2018 Eric Thames Inserts from Baseball Every Night

I have met a couple of bloggers in person. For example, I have met up with Dayf/Dave who may still post occasionally at Cardboard Junkie but who really can be found on Twitter as @cardjunk. 

This past fall, I was in Boston for an ABA seminar/meeting for work. I got in a day early to go to meetings, so I had some available time one morning. It allowed me to meet up with a guy who I really respect -- P K a/k/a Peter of Baseball Every Night. We were able to grab coffee at Starbucks and sit like two old men on a park bench across the street from the Boston Public Library for as long as Peter could afford to be missing in action from work and just hang out and talk about everything but cards.

I really enjoyed getting that opportunity. It ended up being a baseball day -- my wife and I walked to Fenway too:



What's even cooler is that Peter still speaks to me even after we met in person. I can be a little much sometimes, and I can drop off the face of the planet for a while too, so that's not always a given.

At any rate, Peter has been opening up some 2018 Topps. He was lucky enough (from my perspective) to pull two inserts that are Brewers. Well, two Eric Thames Inserts to be specific:

On the left, we have an Eric Thames "Opening Day 2018" insert, and on the right we have a "Memorial Day" insert of Thames. The brick thing coming off Thames's chin on the left makes it look like he's smoking a big fat stogie of sorts. The green on the right looks like Panini took over the Topps printing facility for a day to come up with weird, incorrect color combinations.

In all seriousness, I'm glad I got these. I've stopped chasing inserts and parallels for anyone other than my player collections effective starting with the 2018 season in part because it takes forever to catalog them and in part because it's simply not fun trying to find 12 versions of the same card with different color effects for literally everyone on the team. 

But, I will still take the inserts if people are willing to send them my way. 

Now, to thank Peter, let's hear from one of his player collections. Peter collects two guys who seem like they may not enjoy hanging out together. The first is Los Angeles native Darryl Strawberry, and the other is Charleston, West Virginia, native John Kruk. Maybe that's why he likes them. 

Let's focus on Kruk. I enjoyed watching him as a player, and I turn the TV off on him as an analyst. He's a self-professed redneck too, which isn't that big of a deal to me because that's how I grew up. That said, he got together with a group of unknown-to-me country singers and came up with a country-music theme for "Baseball Tonight." Since I don't watch the show, I have no idea how well know this song is, but here goes:

Peter, thank you as always for the cards and for being a cool guy to interact with -- I greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and watching your beer consumption.

My Favorite Baseball Card of My Favorite Baseball Player

Peter at Baseball Every Night is celebrating his one-year anniversary as a blogger. To mark the occasion, he is holding a contest: write a post of any length, content, or whatever about your favorite baseball card of your favorite baseball player.

If you haven't interacted with Peter before, you should at least follow him on Twitter. Well, you should so long as you appreciate erudite conversation in which he discusses the ins and outs of game theory as it relates to Sylvia Plath.

No, not really.

But you should follow him if you appreciate discussions of good beer, a dislike for the overkill of love shown to David Ortiz last year by Topps, and a complete hatred of 1995 Fleer cards. From time to time, I've been known to ruffle Peter's feathers by saying that, contrary to reality, he actually loves  1995 Fleer. Believe me -- he really does. Not. I mean does not.

So, it should not be a surprise that his contest rules state clearly that:

Any entrants selecting a card from 1995 Fleer will be automatically disqualified. But please do still post as I'll then forward your entry to a psychiatrist so that you can get the help you need.

I can see his point. There's very little to like about that card set. I've stated my dislike for it in the past. But then, it got personal:

Any entrants that select a 1995 Fleer card that I deem is intentionally trying to get disqualified (Tony L.) will be re-entered into the contest and will have their name added to the randomizer 18 times.

Whoa. It sounds like I can tip the scales in my favor in a major way here! But I hate 1995 Fleer. What's a guy to do?

How about a custom "card"?

 

It's just a prototype for Peter's very own 1995 Fleer card, featuring his position of Blogger and Sylvia Plath Scholar and highlighting the baseball that he stole from a crying 7-year-old kid. Or, rather, that he got by beating out a surly 13-year-old kid. One of those two.

