all I've done here is call them average, mediocre, repetitive, and gimmicky.

Then again, I'm a baseball card blogger. What do I know about gimmicky or being repetitive?  

Meet the Brewers #28: Hank Allen

As the 1970 season progressed, GM Marvin Milkes turned the team over and over and over again. It is unclear if Milkes was instructed to eliminate virtually any reference to the Brewers' past as the Seattle Pilots, if he thought he was improving the team, or if he mistook activity for improvement. From the contemporaneous stories from The Sporting News (which I now have available due to reactivating my membership in SABR), Milkes probably thought he was improving things but the reality is closer to the latter of those three.

One of the men who cycled through Milwaukee in those activity-filled days of May in 1970 joined the team thanks to a trade on May 10. The Ted Williams-managed Washington Senators were in Milwaukee for a three game series played in two days over the weekend of May 9 and 10. The Senators lost all three games in walk-off fashion. 

Midway through the second game of the Sunday doubleheader, the Brewers traded outfielder Wayne Comer to the Senators for infielder Ron Theobald and Brewer #28, Hank Allen. Comer was informed of the trade when he came back to the clubhouse during that second game and found his locker -- except for his street clothes -- had been cleaned out. He later went into the game for Milwaukee and grounded out before joining his new Washington Senator teammates. 

1994 Miller Brewing Milwaukee Brewers

Harold Andrew Allen was born in Wampum, Pennsylvania, on July 23, 1940. Allen was one of nine children and was the oldest of the three Allen brothers who played major league baseball. Of the three, Hank was the second-most well-known by far after his younger brother, 1964 Rookie of the Year and 1972 AL MVP Dick/Richie Allen. The youngest of the three -- Ron Allen -- was the least accomplished, receiving only 14 plate appearances as a St. Louis Cardinal in 1972. Ron's only hit in the majors, though, was a home run!

Both Dick and Hank started their careers at Elmira in 1960 in the Phillies organization. The Phillies in the 1960s were not known as a racially progressive organization, and it took being a superstar to get noticed. Thus, Dick moved up quickly and made the major leagues at the age of 21 in 1963. Hank, on the other hand, was not quite as good as Dick and moved up more slowly. Indeed, it took having his contract purchased from Philadelphia by the Washington Senators for him to make the big leagues.

Hank was never a great hitter in the major leagues, but he was good enough to hang around the fringes of the majors from 1966 through 1973 (with a year off in 1971 in which he only played 13 games in Triple A in the Atlanta Braves system before being released). He hit .241/.281/.312 in the major leagues in 938 plate appearances with just 6 homers.

In 1970, he lasted for just over a month as a Milwaukee Brewer prior to being sent to the minor leagues. In that month, he got 14 starts and hit .246/.317/.316. For reasons that are not clear to me, Allen was sent to Triple-A Rochester in the Orioles system in 1970 -- was he on loan? He went to Rochester apparently as part of the Brewers' trade with the O's to receive Dave May, but he was not a part of the trade. Weird. He got a September call-up from Milwaukee, but then was traded to the Braves.

After the 1971 year off, Hank signed in September of 1972 with the Chicago White Sox. Perhaps the Sox made that move to placate their MVP Dick Allen. Hank retired after the 1973 season.

Since his retirement, Hank has had two different lives. For part of the early 2000s, he served as a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers and, later, for the Houston Astros. However, he has had a more high profile -- and perhaps unexpected -- career in another field: thoroughbred training. 

Brother Dick owned some horses while both were in Chicago, so Hank went to Arlington Park to check them out after his brother prodded him to do so. Intrigued, Hank met the then-ninety-plus year-old African-American trainer Nathan Cantrell and asked him to teach him his trade. Hank made brother Ron his stable foreman, and then turned horses into the way he made his living -- and did extremely well. Indeed, in 1989, Hank became the first black trainer since 1911 to saddle a horse in the Kentucky Derby when his horse Northern Wolf finished sixth behind winner Sunday Silence. 

