Christmas with All Trade Bait All The Time

Here amongst the baseball card blogorati -- which is sort of like the Illuminati but with bubble gum stains-- discussions often turn from baseball cards and baseball to discussions on beer and bourbon and other similar vices. Since we are all collectors, a lot of us like to collect experiences on tops of our cards.

One of the guys with whom I interact regularly is Oscar from All Trade Bait, All the Time. Oscar is a unique dude. He is a Dodger fan -- which is as unique as sand at a beach in Florida in the blog world -- but he is studying Buddhism on the way to getting a Masters degree in Buddhist Psychology. Oscar also is one of the beer guys, as he gets together with buddies and samples beer and cigars.

Oscar is just a all-around good dude.

He confirmed that with his "club PWE" mailings recently. Here's what he sent to me:

This card is a subtly terrible photo. The way the lighting hits Brock's mouth makes it appear that he's missing a tooth or two up front in his mouth.  He also looks a bit hungover. 

Oscar, is Brock a member of your beer club?

This photo looks like Vaughn was in a photo studio in front of a green screen and the background was photoshopped in. In fact, I'd bet dollars to donuts that is what happened here. I don't think that lighting behind him occurs naturally.

Is Gary Sheffield a Hall of Famer? The answer to that question has to start with the elephant in the room: his steroid use is admitted and well known.  He gave an interview saying that Barry Bonds introduced him to the BALCO labs. He claimed he did not know that BALCO supplied him with steroids. 

I tend to give very little weight to such claims of a lack of knowledge.

The more relevant question relates to his overall numbers. On some levels, he should be a Hall of Famer. The Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor puts him #78 overall with a 158 score (likely HOFer is around 100). The Hall of Fame standards test is a Baseball-Reference creation that puts him at 61, with the average HOFer around 50. 

On the other hand, looking at JAWS and WAR, though, and comparing him to right fielders, his career WAR is below the average HOF RF, his 7-year peak is below average, and his JAWS is below average. And, the black ink and grey ink standards there also say he is not a Hall member. 

I think that's right. Just because he went over the 500-homer mark does not make him a HOFer. He doesn't get there without steroids, either. Sorry Gary.

Not sorry.

The Brewers paid Franklin Stubbs $4 million over 2 years, yet lowballed Paul Molitor after the 1992 season and offered less than $1 million a year. 

I don't get it either.

Minis! These UK Minis were never on my radar screen in the late 1980s. Apparently enough of them were printed then, however, that they are typical filler in repacks. The "Tiffany" version is pretty cool though.

This is what it would look like if a baseball player were also a stalker. Probably.

Another mini! I keep putting off buying the 12-pocket sheets for these cards, and yet with GQ and A&G pushing out more and more minis, I am probably going to have to break down and buy them. Zach Davies had a good year last year -- he's a solid mid-rotation starter for the Brewers. Hopefully, going forward, he will end up lower in the rotation thanks to others jumping him rather than him sinking down without being passed.

And, finally:

Thanks to all the random parallels that infect Topps sets like the Zika virus migrating into Miami, I feel like I have or should have this card already. But, it's a high number in Heritage, meaning it's a short print. Why is it that I have about three or four of those chrome parallels for it, but this is the first copy of this card in my collection? 

Are the chrome parallels more readily available than the regular base set cards? If so, that's ridiculous. Base set cards should be more plentiful than parallels. They should -- if set collectors meant anything to Topps, that is. 

Well, at least I like beer.

Thanks, Oscar, for the PWE, the beer recommendations, and the fact that you are just a good dude!

Trade Baiting Me

The World of Blogging really does not seem to be too different from the world off the computer. There are always some people -- whether you know them well or not -- to whom you feel a bit stronger of an affinity than perhaps other people. Whether there is a reason for it or not, that tie is there.

Now, I don't even know if this is true for him, but I have always felt that affinity for my pal Stealing Home of the blog All Trade Bait, All The Time. SH was one of the first people that I traded with a couple of years ago when I first started blogging and getting involved in this incredibly cool world. 

Today's post is a thank you to him for a current trade, but it's also a thank you for the times we have traded in the past.

First, a current card:

That's a Prince Fielder Die-Cut Upper Deck X. I think that one goes in my "inserts" binder, which I have yet to get a real start on.