In reality:

The reality is that most cards of my favorite players are cool but never really approach the level of being "THE" favorite. Yet, every time I think of my favorite card literally in my entire collection, I always seem to come back to the same one:

I come back over and over again to the Cardsphere Hero custom card from Christmas of 2015 that came my way courtesy of Gavin at Breakdown Cards. Gavin has a far more popular and much more interesting blog than mine -- I mean, come on...I'm a one note wonder and his collection is as eclectic as it comes -- and he's a much more talented artist and card maker to boot.

Gavin deserves the thanks and praise that all in the blogworld give him. And I haven't thanked him enough yet for this incredible card that remains my favorite baseball card almost 18 months after I received it.

Thanks go out to Peter for both the contest and for being a good sport for putting up with my chicanery and once again to Gavin. And, also, thank you for reading -- I appreciate it.

PWEs from Two Great Friends

I feel like I need to write tonight. I'm behind on posts, behind on trades, behind on returns... it's very discouraging sometimes. Yesterday, I spent nearly 7 hours in the office preparing for depositions for tomorrow. Today, I was in meetings all day doing the same. 

When I had free time, I watched two utterly disappointing soccer games -- Manchester United's typically wasteful performance against Bournemouth (where Zlatan Ibrahimovic was shockingly bad) and Atlanta United's tough but entirely foreseeable collapse against the New York Energy Drinks -- where ATLUTD's conceding two goals in the final 15 minutes was completely expected thanks to the dead legs that the defenders had to have. As the ATL game reached the 65th minute, I was thinking, "man, why haven't we put in some fresh legs into the game?" Then I saw Kenwyne Jones stagger onto the field, and I realized that fresh legs might not help.

Anyway, my desire to write over the weekend was outweighed also by the desire to work on getting inserts/parallels into binders. I'm working on my Topps inserts and parallels and oddballs right now -- up to 1995 already! -- so I'm doing a lot of placeholder making and not a lot of cataloging. But, it means I'm getting closer to having "true" want lists. 

Today, though, to break my non-writing streak, I have two PWEs I got in the past month.

First one came from Peoria. Tom sent me a Rangers player and a Yankee.

In fairness to Tom, he couldn't have known that the Yankees would sign Chris Carter. I'm thinking that Chris Carter is what Aaron Judge might turn into -- a strikeout-prone slugger whose minor league stats make him look like a potential OBP machine but, in reality, his value is tied entirely to his homers. 

Now, in fairness, Judge being an outfielder makes him have more value than Carter. But keep in mind: Aaron Judge is 2 months older than Manny Machado and 7 months older than Bryce Harper. He's also 6 months older than Mookie Betts and 5-1/2 months older than Xander Bogaerts. Judge is almost 25 years old. The likelihood that Judge becomes a star is significantly depressed by that fact alone. Don't buy his cards thinking he's a Hall of Famer in the making though -- that is just not likely.

As a cautionary tale, let's look at Will Middlebrooks. By the time Middlebrooks was the same age as Judge, He'd already completed two (partial) seasons adding up to 169 games and 660 plate appearances in the major leagues. Stat line? 32 HR, 103 RBI, 7 SB...33 BB, 168 Ks, and a slash of .254/.294/.462. Now, Middlebrooks never has had the walks that either Judge or Carter had, so it's not a straight comparison. But still -- Middlebrooks is an NRI in Texas and Carter had to wait for the scraps to fall from the Yankees' table. Should we really expect all that much from Aaron Judge?

Okay, time to jump off my soapbox about Aaron Judge, Yankee prospect, and thank Tom for the 2017 Topps.

The second PWE came from 1995 Fleer hater, Peter Steinberg.

Peter sent me some 2017 Topps as well. Chris Capuano and Scooter Gennett were basically inserted to protect the Robin Younts, I think.  

Peter was busy at spring training drinking beer this past weekend. 

You can't blame him for that, but come on -- give some love to Victory Beer's complete logo, Peter.

