Bad Brains with Brent & Becca

I should really go on eBay more often to find team sets for recent issues rather than flailing around trying to find them at card shows. I know -- that's anathema to many people in the hobby. But, you have to get lucky at card shows to find what you want. On eBay, though, you just have to look.

Certainly, you can pay a premium on eBay. That's the argument against it, of course. There are times it is okay, at least to me.  In particular, I don't mind it when I support someone whom I "know" (at least in internet terms) -- Brent & Becca. Brent was selling a few Brewers team sets at a discount, so I picked up several sets that, with combined shipping, cost me maybe $15 total. 

Those cards arrived this week, and I wanted to show them off. But how? This is an easy one.

Outside of the presidential crap, one of the major stories that I've paid attention to this week was the announcement of the final nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The list of 19 nominees includes a fair number of bands/acts that a lot of people have heard of -- Journey, Pearl Jam, Steppenwolf, The Cars, Janet Jackson, and Tupac Shakur, for example. But as the list went around, there was one band I saw a lot of people discounting because they had never heard of them: Bad Brains.

So, to show off the cards, let's listen to one of the seminal bands of the punk rock era.

Bad Brains started in Washington, DC. A group of African-American boys -- H.R. a/k/a Paul Hudson, Dr. Know a/k/a Gary Miller, Darryl Jenifer, and Earl Hudson (Paul's younger brother) formed a funk cover band called Mind Power. They were playing jazz fusion covers of Chick Corea and funk covers of Parliament Funkadelic. 

Then one of them saw a show on PBS about the new punk movement in England where the show talked about the Sex Pistols and, in particular, the Dead Boys. They heard it and were hooked on the sound and the idea. So, after listening to a Ramones song called "Bad Brain," they changed their band name.

But, they wanted to be the loudest, fastest, most bad ass punk band out there -- and with a twist. Rather than being nihilists like the Sex Pistols -- where everything sucks and should be destroyed -- Bad Brains came at music with positive ideas and attitude. At least at first.

So, let's go for some positive stuff right now:



One of the first things I picked up was a team set of Brewers Allen & Ginter minis. Sure, I need to get a couple more of a few of these, but I wonder why I haven't gone down this path before and picked up team sets? Okay, I have in the past, but perhaps I should go back to this.

I mentioned that Bad Brains came at music at first with a positive message and attitude. After a couple of years together, though, they all got influenced heavily by the Rastafarian movement. Their music reflected it too -- picking up a lot of Jamaican spirituality and grooves with it.

They didn't give up their speed punk, though, because, well, they enjoyed playing it most. 




As often happens with teams in transition, the Heritage High Numbers this year contained nearly as many Brewers as the main set did. It's a pretty cool thing to have cards for this year's National League co-champion in Home Runs (Chris Carter) and this year's Major League stolen base king (Jonathan Villar) showing up in the set. 

Another guy who is making Brewers fans excited -- if he can stay away from the outfield walls and not break his wrist again -- is Keon Broxton. Broxton struggled badly in his first two stints in MIlwaukee in 2016. He was sent down to Colorado Springs on July 1 with a major league slash line of .125/.253/.188. Yes, a .188 SLG. Clearly, what he was doing was not working. 

So, he went down to Colorado Springs and changed his stance and mechanics a bit. He was called back up on July 26, and things fell into place. Yes, he had an unsustainably high BABIP (.425) over his last 169 plate appearances, but his hitting had clearly turned a corner: slash line of .294/.399/.538 with 8 HR, 25 BB, and 16 SB. Even if his batting average walks back a bit, he could be a real sleeper for next year. Of course, he's going to be 27 years old next year too, so he needs to make it happen to have a career.

Over the course of their career, Bad Brains got a reputation of being some of the coolest, nicest dudes in the business. On more than one occasion, they would finish a show as the headliner somewhere and see a fellow band -- new guys -- in the audience. They would bring the new guys up on stage, hand them their guitars and drumsticks, and tell the new guys to play -- just to help them out and give them a bigger stage than they may have had in the past.

Indeed, in the early 1980s, they had new bands come open for them. So, for instance, they had some Jewish kids from Brooklyn open for a show for them in New York. Those kids? They were called The Beastie Boys and it was their third show as a band. No kidding. Later, when The Beastie Boys were huge and went on tour for Ill Communication, they returned the favor and had Bad Brains open for them. 

One of the benefits from buying from Brent is that he sells "master" sets. Oftentimes, the inserts can be tougher to track down than the base cards. Being able to knock out the inserts with the base cards at the same price is even better -- and that's what I got to do with both the full-size Allen & Ginter set and the Bunt set. I still need one more "Program" card though.

