Night Owl Sent Me Cards

During my recent work-imposed blogging break, I've still been able to sneak on Twitter for a few minutes here and there. About the only thing I have had time for doing other than liking and retweeting some posts here and there has been to try to remember to post a song for the 30 Day Music Challenge, which came to my attention thanks to erstwhile baseball card blogger Marcus:

As you can see, these categories provide a way for us musicophiles to dig into the recesses of our brains for songs that we may have forgotten, or which may be in the front of our minds or, even for songs on Google that we have no idea came out during the year of our birth. As an aside, that last category provided a strange confluence for me in that I had no idea that The Doors "Riders on the Storm" came out the same year as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". The Doors seem so very 1960s, and Zeppelin is the epitome of 70s metal to me...for them to overlap in 1971 is interesting.

Every so often, Night Owl will reply to my post with a song of his own. Since I could use some good music today, let's look at the cards that Night Owl sent me around the beginning of February highlighted by his musical responses.

1.  A Song that is a cover by another artist: 
"Take Me to the River" by the Talking Heads

I have to admit that I did not realize that this was a cover song. In fact, until now, I did not have the opportunity to look for the original song that the Talking Heads were covering. Then, thanks to YouTube, I found it:

Thing is, both versions are just excellent in their own ways. Al Green's version is a horn-driven funk tune that I almost certainly would have enjoyed playing in jazz ensemble back in high school. 

The Talking Heads version is slower and is driven more by the bass line and keyboards. It is the same and yet entirely different. Add in David Byrne's completely different vocal interpretation, and you get a classic of an entirely different breed.

Speaking of classics of an entirely different breed, Night Owl sent me some great cards from the early and mid-1970s. Those days in Brewers history were pivotal in that the drafts from those years helped build the teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and some of the players on those teams started showing up in the big leagues -- such as the 21-year-old Jim Slaton on that high-number 1972 Topps card that is impossible to find at a reasonable price anywhere...unless, of course, Night Owl happens to have an extra and sends it to you.

All of these were cards that were significant upgrades on condition to the ones I had in my collection already. More importantly, these cards are an excellent reminder that porkchop sideburns rocked in the 1970s.

2. A song to play at one's wedding: 

"Groove is in the Heart" by Deee-Lite

This probably gives us more insight as to the date that Night Owl was married more than it tells us what music he'd prefer to hear. At least that is what I am guessing. This song was literally ubiquitous in 1990. You could not go to a dance club or turn on Top 40 radio without hearing this song and having every woman/girl in earshot digging in and dancing their hearts out.

For my song, I selected "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol because that was my wife and my first dance song at our wedding. We cut it off at the part where it got more upbeat than would otherwise support a slower dance, but it still is "our" song.

That Ben Sheets card took me a bit by surprise. Again, since I was not collecting at the time when it was issued, I did not realize that Topps's folks apparently decided to trade Sheets to the Padres without the Brewers or the Padres having any knowledge of such a trade taking place. As best I can tell, this also was not one of those situations where Topps was echoing an error that actually occurred in the original set being mimicked (here the 1958 Topps, which has tons of variations). Nope, just a straight up "small markets don't care" as best I can tell.

Boy, if I had been collecting in 2007, I'd have been as upset about that as I get about the Brewers having three cards in the Opening Day set.

3. Name a Favorite 70s song: 

"Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder

Night Owl is a few years older than me. Not many, mind you, but when it comes to memories of pop culture, those years get to be important. I'm a child of the 1980s for sure -- I turned 9 years old in 1980 and graduated high school in 1990. Night Owl is a child of the 1970s. No doubt about it. 

I say that because my favorite 1970s songs tend to be songs that I did not hear until much later after they were released. I don't have a ton of contemporary knowledge. Night Owl, on the other hand, replied to my choice of "Clash City Rockers" by saying he could pick a different 70s song for literally every day of the year but settled on this one. 

I hate to admit it, but this is the first time I have listed to this song. It's a solid, straight ahead Stevie Wonder song. My memories of Stevie revolve around the soft-rock pablum of "I Just Called To Say I Love You." That song got overplayed so badly that I just can't listen to it anymore. 