Apropos of this, here are three random beers I enjoy:

1. Ommegang Brewery's Three Philosophers Ale: Ommegang is a brewery that should be close to baseball fans' hearts. It's located in the Cooperstown area, and the beer is Belgian and beautiful. Three Philosophers is a 9.8% ABV beer, but, as the link points out, it is much less bitter and less hoppy than most dark strong Belgian-style ales. This beer is just wonderful -- and with its alcohol content, it will make you the fourth philosopher quickly.

2. Delirium Tremens by Brouwerij Huyghe in Belgium. Yes, another Belgian strong ale. What can I say -- I like Belgian Ales. This one, too, drinks smoothly and with a reasonably high ABV (8.5%).

So, why do I like Belgian ales? Because while I appreciate hoppy beers, I tend to prefer beers that do not leave my palate cringing and begging for mercy. 

I also say that from talking to a man with experience. My wife's uncle was brewmaster at Miller for many, many years. While we won't get into whether that should qualify him to speak as to what good beer should taste like, he make a very good point with respect to hoppy beers. You see, the reason that many brewers like to make super hoppy beers is simple: if you make mistakes in how you brew the beer, the hop flavor will cover up the mistakes. It's much more difficult to make a good ale that tastes great, isn't so bitter that it makes you cringe, and isn't so hoppy that the consumer feels like they have fell into a vat of hops.

I realize that many folks love hoppy beers. I have my moments when I like them too. But the bitterness is occasionally overwhelming.

3. Funky Buddha Beers. If any of y'all are heading to Florida for spring training, you owe it to yourself to look for Funky Buddha beers. It's a brewery with a brewpub near Boca Raton, and its beers are excellent. I went there two years ago, and I still think about the "Morning Wood" beer -- a maple bacon coffee porter aged in bourbon barrels.  Crazy good, if a little sweet, but so damn tasty it's crazy. Their hoppy beers are also quite good too. 

Thanks for stopping by for random thoughts from me and great cards from Peter and Tom!

Brewers Cards Every Night

I try to find new blogs every so often. I used to try harder -- when I was the new guy, I followed links for hours to try to find trade partners, kindred spirits, or just good people. I've gotten lazier about that this past year, and one of my goals for next year is to get back to being a better trade partner.

One blogger whom I feel like I've gotten to know a bit this past year, though, is Peter from Baseball Every Night. He and I interact/converse on Twitter regularly about cards and beer and being in our mid-40s and all that kind of stuff. It's always a pleasure to hear from Peter, so getting cards from him is just an added bonus.

If there is one thing that Peter and I have bonded about, it is our mutual love and respect for David Ortiz. Peter recognizes the living legend that Ortiz is -- you can read about his almost fawning affection for Ortiz here. For me, of course, I truly think that Topps Now should have featured Ortiz's retirement year more than it did; I mean, Ortiz did more than enough in 2016. He should have had far more than just the 14 cards on which Topps featured him. Seriously -- did we need 13 cards for the Twins, or should we have had 27 Ortiz cards? I think you know the answer to that question.

In all seriousness, Peter sent me some cards in two different doses recently, so let's feature them here with some video highlights of our mutual friend, David Ortiz.

Yeah, the lines about our respect for Ortiz were complete bull. Y'all knew that about me, I'm sure. Not sure if you knew that about Peter though.

To celebrate Big Papi being a Big Jerk here -- and let's be clear, he got plenty of leeway to still be in the game to take strike three there, and with the close check-swing call, there's at least an argument that he got four strikes in that at-bat -- let's go gold. Peter sent me literally all the Topps Gold parallel cards from 2016 that I needed to complete my team set:



It almost seems weird to see K-Rod and Adam Lind as Brewers. It feels like almost years ago that they were traded away. 

If only I could say the same thing about Matt Garza.

A second "Great Moment in Ortiz History" is the literal David versus Goliath story, but instead of Goliath it was a plastic telephone on the wall in the Orioles dugout in 2013. In an apparently successful effort to steal the telephone's soul and use that power for his own purposes, Ortiz was ejected from a game after a strikeout. The next game he played in, he went 4-for-4 with a homer. 