So, when SH and I first worked out a trade two years ago in March, I still had a bit of trepidation about trades -- I was very concerned about "fairness" and "value" and also with making sure I didn't get "ripped off." I was certain that someone would comment quickly about a trade that I got ripped off and make fun of me for that. I'm not sure why that was -- I don't think I've ever seen anyone post like that anywhere. So when SH and I traded for the first time, I was overjoyed with how generous he was. 

B.J. Surhoff 1995 Score Gold Rush

People like him helped me feel comfortable with loading up envelopes and mailing stuff to people I have never met in person before (for the most part...I have traded with three fellow bloggers who live in the Atlanta area) and not being all that concerned with being absolutely positive about "getting fair value" or "not getting ripped off."

I celebrated that first trade with SH back in April of 2014 with one of my first true music/card posts. The positive response to that post also encouraged me to continue abusing all of y'all's ears with music I like or find.

Greg Vaughn 1994 Donruss Triple Play

Thankfully, SH has good taste in music. I didn't have to put up any 98 Degrees or NKOTB or Justin Bieber or Simply Red. It was good stuff.

Really good stuff.

It is difficult to go wrong with Social Distortion -- a band I first heard during my freshman year at college a little more than 25 years ago. As this song says -- and as SH's trading reminded me -- you only wanna do what you think is right, but close your eyes and it's past...the story of my life.

Dave Nilsson 1995 Leaf Limited

Life really does go by so fast. The great thing is that people like SH exist in our little blog world, passing along cards we need, reminding us of music we love (or introducing us to music we may learn to love), and maybe even introducing us to beers we need to try. It's all about making life good, enjoyable, treating others well, and hoping that we have a positive impact on the world around us.

1988 Topps UK Mini of Paul Molitor

That feeling of connectedness with our fellow bloggers -- that is really what this is all about to me. It makes me happy to be a part of such a generous group of people. It genuinely upsets me when something that has positive intentions is made to look negative by others -- whether because they are not a part of the positive side of things or because, well, all they have in their life is darkness.

I used to be a much more negative person -- very pessimistic, seemingly always finding that black cloud for the silver lining I'd been shown. I don't know when that changed for me exactly, but it did change. I sometimes have to kickstart my brain to get out of the negative to find a positive spin on things. But, when all is said and done, this hobby is a reminder of the fact that most of the time we can trust the positive.

This Robin Yount relic from 2001 started this whole trade out between SH and me. It is a photo of Yount in the late 1990s Brewers uniform -- probably after he retired.

I am very appreciative of this great trade package from SH. Remembering the positives in our hobby is a great thing, and appreciating the incredibly positive folks like SH is even greater.

Thanks again, my friend!

A PWE from All Trade Bait, All the Time

One of my earlier blog trades was with Dodgers fan Stealing Home from All Trade Bait, All The Time. SH is a genuinely nice guy to trade with and talk to by e-mail.  He recently went on a PWE-sending spree, and I was one of the lucky folks to get one.  Here are the cards he sent to me:

This Kyle Lohse card is just an opportunity for me to point out that once again the current "throwback" uniforms have a design error.  Everyone who is a Brewers fan from the 1980s knows that the hat with the yellow panel on the front was the away hat -- the team wore a solid blue cap at home.

Just as this 1986 Topps Ben Oglivie -- about to take batting practice on the road in his baby-blue road uniform -- proves.

I miss having a leadoff hitter who actually got on base.  Actually, I miss having a team that didn't hit like it was a Triple-A team.  This year to date, the team has scored 170 runs in 45 games -- 3.78 runs per game -- while allowing 221 (4.91 runs per game, so yes, pitching is a problem too).  But, the Brewers have scored 10 or more runs in 4 games this year (and lost one of them...again, pitching is a problem).  Remove those four games in which the Brewers scored 43 runs, and the team over the other 41 games are averaging barely 3 runs per game -- 3.098 per game, to be super exact.  The team has a slash line of .227/.285/.378 (taking out pitchers, it's .234/.293/.392).

Now I'm depressed...

That's better.  The Clash always bring a smile to my face.  Okay, back to the cards!

Khris Davis is not known for his defense, but his card from both last year and this year show him making defensive plays.

Finally, the piece de resistance for this PWE.  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my grandfather probably was convinced that Johnny Logan was the best player on the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950s.  Perhaps the 1950s baseball fans were as enamored with great shortstop play as a lot of us bloggers seem to like catchers -- or perhaps that reflects more about bloggers tending to be more cerebral than the average fan and appreciating all the thought, hard work, and intelligence that goes into being a catcher.