On the other hand, this melange of 2016 Archives Gary Carter (wrong logo, Topps...it was just the team name in 1991...), 1989 O-Pee-Chee of Dale Sveum (whose career was inexorably altered in 1989 by a collision on a popup which broke his leg), a 2008 Topps Update Salomon Torres (who finished his career in MIlwaukee with 80 decent innings in 2008), and two 2008 Topps Chrome cards. 

As was the case with the Warren Spahn card yesterday, I always appreciate it when someone sends me a Gary Carter card. Carter was my first real player collection in the 1980s, and I still enjoy getting his cards for my collection.

4. A Song from Night Owl's Preteen Years

"Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band

I selected "Blue Bayou" by Linda Ronstadt, but this one was right up there for me too. The song was released in April 1976, and it was still getting airplay well into 1977 in Wisconsin. That, or its catchy chorus got stuck in my head as a 4-year-old. That's possible too.

It took many years after that for me to realize what this song is really about. One commenter on YouTube wrapped it up well, though: as Melo Fran said, "At the time we thought this song was soooo racy lol!!!!! Now it looks like a bunch of nerds ..."

These cards are kind of nerdy too. But I like them anyway. 

Someday soon, after I get done putting my Topps parallels, inserts, and oddballs binders together (I've made it to 2004...only 13 more years to go!), I'll get started with the cataloguing and bindering of the Brewers minor league sets. 

Before that, though, I can tell you that Mike Grayson, unfortunately, passed away in May of 2016 in Tampa at the age of just 48 years old. His obituary said his passions were baseball and music -- playing in 1988 and 1989 in the Brewers system and being a wedding DJ. He died from a brain aneurysm, so that allowed his organs to be removed to help others get a second chance at life. The outpouring of love on his Legacy.com page really touched me too. Guys like him are common throughout the minor leagues, yet each has a life that goes beyond baseball.

Maybe we should crowd source a "30-day baseball card challenge"...

Meet the Brewers #36: Dave May

In this series of biographies, I've talked a number of times about how Marvin Milkes seemingly started making moves simply for the sake of making them. Just like the cliched "blind squirrel," it seemed inevitable that Milkes would make a decent move eventually. Perhaps that move came on June 15, while the team was in Baltimore, when, at the trade deadline, Milkes sent minor league pitchers Dick Baney and Buzz Stephen (both of whom had pitched in the majors before) to the Orioles in exchange for Brewer #36, Dave May. The Brewers also optioned outfielder Hank Allen to Baltimore's Triple-A Rochester team on some sort of loan deal.

1971 Topps

David LaFrance May was born in New Castle, Delaware, on December 23, 1943. His parents had nine children in total, and Dave was the fourth. May signed two contracts to play major league baseball -- one with San Francisco and one with Philadelphia. He became a Giant because the Giants were the first to get their contract to MLB. He did not stay in the Giants system for long because the Orioles snapped him up in the old "first-year draft," which allowed teams to draft minor leaguers away from other teams after just one season -- a 249 plate appearance season in the Appalachian League where he hit .379/.457/.561.

1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp

May moved up in the Orioles system fairly quickly thanks to his hitting ability, and he made his major league debut in 1967 at the age of 23. The problem for May was that he was with a team that had the outfield covered quite well already with 23-year-olds Curt Blefary and Paul Blair in left and center and future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in right. As a result, in 1967 and 1968, May was on the Rochester/Baltimore shuttle, splitting time both years between Triple-A and the majors. 

1972 Topps

May's offense suffered, though, as an Oriole. He was not getting to start many games in the field and was used mainly as a pinch-hitter. As May said in The Sporting News when talking about his trade to Milwaukee, "It was tough playing for the Orioles because when you weren't in there every day, it was hard to get into a groove." Indeed, in the first two-and-a-half months of 1970 before his trade, May had started only two games of his 25 appearances.

1973 Topps

Freed from the Orioles at the age of 26, May was inserted immediately into the Brewers' starting lineup in centerfield. In Milwaukee, May was at home in many respects. He was an All-Star in 1973, which was his best season by far -- he led the American League in total bases and Win Probability Added. Part of that season left its imprint on the Brewers team record book as he hit safely in 24 consecutive games. That streak stayed on the books as the Brewers best until Paul Molitor's 39-game hitting streak in 1987.