I guess we wouldn't like Ortiz when he is angry.

In the late 1980s, rumor had it that the same could be said for Jeffrey "Hac-Man" Leonard -- that you would not like him when he was angry. As this Seattle Times article from 1990 notes, though, Leonard was actually a very private man who kept most people at arm's length. Leonard had fights with Giants teammates Dan Gladden in 1985 (supposedly about Gladden taking extra cuts in BP) and with Will Clark in 1987 after Clark allegedly refused to sign an autograph for Leonard's nephew and then followed it with a racial epithet (New Orleans native Clark said it was because Leonard picked on him constantly).

Leonard also hated the press, whereas Ortiz loves to use the press to push his own agenda. As that Times article quotes Leonard in response to the question of whether he trusts anyone, "Trust? Yeah I trust you . . . to get it wrong. It's not really a matter of trust. It's patience. I don't like to speak with the press because I get tired of the stupid or funky questions."

Ortiz? He went to the media in 2011 to blame them for him getting hit by a pitch -- but he always went to the media. In the last months of his playing career, he spoke regularly -- with SI (about steroids and retirement), at length with the assembled media after his last game, with USA Today (about Donald Trump and immigration and his legacy), with Esquire (about his post-career plans), on Late Night with Seth Meyers about his last trip to Yankee Stadium, even about his beauty secrets with Good Housekeeping.

You clicked that link, right? 

Ortiz hopefully will stay retired. Then again, maybe he won't, and when he comes back, he'll say, "Maybe it's my ego. Maybe I crave someone who will never be my rival."

What do you think, Peter?

Thanks for the great cards!

Ugliness in a One-Card Post

I have other cards I could write up, but those cards are going to take a little more time and effort to write up than I can muster today. So, I'm going with a really ugly one card post. It's okay that I say that, because Peter -- the man behind the Baseball Every Night blog said it himself when he sent the card to me.

See? I never knew that Peter was a cheerleader in his past, though. It's amazing the things you can learn about your fellow card collectors just by interacting with them. Granted, based on his "cheer" in his letter above, Peter must have cheered in the 1870s.

Still, with an introduction like that, I was halfway expecting a crime scene photograph from the Manson Family or something. Nope -- it's just Graeme:

1995 Fleer is one of those sets that really creates a split in the hobby. Some people will tell you it is one of the ugliest sets ever made with all the busy crap going on here. Then, there are some baseball card collectors who are blind and cannot see how ugly it is.

That's the split, really. 

Peter sent me this in response to an email he sent to me where he listed out a bunch of cards that he had in his possession that he wanted to get rid of as not fitting in his collection. I looked at his list, and this one was the only card on the list that I needed.

Today, I was doing some sorting and cleanup around here -- finally getting cards into their binders after being lazy about it for a little while. I went to put old Graeme away, and things got even uglier. You see, I already had this card in my binder -- I just hadn't updated my Fleer Want List to reflect it. Thus, things got even uglier for me because, well, this one is just a duplicate.

Egad.

At least I had the opportunity today to get some organization done and to talk to a friend on the phone for a while. It's one of the fundamental things as a collector -- trying to stay organized enough so that you do not become the place where people dispose of their ugly children.

Next time, it will be different.

Many thanks, though, to Peter for adding some ugliness to my life. 

I Wanna Baseball All Night

Peter from Baseball Every Night has been extremely generous to me. Hopefully, my latest envelope that was sent to him -- now, for a second time...thanks USPS! -- gets to him so that he can drink in all the Strawberry cards I've sent to him. 

Of course, with the title I've used here, there can only be one theme song for the second batch of cards Peter sent my way last week:

Here's the setup: the past two years, I have come out of the gate rockin' when it comes to collecting the Brewers for the Topps flagship set. By that, I mean that both in 2015 and 2016, I bought into case breaks for Series 1 and ended up with about a dozen of each of the base cards, about a half dozen of any inserts, and even a relic or two. 