After getting back in baseball for a little while after a bad 1998 (0 wins in 10 starts), though, Hank went back to the horses earlier this decade. In 2013, he trained a horse called Blessed Soul and entered her into a few races at Laurel Park in Maryland.

Apropos of that, here's a video of Blessed Soul training:

Thanks to his very short career with the Brewers, and as best I can tell, that 1994 Miller Brewing Commemorative card above is the only card of Hank Allen as a Milwaukee Brewer. No matter -- his story in horse racing is far more interesting!

Musical Dodgers, Accompanied by Brewers

Everyone knows Jim as the creative force behind Garvey Cey Russell Lopes, Timeless Teams, Oh My O-Pee-Chee, and, now Frankendodger. Jim's understated style and writing is a true credit to his favorite team, the Dodgers. 

On the other hand, it seems that the Dodgers have spawned some truly, well, interesting  songs as tributes to the Dodgers. I did a little poking around on YouTube and found a few fan songs. I don't know how to describe them adequately -- words are entirely insufficient. You have to listen to these to truly appreciate them. Thankfully, there are enough songs for me to use to show off the cards that Jim sent to me.

1.  Danny Kaye -- "D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song"

Danny Kaye's old song about the Dodgers came out of his love for the team -- having been born and raised in Brooklyn and later moving to Los Angeles to become a star. You have to be at least in your late thirties to have any recollection of Danny Kaye as an entertainer, since he passed away in 1987. 

Kaye, though, was a lifelong baseball fan who was a part-owner of the Seattle Mariners for its first five years of existence and who would, from time to time, travel with the Dodgers and his old pal Leo Durocher.

Let's start appropriately old school to accompany that song. I know that I should have saved that fantastic Lou [sic] Burdette and Bobby Shantz card for last. I love how Shantz looks like he is about 12 years old next to 1957 World Series hero Burdette. Considering that Shantz stood just 5'6" tall and, according to Baseball Reference, weighed just 139 pounds while Burdette was a strapping 6'2" tall, that size difference is just about right. Incidentally, Shantz is still with us and will turn 91 years old in September.

The two Spahns are from 1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes set. I needed both and actually still need both again for my Milwaukee Braves collection. That team collection is where the Mathews card will go.

2. DJ Felli Fel f/Ice Cube, Tyga, & Ty Dolla $ign -- "Dodgers"

DJ Felli Fel name checks about the entire 2013 team, front office, announcers, and most of the first three rows of Dodger stadium in this hip hop tribute. Did you hear, by the way, that the 2013 Dodgers started from the bottom?

Listen to the song and you might hear that.



Apropos of starting from the bottom, it's your 2016 Milwaukee Brewers stickers! I am as much of a proponent of having a simple set as anyone. But, somehow, I never see any of the "modern" stickers -- say, the last 3-5 years -- really show up on blogs. I guess either people are not proud that they have these Topps stickers in their collection, or literally no one actually collects these stickers.

Thoughts?

3. Becky G -- "Dodger Blue"




Becky G is an attractive woman -- almost a girl, really, in that she is barely 19 years old. In the past, she has collaborated with Pitbull and she has even gotten a CoverGirl contract beginning in July 2014. 

None of that happened thanks to this song. Lyrically, it's horrendous. Musically, it sounds like what it is -- a teenager trying to sound cool or tough. God this is terrible. 



The only thing that Jim sent my way that really deserves to be paired with that execrable song is Gary Sheffield. His time in Milwaukee was a trainwreck that ended with a 50-game 1991 season in which he slashed .194/.277/.320. He was traded to San Diego and promptly led the National League in batting average in 1992. He later played a little over 3-1/2 seasons for the Dodgers after coming to LA as part of the trade that sent Mike Piazza to the Marlins. 