1974 Topps

May struggled in 1974. He had the flu in spring training and may not have been right the whole year. It didn't help that Del Crandall decided to move May to right field, ostensibly to help May out after losing weight thanks to the flu. But he never broke out of the season-long funk. As a result, the team decided to trade him away, and May became the answer to a trivia question: Who was the player that the Atlanta Braves received when they traded Hank Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers?

1974 Kellogg's

May later was traded two years later by the Braves to the Texas Rangers. The Braves sent May, Adrian Devine, Ken Henderson, Roger Moret, Carl Morton, and $250,000 to the Rangers for 25-year-old Jeff Burroughs. Dave spent one year and a month in Texas before he came back to the Brewers in May of 1978. May was nothing more than a bench player behind Larry Hisle, Ben Oglivie, Sixto Lezcano, Jim Wohlford, and Dick Davis -- yes, the team carried six outfielders then -- and ended up having his contract sold to the Pirates in September of that year.

1974 Topps Stamp

By that point, though, May had left his mark on the team record book for the first decade of its existence. Just look at this "team top 10" list from the 1980 Media Guide:

May was 4th in games, 4th in at bats, 4th in runs, 5th in hits, 6th in doubles, 6th in homers, 6th in RBI, 7th in extra base hits, 5th in total bases, and 5th in stolen bases. Yet, in the popularity contest that was the selection process for the 2000 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Brewers All Decades Team for the 1970s, May was overlooked in favor of Larry Hisle, Sixto Lezcano, Gorman Thomas, Hank Aaron, and Tommy Harper. Of those, Aaron was more of a sentimental choice than one actually based on production for the team, and Hisle probably made the team solely due to his being the first big-name free agent to sign with Milwaukee. May deserved better.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

Dave passed away in October of 2012 at the age of 68. He suffered from diabetes for the last decade of his life after he moved back home to Delaware. May's son Derrick also played in the major leagues in the 1990s, spending 32 games with the club in 1995. 

Just before Father's Day in 2014, Derrick and his older brother David Jr. talked with each other in the form of a wonderful blog post about growing up with dad being a major leaguer on a website called Instream Sports. Derrick and David Jr. were a little more than a year apart in age, so they were partners in crime often. They played catch with the ball that Dave had gotten signed by the entire 1973 AL All-Star Team -- scuffing it up and getting grass stains on it. 

Derrick laughed about riding his bike to the White Hen Pantry and buying Bazooka and Topps baseball cards before going to the games with their dad in Milwaukee. Derrick also recalled one of their early neighbors in an apartment complex in Milwaukee where a lot of pro athletes lived. Their neighbor Lew was a little younger than Dave was, but Dave and Lew became fast friends. Then one day, the boys were told that Lew was no longer Lew -- that he had changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Dave May has 18 cards in the Trading Card Database showing him as a Milwaukee Brewer. I have the 8 shown here. I do not have the two Brewers picture packs from 1970 and 1971, any of his three O-Pee-Chee cards, the 1972 Topps Venezuelan Stamp, the 1973 Jewel Foods photo card, the 1973-74 Linnett Portrait, the 1974 Topps Deckle Edge, or his 1986 TCMA All-Time Milwaukee Brewers card.

Card Show Purchases, Part 2 -- Glorious Vintage Pickups

Yesterday, I talked about my bargain bin shopping at the first table I stopped at.  Go ahead -- read the post. I'll wait.

If you're impatient and don't want to read yesterday's news, well, don't worry, I'll fill you in on the key details.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I went back to that same dealer's table later in the day.  When I went back, I was intending on more "dumpster diving" in those $1 bins.  I didn't get to do that, though, because by the time I went back the table owner had switched out his bins for his high-end items -- including a Life magazine from 1962 with the Post Cereal card insert with both Mantle and Maris on it...and I'm wishing I had bought that today.  His bottom line on it was $75, which was the starting bid in a higher end online auctions a few years ago.

I don't collect Mantle or Maris or Life magazines or even Post Cereal cards though, so that item was pretty well lost on me, I think.

More my speed was the fact that this dealer also had added about 6 of those 5000-card monster boxes of cards.  Those boxes had a sheet which said that the cards were 25 cents each, but if you got to 200 cards, it would be $20 and each card after that would be a dime as well.  So, basically, once you got to 80 cards, your next 120 cards were free.

