Happy (Belated) Birthday, Robin Yount!

All humans go through slumps. The only question is how the slump manifests itself. 

I get into slumps where I just don't feel like writing. I was in that slump most of this past week. Even at work, writing was extremely difficult for me. The words did not flow. The thoughts did not flow, and they were jumbled. 

Yesterday, though, things cleared up a bit. I was able to focus a bit more and I got things done. I don't know if it was just a little "end of week" focus or something else, but things were clicking. The other thing yesterday, though, was that my wife and I had a "hang out" night last night -- catching up on some TV shows together, playing a little backgammon, talking, listening to music, and drinking a little wine too. 

So, this post should have been made yesterday -- on the day of Robin Yount's 61st birthday -- rather than today. 

Better late than never.

It is difficult to state or even overstate how important Robin Yount was and still is in Milwaukee Brewers history. While Hank Aaron and Rollie Fingers were enshrined in the Hall of Fame before Yount, Yount was the first player to wear a Brewers hat on his plaque. 

When he retired suddenly at the beginning of the 1994 season, it caught Milwaukee as a city -- and probably as an organization -- by surprise. It led off the local news, of course, giving such cringeworthy coverage as this:

In honor of Yount's 61st birthday, though, I thought I'd pick out a few of my favorite Robin Yount cards from my collection, in no particular order.

1975 Hostess

I love oddballs. At some point, I may decide to try to collect complete sets of the Hostess cards, even as difficult as that may be, thanks to this love for oddballs. 

This card makes my "favorites" list for a couple of reasons. First, my love of oddballs meant that at least one (and actually more) would make this list. 

Second, thanks to the continual reprinting/reusing of the 1975 Topps version of Robin's rookie card by Topps -- seeing as it appears in nearly every throwback excuse set that Topps prints -- I'm actually kind of tired of that photo and that card. It is an iconic card, but even icons can lose meaning if they are everywhere. I appreciate the fact that Robin keeps getting cards, but I don't appreciate the laziness that pervades Robin's getting cards from Topps.

But I complain too much about Topps, apparently.

2015 Baseball Card Breakdown Cardsphere Heroes

By now, most people in the blog world know about the prowess that Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown has with making custom cards. This photo is such a favorite of mine that it is my avatar on Blogger and on Twitter. 

I've already mentioned all the emotions I had on the day on which this picture was taken (the welcome home parade after the Brewers lost the 1982 World Series), and I've already called this my favorite custom card in Post #500. So, including this one in my list of favorite Yount cards was a natural move.

1983 West Bend Police Department

It wouldn't be a favorite card list from me of anyone who played in the 1980s without including a card from a police department. West Bend is the bigger city closest to where I grew up -- where city means, "more than 15,000 people", that is. As a kid, I literally would spend days near my house on my bike watching for police cars to go by and hope that they would have to stop at a stop sign near where I was so I could flag them down and get baseball cards. 

What can I say -- it was 1983, I could only play so much Atari before my thumbs and wrists got sore, and I was an addicted card collector.

I can't remember at this point if this is a card I got myself back in the 1980s or if I bought this on eBay. It doesn't matter.

2016 Topps Allen & Ginter

Looking through all my scanned cards, I have a bunch of Yount relics, a few autographs, and a ton of inserts and base set cards of Yount from after his playing career. For whatever reason, this one really grabbed me today. It's a different photo from the usual ones Topps seems to use regularly, so that helps. The artwork is well done here also. 

To be honest, if I did a list like this tomorrow, this card might not make the cut. But, today it did.

1983(?) O'Connell & Sons Ink

And finally, another oddball. The art quality on this one is not very good -- the drawing is pretty amateurish (even if it is far better than I could do). The reason I like this one is that chasing it down was about an 18-month obsession for me when I first got back into collecting. I searched and searched and searched, and then one showed up on COMC for a reasonable price about a year ago. I snapped it up immediately.

It seems strange that Robin Yount is now 61 years old. I mean, he's not supposed to age and get old because if he does then there is no hope for me.

Then again, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would already agree that there's no hope for me -- after all, I'm a Brewers fan.

Happy birthday, Rockin' Robin!