4. "Dodgers Fight Song"

Holy crap -- is that Mr. T as Max Headroom? Bloody hell, as the Brits would say -- that is absolutely awful too.  Let's try something else....

Ozomatli -- "Can't Stop the Blue"

At least that video by Ozomatli doesn't cause epileptic seizures. This song is actually much more of a funk song than it is anything else. That makes it eminently more acceptable to my ears than that previous ... "song".

Dodgers fans, did either of these songs ever get any airtime in the stadium?

Let's get things back on track with an oddball, a parallel, and the logoless. That Ryan Braun is from 2016 Donruss, while the Lucroy is my first Diamond King card from this year. I do like the canvas feel that the Diamond King cards have, and the artwork on the cards is top notch. Diamond Kings hide the licensing issues much better than Donruss does.

The Yount is the 1992 Cracker Jack Donruss card. Importantly, it is a different photo from the one used on his regular Donruss card. If Topps did these today, you know damn well that they would recycle the same photo from the flagship set -- those photos are expensive after all, and collectors don't deserve anything "new"!

5. "Los Angeles Dodgers 2013 - We Own the West"

This is just a fan video of photos/clips set to a Dropkick Murphys song. Why the Dropkick Murphys, though? I don't get it. The Murphys are as Boston as Boston can be. I understand it's the theme, but couldn't they find a song by someone not so clearly associated with another city?

Of course, it's still a great song, and this person put a ton of work into this video. If you're a Dodger fan wanting to get fired up about some recent nostalgia, this is the video to watch.

Recent nostalgia for Brewers fans has been hard to come by in many respects. Trading Khris Davis away was a good move for the team, since in return the Brewers got a real live catching prospect in Jacob Nottingham. 

Trent Clark was the fifteenth pick overall in 2015. He's struggling a little bit this year as he is a 19-year-old playing in the Midwest League, but his batting eye and approach is top notch. Through 113 plate appearances so far this year, he's slashing .217/.357/.380 (yes, that .217 is correct -- 20 hits in 92 at bats, but 20 walks, 8 doubles, 2 triples, and a home run are in there too). It's very early in his development, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him making his Milwaukee debut at the age of 22 in 2019. 

6. "Dodgers Fan Song"

This song isn't bad. It's not great, either. There is something very generic about it...it really seems like the intent of this song was not to get fired up so much as it was not to offend anyone. No smack talk. No name checks. It's really cliche-filled nothingness to me.

It's like it's meant to appeal to a 55-year-old woman living in Simi Valley. And, judging solely by the look of the posting account, that might be exactly who wrote the song.

Not that there is anything wrong with being a suburban housewife.



These early 2000s Topps cards have much the same feel to me. Generic. Well, they are less generic looking than the cards from 2010-2014 that Topps put out -- what with that ubiquitous white border every year and all -- but these cards do not appear to be anything about which someone will wax nostalgic. 

At least I won't.

Jim -- thank you very much for the great cards you sent my way. I hope my critique of Dodgers fan songs from YouTube led to some laughs for you.

You won't Believe What I Bought on eBay -- #4 will Shock You!

Clickbait is everywhere on the internet. It's on the bottom or in the margin on nearly every website -- everywhere from the tabloids where you'd expect to see them to reputable news websites. A number of websites -- like this one -- have even popped up to allow you to generate your own Clickbait Headlines. 

So, the next time you see my blog have the headline of "The Anakin Skywalker of Baseball Cards" or "Baseball Cards: If my tips don't make you money, I'll shave my head," you'll know that my blog got taken over by a clickbait site.

I have done a bit of shopping on eBay recently, though, and I did want to show off those purchases.

1.  1987 Sportflics Team Preview

What a nightmare this card is. I say that for a couple of reasons. The card was sold only to dealers in 1987 as part of a set. That doesn't mean that there are limited quantities necessarily, but in practice they are reasonably difficult to find. 