When I think about why a band should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, one of the main things that should be considered in my opinion is the influence that the artist had on later artists. I've already mentioned the fact that Bad Brains gave The Beastie Boys a big break. There is a great documentary about Bad Brains on YouTube where luminaries such as Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, and Anthony Kiedis talk very personally about how Bad Brains influenced them. 

For example, Grohl admits that the drum opening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a riff that he basically ripped off from Earl Hudson playing "How Low Can a Punk Get". As Grohl says, it's not exactly the same -- but you can definitely hear it in the intro here:




Some other bands that Bad Brains influenced? Anthrax, Deftones, Faith No More (whose lead singer actually filled in as the lead singer for Bad Brains when H.R. was walkabout in the mid-1980s), Jane's Addiction, Living Colour, Rage Against the Machine, Sevendust, Soundgarden, Sick of It All, Sublime, and 311, to name a few.



The final team set I got was the Series 2 Gold Parallel. Man, I wish I had thought ahead of time to get Series 1 from Brent too. I figured I'd highlight Corey Knebel here. Knebel didn't have a great 2016, but he had some bad luck (FIP of 3.58) combine with some control issues (BB9 lept from 3.0 in 2015 to 4.4 in 2016). He's such a high-end arm, though, that he's been a key part of two big trades (for Joakim Soria and Yovani Gallardo). Here's hoping he can continue to develop and be a big part of the team next year.

I don't know if Bad Brains will make the Hall of Fame. I personally think they should, of course -- otherwise I wouldn't have spent all the time putting this post together. Other than Bad Brains, I'm voting for Tupac, Pearl Jam, and Depeche Mode for sure. I'm waffling a bit on the last vote -- either ELO or Kraftwerk, though Yes was good too.

Who do you think should be inducted?

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!

Crackin' Wax Allen & Ginter Charity Break

I really enjoy participating in case breaks. The joy of getting a bunch of only Brewers cards and knocking an entire new Topps product -- at least the base and the more numerous inserts -- off my wantlist. 

I especially like participating when my financial contribution is scaled to match the number of Brewers and potential Brewer hits in the product. I certainly understand when people keep the accounting easier for themselves and price all the teams the same -- especially when there is an add-on team automatically provided. But I like it better when I don't pay as much as the person with the Yankees and their 8000 cards. It just makes better sense.

Finally, I really enjoy participating with Crackin' Wax a/k/a Varsity Trading Cards. Thanks to both the non-sports auction that Topher ran on eBay for all those cards and to a bunch of donations both from skunk protection on hits being donated as well as one heck of a charity giveaway, the Crackin' Wax team was able to donate $1000 to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. 

It feels good to know that I could help a little bit there with donating my skunk protection. It feels good, too, that I got some Allen & Ginter in my hands as well.

Those are the base cards for Milwaukee in the A&G set. They are pretty good. The problem at this point, though, is that Allen & Ginter is pretty much out of ideas. There's just nothing interesting about this set any more. Yeah, sure, I know -- it's not about the base cards with A&G; it's about the minis and the inserts. Even there, it's sort of yawn-inducing.

I mean, like I said, it's not that I dislike these cards. They just aren't as exciting as they used to be. The issue is that I'm not sure that there is any way to make it more interesting or exciting. 

Let's see if the minis or inserts can help.

Out of an entire case of A&G, I got three of the five Brewers minis. I guess that's not bad considering they come one to a pack, though I was hoping for better I guess.

I sort of like these "numbers game" inserts. On the back, they list both team greats to wear the jersey number as well as other MLB greats. 

Or, at least that is what they say they are doing:

Um, guys in Brooklyn with Topps, you do realize that there is a difference between the Milwaukee Brewers franchise (where only Tim Johnson, Mike Hegan, and, for one year, Pat Listach wore the number 4) and the Minnesota Twins/Washington Senators franchise -- where Bob Allison, Sam West, Mickey Vernon, and Joe Cronin all wore the number 4. 

You guys in New York can tell the difference between Minnesota

(which is a state) and Milwaukee

(which is a city) -- right?

I'm pretty sure people who live in those "flyover states" between New York and Los Angeles can.

And, I'm really sure that Crackin' Wax from Minnesota and Off Hiatus from Milwaukee can.

Anyway, as you can see, my break was, in fact, as hitless as David Ortiz in the 2016 All-Star Game (#ToppsNow!). So, Crackin' Wax made it up to me with a few extras:

A nice hit from Rickie Weeks capped off this great break for me. Hopefully, I'll remember to sign up for the Bowman Chrome break coming up in a couple of months. Perhaps by that point the Brewers will have taken over the Twins franchise history even more so that I will be able to crow about how we won the World Series in 1987 and 1991.

Or not.

Thanks for a great break, Crackin' Wax!