At any rate, Stealing Home sent me this card with the note that it clearly belongs with me due to the fact that Logan was such a bad ass in my grandpa's eyes.

I have to say that this reason for getting a card is perhaps the best reason I have ever heard.  My memories of being a kid growing up pretty poor in Wisconsin (my mom, my brothers, and I lived with my grandparents as I grew up) were filled with stories of past sportsmen to come through Milwaukee.  My grandpa and I bonded in the mornings by reading the game stories in the Milwaukee Sentinel of the previous day's Brewer game, or Packers game, or Milwaukee Bucks game, or even the Milwaukee Admirals games. I'd then get ready for school and head off, not realizing that those days would be ones I'd look back on now with a fondness for how innocent those days were -- and how lucky I was to have a grandfather who indulged my sports fanaticism.

Thank you, Stealing Home, for that reminder.

Post #100, Part III: To the Victors Go the Spoils

Everyone has let me know what they wanted out of the Treasure Chest.  So, to milk one more post out of this contest, let me entertain you with announcing what each person has selected. With the NFL draft coming up, I decided to liven this post up by using videos of draft picks where possible.

With the first selection in the Off Hiatus giveaway draft, the Boston Celtics select:

The Celtics selected Lucas Nogueira and his Coco-Crispy afro last year in the first round of the NBA draft, and promptly traded Nogueira away to the Atlanta Hawks.  In the Treasure Chest draft, the New England-based Swing and a Popup selected:

Here's hoping that this 2014 Topps Museum Collection Signature Swatches of Felix Doubront fares better in the Northeast than Nogueira did.

With the Second Selection in the Off Hiatus giveaway draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select:

The Lakers have not picked a player in the first round since 2009, and they traded that guy away immediately after the draft for a second round pick the next season.  So, we're stuck with a second round pick from Duke, Ryan Kelly, for this selection...because I am not going near the Clippers situation right now. Or ever, for that matter.

The real upside here is that Oscar from All Trade Bait, All the Time selected a real gem of a card:

This 1978 Topps Andre Dawson card will be making its way out to California.

With the Third Selection in the Off Hiatus Giveaway, the St. Louis Rams select Tavon Austin, WR, West Virginia:

While the Rams have nothing to do with the Big Apple, Keith is a big West Virginia football fan, so he gets Tavon Austin as his introduction.  And, hopefully he likes the card he selected as much as he likes Austin:

Apologies for the crappy scan, as I am in my office at work and not next to my cards to scan in the actual card Keith will be getting.

With the Fourth Selection, the Los Angeles Kings select:

What is it with Los Angeles teams getting rid of their first round picks?  I guess it's that they have to win now, so they mortgage the future for the present.  Anyway, the LA Kings did not have a first round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft last year, so they selected LW Valentin Zykov, an 18-year-old Russian who is currently playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

I guess it's appropriate that the person who is probably the youngest one to win something would be feted with a guy who had just turned 18 when he was drafted, so tell us, Alex from Chavez Ravining, who are you selecting?

In the end, this pick was probably easier for Alex than it was for the Kings.

With the Fifth Pick in the Off Hiatus Giveaway Draft, the New England Patriots select:

Another team that usually does not have first-round picks is the New England Patriots, but this fact is usually because they have traded down 7 times to get half the fourth round selections and two first round picks in 2021.  

New reader Mark Hoyle got his second pick as well, since he wanted that Felix Doubront relic.  So, instead, he gets:

The Xander Bogaerts 2014 Topps Turkey Red. Again, apologies for the scan, but it's what I could find online right now.

With the sixth and final selection of the Off Hiatus Giveaway Draft, Baseball Card Breakdown selects:

Gavin gets the strangest video of all -- William Perry singing something -- because he has a Perry ProSet card on his Desperate Dozen list.  

As was the case with the previous pick, Gavin did not get his first pick-- the Bogaerts Turkey Red -- but he does get his second selection:

The Paul Goldschmidt Topps Heritage logo variation short-print.  

Thanks to all of you who participated.  I'm updating the Trade Bait list now to show those cards that have been claimed, but please contact me about a trade.  I am much more interested in trying to get cards I need than in getting "fair value," so let me know if you see something in the Trade Bait that tickles your fancy.