More importantly, as a player collector and thanks to the Sportflics "Magic Motion," this card contains photos of six different player collections. So, to have a "complete" collection, I feel as if I need seven of these -- one for each of the Rob Deer, Teddy Higuera, Paul Molitor, Dan Plesac, B.J. Surhoff, and Robin Yount player collections as well as one for the team set. 

If this were a 1987 Topps card, it wouldn't be so bad. But, it's Sportflics. Nobody bought these things. It's like Alice Cooper wearing the red protective cup on the outside of his leather pants in this video -- totally unnecessary and totally ridiculous.

So, this one goes into my Yount collection, which has inched up to 912 different cards/items. The next one I find goes in Molitor's collection.

2.  Jonathan Lucroy 2016 Topps Archives Blue Parallel and Base Card

I bought these two from box breaker extraordinaire Brent Williams. Usually, all of Brent's Brewers end up going to another Brewers collector -- a guy out of Texas who is a big Ryan Braun fan -- so either Brent got two of these or that other guy just didn't want Lucroy. I'd be upset with that whole set up if the Texas guy wasn't such a good dude. 

Anyway, I told Brent via Twitter that I'd pay what he was asking for the Lucroy if he'd throw in a base card, figuring Brent would have a few extra. He agreed to it and threw in the base card. 

I am on record saying that I really like this design for the Archives set this year. Topps seems to have put a little bit more work into it by selecting photos that wouldn't look out of place in the 1979 set. 

That song is over 20 years old.  Just saying.

To be honest, though, Lucroy's card would be a little out of place in the 1979 Topps Set. Only seven of the twenty-five Brewers cards in the Topps set that year (not counting the team card or the prospects card) featured the Brewers in their home whites. Most of the others appear to have been taken in Yankee Stadium or spring training. 

Still, I give Topps credit here for doing well with the 1979 portion of Archives.

3.  A 9-card lot of 1975 Brewers Topps Minis



I started looking recently for little lots like this one to fill in gaps in my collection. Sales like that Red Foley sticker collection spurred my thoughts toward trying to find sellers selling several cards like these as a lot rather than individually. All of these are in at least good/very good condition, and there are a few sharp corners as well. 

1975. What a great year in baseball cards.

Plus, I got to add to my player collection of both Jim Slaton (now at 52 cards/items) and Gorman Thomas (now at 61 cards/items) since I already had that Charlie Moore.

4.  1979 Open Pantry/Lake to Lake Milwaukee Set



I'm not quite sure how I missed this set before. In the early part of 1979, the local Open Pantry convenience stores -- which, in Milwaukee, have always been on the south side of town (other than a former location in Oshkosh) -- had a promotion with Lake to Lake Dairies to raise money for the MACC Fund (MACC stands for "Milwaukee Athletes against Childhood Cancer"). The back of the Cecil Cooper card below has the whole deal.

Probably the most interesting to me only thing about this set is the breakdown of Packers, Bucks, and Brewers in the set. There are only two Packers -- Rich McGeorge and Steve Wagner -- the set while there are five members of the Milwaukee Bucks. McGeorge is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame for his career at NAIA Elon, and he went through difficult times battling alcohol abuse. 

Wagner was included, I think, because he was a local boy who attended the University of Wisconsin. He was always a fringe/special teams type player, and he complained a couple of years after leaving Green Bay about how Bart Starr as a coach was a terrible man-manager.

These days, there might be one or two of the Bucks in the set and probably only two Brewers too. The Packers would certainly dominate the numbers. The late 1970s, though, were the dark days. Quarterback Lynn Dickey was hurt regularly, James Lofton had gotten upset and flipped off his own fans, and the team was terrible. In 1979, for instance, the team finished 5-11. It took another 14 years -- 1993 -- for the Packers to begin their run of success that has continued for most of the past 23 seasons.

To end this post, I'll give you a little trivia -- the Packers were the first NFL team with their own fight song. This song was first played at a game in 1931.

Thanks for reading -- more eBay wins and more trade posts are on the way!