Next to those monster boxes, he had a smaller box -- probably a 1000-card box -- filled with baseball and football cards from 1971 through 1975 with a few older baseball cards thrown in.  That's the box from which my purchases today came.

You guys are all aware that I'm a Brewers collector.  Yet, as I got into the range of 150 cards in my stack, I tired of looking through more recent cards (which I'll post later this week) and decided to pull a bunch of these older cards to finish out my 200.  Here's a sampling of what I got:

I picked up the one 1960 Topps card I found:

Those corners are almost sharp.  Seriously, no creases, no scratching, and no abrasions on a 54-year old card pulled from a dime box.  I'll take it.

From 1965 Topps, I picked up a couple of Milwaukee Braves for the complete base set of Topps and Bowman of the Milwaukee Braves (yes, ugh, Aaron rookie....$$$$$$$) I hope to build:

Santos -- a.k.a Sandy -- Alomar Sr.

 

Then, a preview of next year's Topps Heritage set thanks to six New York Yankees cards from the 1966 Topps set I found next to one another in the box:

Yes, more headshots without hats and guys with their hands balled up in their gloves for next year's photos are in store.

There were a fair amount of 1971 Topps in the box, but I only grabbed two of them -- a Ted Kubiak card for my Brewers team set and this little gem:

Similarly, I didn't find a lot of 1972 Topps that I grabbed -- nothing for the Brewers I need, for instance -- but I did pick up these four cards:

The only card of those four with any serious condition issues is that 1971 N.L Pitching Leaders card with three Hall of Famers and Al Downing on it.  That issue is writing on the card, but it's still a really attractive card for a dime.  And, I believe I am correct in saying that the LaRussa card is his only card as a player, so picking up a Hall of Famer for 10 cents isn't too bad either.

(EDIT: Oops, I was thinking of Bobby Cox having only one card.  Tony the Russian has two other cards.)

The box had a lot of 1973 and 1974 Topps in it.  The more I see both of these sets, the more I am thinking about putting them together.  I found one Brewer card from 1973 that I needed -- card #212, Joe Lahoud. But I found a couple of great cards from guys that I am collecting as Brewers-only player collections:

In addition to these two cards, I also picked up these cards from this box:

This one goes into my Eddie Mathews player collection.

It's fun picking up Hall of Famers on 41-year-old cards for a dime, as Eddie Mathews, Jim Palmer, Jim Hunter, and Ernie Banks display to great effect (even if seeing Jim Palmer in a pool float is a bit weird).  And seeing Popeye Zimmer in mustard and brown after so many years of him in Yankee pinstripes and Red Sox whites is a bit jarring but fun.

The big stash, though, came from 1974.  I picked up the unnumbered green team checklist for the Brewers along with George Scott, the Team card (which is miscut, so I can still use a better-centered version), Don Money, Bobby Mitchell, the Rookie Catchers card with one of my player collection guys Charlie Moore on it, the Rookie Pitchers with Kevin Kobel, the Rookie OF with Wilbur Howard, and Steve Barber just for my Brewers collection.  I'm down to just a couple of cards for 1974 for the Brewers as a result.

Here's the team card, which is pretty off-center:

After that, I started pulled other players, managers, and team cards.  There was a future Hall of Famer who also became a Brewer:

There were other future Brewers too:

Some team cards:

Managers:

Yeah, oops.  Grabbed two Weavers. 

I'm thinking I grabbed two Weavers future Brewer manager George Bamberger's inclusion on it.  Or I just lost track.

Finally, other players:

Miscut Maddox

Andre Thornton/Frank White rookie

Play at the Plate!

Two Hall of Famers

Two more Hall of Famers

Freisleben Washington Variation

Finally, there were some 1975 Topps and one 1976 Topps Traded too.  No minis, unfortunately, but definitely cool cards:

As you can see, I camped out in this vintage box to try to find cards I liked, cards I thought you guys and gals would like, and hopefully to pick up some trade bait as well.  If you see something you like, let me know.

And just think -- those cards were just one-third of the cards I dug out of the dime boxes!

Hope y'all have a great Father's Day!