By the time Series 2 rolls around, though, I miss it. I don't even notice it. Series 2 sneaks out into the world like the stealthiest of leopards, unleashing itself on an unsuspecting collecting public.

Or, at least unleashing itself on me.

I mean, I think I still need a Jason Rogers from 2015 Series 2 at this point. Seriously. I haven't found one at my local show, and no one has sent me one either. I mean, I'll probably just end up getting it eventually if it doesn't show up, but that is pretty indicative of how Series 2 usually treats me.

Since that first song got me in the mood, how about a KISS-powered post to go with the 2016 Topps Series 2 cards that Peter sent my way?

Perhaps the most appropriate KISS song for the 2016 set -- I'll call it forevermore the "smoke" set -- this song from Animalize (which I owed and may still own on a 33-1/3 RPM record):

Let's go for the basic ones first:

That top card -- the Brewers Team card -- features Ryan Braun giving third base coach Ed Sedar a low five after hitting a homerun and passing third base. I'm now tied up in knots thinking of all of the terrible Passover puns (pass, seder/Sedar...) so I'd best move on.

Ariel Pena lasted one outing with the Brewers this year to start the season before getting sent to pitcher's hell, er, Colorado Springs. Interesting trivia tidbit: Colorado Springs is the highest elevation stadium featuring professional baseball. It's a full quarter mile higher in elevation than Coors Field. The Brewers ended up with a Triple-A team there thanks to the classless organization that is the Nashville Sounds -- which used the Brewers to get a new stadium built then promptly changed affiliations. 

Michael Blazek just returned to the bullpen from the disabled list. He's the rare player who started in St. Louis, left, and got better instead of worse!

Finally, Keon Broxton suffered one of the worst starts to a major league career that I could imagine. He went 0-for-2 last year with Pittsburgh, then went 0-for-16 to start the season this year with Milwaukee. He got sent down on April 16. He came back on May 20, and he went 0 for his next 6 before finally picking up his first major league hit in the 13th inning against the Atlanta Braves on May 25 (and giving Michael Blazek the win). Broxton's big problem so far is making contact. In 71 plate appearances, he has struck out a ridiculous 33 times. That is no way to make a major league career take off.

Okay, we need some help to get through these next cards...

How about a little Cold Gin? 

To be fair -- and I'm sure to the chagrin of at least a couple of you -- I'm not a huge KISS fan. This is probably the first time I've heard this song. It's not awful. It's okay. It's too repetitive in the guitar licks for my taste, though.

Peter sent me a couple of gold parallels as well. Topps has been doing these gold parallels for what -- fifteen or sixteen years? They are okay, I suppose. It's sort of like that guitar in Cold Gin. 

These two cards are of two guys having very different seasons. Jeremy Jeffress wasn't the experts' pick to be the closer this year -- Blazek, perhaps, might have been, or Will Smith, or maybe even Tyler Thornburg. But Jeffress ended up being the guy coming out of spring training almost by default being the only one healthy and pitching well. Lo and behold, as of June 27, Jeffress is in fifth place in the NL with 21 saves in 22 opportunities. Not too shabby.

On the other hand, Wily Peralta has been a train wreck wrapped in a volcano eruption thrown into a hurricane hit by a tornado. He looked like he might be a stud in the making in 2014 as his numbers looked pretty good -- 17-11, 3.53 ERA (4.11 FIP) 9 H/9, 1.0 HR/9, 2.8 BB/9, 7.0 K/9. He was hurt in 2015 and his numbers all went the wrong way -- 10.8 H/9, 1.2 HR/9, 4.84 FIP, 3.1 BB/9 and 5.0 K/9. 

Then, this year...UGLY: 6.68 ERA (5.60 FIP), 13.2 H/9, 1.6 HR/9, 3.7 BB/9 and 5.7 K/9. All of those numbers are terrible. Every single one of them. It has a lot of folks in the Brewers organization scratching their heads. It also is likely to end up with Wily getting non-tendered, joining the Cardinals, and winning the Cy Young in 2019.

