Christian Yelich, Card #1

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to start collecting Christian Yelich cards showing him on the Brewers. Yelich is 26 years old, having turned that age last December 5. Yelich is the kind of player that the Brewers should be building around -- young but experienced with a good batting eye.

On his trade, Topps issued a Topps Now card for him. The Yelich card only had a print run of 177 cards, so hopefully the guys from whom I bought the card for $5.50 bought 20 of the cards at $3.99 a card to maximize their profits. Let's take a look:

After two years of complaining about ToppsNow ignoring the Brewers, I've come to the conclusion that I'd prefer that Topps continue ignoring the Brewers. If over 2,800 people/Yankees fans want to get a Giancarlo Stanton card about a press conference, I mean, let Topps play P.T. Barnum with those people and take them for their $4 to $10 a card accordingly.

So, now that I have a Christian Yelich card for my Yelich collection, let's learn a little bit about the newest Brewer.

1.  Christian Yelich was NOT always considered a top prospect. 

When Yelich was first evaluated by Perfect Game, he was rated during his junior year of high school as a 7.5 -- somewhere between being a "College prospect, possible future draft pick with development" and "Potential draft pick and/or excellent college prospect." At his national showcase in mid-2008, however, he was bumped up to being a 9.5. That put him just shy of being a potential very high draft pick and/or elite level college prospect" and above being a potential top 10 round pick. He eventually signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Miami over UCLA despite having given his verbal commitment to UCLA.

2.  Yelich probably likes rap music.

I know -- going out on a limb saying that a suburban-born-and-raised white kid likes rap, right? But, going by the MLB Plate Music website, Yelich used Drake's "Cameras/Good Ones Go" in 2015:

In 2016, he changed (or perhaps added) a song by Future called "Fly Shit Only" as another walkup song:

Apparently, in 2017, he went back to "Cameras" for his music -- at least according to MusicBoxPete.com, that is.

Now, to throw you a curve, a Reddit post from 2016 had a poster saying that Yelich had "Take It Outside" by Brantley Gilbert. 

I don't know if that is true. Based on the video, it could very well be true because Yelich has a brother in the Marines. If it is, it gives me a Georgia tie since Gilbert is from Jefferson, Georgia, which is just north of Athens.

3. Many people think Yelich looks like SNL's Pete Davidson.

Maybe so. See the AP photo below. What do you think?

The Marlins took it so far in 2015 as to have Davidson come in to Miami and take batting practice and fly balls with Yelich's jersey on. 

Maybe that is the reason that Yelich wanted out of Miami as much as he did?

4.  Yelich's Grandfather is Japanese. Maybe?

The rather poor Google translation of this link says that he is "Japanese-affiliated." That got put on Wikipedia as his grandfather being Japanese. Kenny, you read Japanese: What does this all say:

5. Yelich hangs out with Baker Mayfield sometimes.

Twitter is a great look into the real lives of baseball players from time to time. If we had had Twitter in the days of Gorman Thomas and Pete Vuckovich carousing around Milwaukee and engaging in unsavory behavior, might we have a different view of them today than we do?

Okay, probably bad examples to use.

Anyway, last week, these two photos got tweeted into my timeline somehow. On the left in both photos is Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield -- last seen in Pasadena being informed wisely by Davin Bellamy to "Humble himself"...well, I have to put that video up...

Anyway, getting back to Baker...he tweeted out that his "dude Christian Yelich made an upgrade to the Brewers so naturally [he] had to get some custom gear ordered." The photos he tweeted out are below.

Weirdly, some Brewers fans on Reddit did not appreciate me saying that Mayfield's other sweatshirt says, "Property of Roquan Smith."

So, that's a little bit about Christian Yelich, along with my first Yelich Brewers card. I'm thinking that my next Yelich card probably will end up being another Topps Now card -- it will take Topps at least until midyear to catch up with this move because it always does.

No problem though -- I look forward to the first Yelich walk-off win.

Thanks for stopping by and, if you know Japanese, if one of you could confirm the whole Japanese lineage thing that Yelich has going on, that would be cool too.