Completed Trade with All Trade Bait, All The Time

Mr. Stealing Home from All Trade Bait All The Time posted a Ryan Braun insert about a month ago that I really liked.  I reached out to him, and we were able to work out a deal.  The Braun actually ended up being one of the lesser cards that Oscar sent.

Now, if you read his profile, you can see that S.H. is a Dodger fan, but he's been kind enough as well to fill us in on some of his favorite music.  He likes The Stones, The Clash, X, Roots reggae, the Cramps, and Social Distortion. So, let me pick some songs out of those catalogs -- massive though they may be, especially since roots reggae is like "grunge" rather than being a band -- and introduce some of the cards that he sent.

Hang Fire

One of the Stones most overtly political songs (Keith Richards said in a 1981 interview with Rolling Stone that he relates this song to English politicians who did nothing and caused the country's decline when times got tight) is also the only song to introduce a Prince Fielder insert from Upper Deck:

I remember that Stones song from being a kid -- it had a catchy hook to it, and something about the song did feel at least a little countercultural.  Fielder's Pure Heat card pales in comparison, but it's tough for cardboard to beat out music.

The Magnificent Seven

When I saw that SH liked the Clash, well, that is what inspired this entire post's theme.  To be fair, this theme is a bit better than, "Hey, look what I got y'all!"

I've loved The Clash since I heard Rock the Casbah as a 10-year-old.  Then, I went to college and had a good friend who was a huge Clash fan.  He gave me a dubbed version on cassette of London Calling, and I was totally hooked.

The Magnificent Seven clip above is from the Tom Snyder Show in 1981.  The song itself comes from the triple album Sandinista!, which Rolling Stone magazine ranked as #404 of the 500 best albums all time. I own it on CD.

This song is not that much of a stretch for introducing four-time Brewer All-Star Don Money who, you guessed it, wore the number 7 in the mid-to-late-70s and early 1980s.

That is some 1977 goodness right there; SH also sent me a 1979 Topps of Money.  Money's best year probably was 1977 -- he hit 25 homers, drove in 83 runs, was an all-star, and played 152 games split amongst second base, left field, third base, and designated hitter.  He was Tony Phillips before Tony Phillips was.  Money retired at the end of the 1983 season, and he is a guy who is one of my player collections I'm putting together.

We're Desperate (NSFW Lyrics)

The band X is not one I've listened to much, to be honest -- I should have by now because I do like punk, but I just haven't.  Anyway, when I saw this song and its title, I knew exactly which card had to accompany it -- the guy whose 2006 signing screamed "We're Desperate" to free agents everywhere...at least in my book:

The Brewers signed Suppan after the 2006 season from St. Louis.  Taking a page from the late Al Davis, the Brewers brass apparently believed Suppan's NLCS MVP Award meant that Suppan was primed to become an ace -- contrary, of course, to everything in his career otherwise.  To be fair, Suppan was coming off a 190 inning season with a 4.12 ERA and a ERA+ of 108.  Otherwise, Suppan's career screamed "MEDIOCRE INNINGS EATER."  By the time his albatross of a contract was nearing an end -- four long years later -- the Brewers had realized that you do not qualify as an innings eater if you only pitch 31 innings in 15 games...at a 7.84 ERA and just cut him.  Of course, Suppan caught on with St. Louis and pitched reasonably well for them.

Tear It Up

In honor of the year that he had in 1981, the only one who could be honored appropriately with "Tear It Up" by The Cramps -- the innovators of psychobilly (a subgenre that is alive and well, thankfully -- just stop at the Star Community Bar in Atlanta for that) -- is Rollie Fingers.  Now, I have had this card since it came out in the early 1980s, but, well, my card looks like it.  This one is a huge upgrade in condition for me:

 Ball And Chain

"Well it's been ten years and a thousand tears and look at the mess I'm in...."

In his tenth season with the Brewers organization and with a contract that, in fairness, may look like a bargain at some point but could easily end up an albatross, the only player who could be feted with Social Distortion is none other than Ryan Joseph Braun:

Both of these will work well in my team and player collection.  There were a number of other cards, but I worry that I will bury this theme if I go for another round!

Many thanks to Mr. Stealing Home for the trade, and I hope that both you and he enjoyed the musical interludes.