I need a pick me up now.

  

At least it is an uptempo song. The more I listen to old KISS, the less I like it, to be honest. I know -- sacrilege, right? But the music is kind of...mediocre. Sorry guys and gals who have devoted your lives to KISS -- basically they are an average band with a great gimmick.

I'm probably wrong about that, so please -- attack me at will for that comment in the comments below. 

Speaking of repetitive and mediocre, I sure am glad that we have our 948th version of Robin Yount's rookie card making an appearance in the Berger's Best/Cards your Mom Threw Out/whatever the excuse is this year insert set. I think the real reason this is in the Series 2 inserts is to make up for the typo in Series 1 which said this card was from 1974. 

Of course, it also said that the mini 1974 version was highly sought after. And that is so true. I am still looking for it.

Peter -- thank you again for the great cards, and I hope that KISS isn't one of your favorite bands since all I've done here is call them average, mediocre, repetitive, and gimmicky.

Then again, I'm a baseball card blogger. What do I know about gimmicky or being repetitive?  

Cards from a New Blogger at Baseball Every Night

One of the most enjoyable things for me since I started blogging has been seeing people I've interacted with through comments or on Twitter decide to start blogging themselves. I think I have a pretty good explanation for that, too: while writing a blog does take some time, writing is something that most of us have done a lot during our lives for school, work, and even fun. When we can combine a hobby we enjoy with that, it makes for even better reading.

My other theory on this is one I used to calm my nerves before my first bar exam (I've taken and passed three). I looked around at a couple of the attorneys I'd dealt with in the past and thought, well, hell, if that guy can do it, I sure can. 

I'm guessing that people reading this blog probably think the same thing. My writing is hardly the enjoyable prose that either Night Owl or Dimebox Nick provide to us. It's much more workmanlike and stream of consciousness than anything.

Speaking, though, of new bloggers that came from the Twitter interaction stage is the new blog Baseball Every Night written by Peter, one of my 12 Twitter followers who isn't a spambot who followed me because I said the word "Norfolk" in a tweet one time in 2014. Peter has the twin loves of baseball and Sylvia Plath's poetry (no, seriously). 

Like many of us, Peter collected in his youth for a while before stuffing the cards into a closet in a box and, then, rediscovered the cards recently and got interested again. He's still sorting through his cards, but he happened to find a couple of cards that I needed for my collection in his shoebox:

The first card is a 1989 Classic Glenn Braggs. Glenn Braggs is an absolutely massive human being. As the bros in the gym would say, Braggs is absolutely yoked. 



By the way, Glenn Braggs is 53 years old. 

Not only is he cut like a Greek god, he's also done well for himself in his personal life too.  He's been married for 22 years to Cindy Herron, who was a member of the singing group En Vogue. Still, through all of that, many people remember him for a strikeout FLY OUT in 1990:

Wow. Just wow.

The other card Peter sent is above. If you look closely at this 1986 Sportsflics "Big Six" Rookies card, you'll see Jose Canseco on the top and, on the bottom, a man who may very well be the exact antithesis of Glenn Braggs:  Billy Jo Robidoux.

Where Braggs was a college-educated, chiseled, African-American athlete from Southern California, Robidoux was a high school-edcuated, doughy, white baseball player from Ware, Massachusetts. Robidoux was a year and a half younger than Braggs, but both made their way to the major leagues in the mid-1980s within about 8 months of each other. 

Neither was as good as their advanced billing, though, and both were out of the major leagues before their 30th birthday. Braggs went to Japan and looked like a superstar there, whereas Robidoux went back home to Massachusetts and, as of 2010, was working for the Ware Highway Department.

To be fair, both Robidoux and Braggs were a part of the Brewers conveyor line of failed prospects in the 1980s. The Brewers often fooled themselves into thinking that their hitting prospects were far better than they actually were by having minor league affiliates in El Paso and Vancouver/Denver in the heavy-hitting Pacific Coast League. 

For instance, in 1986, the El Paso Diablos hit .302/.391/.465 as a team, and Vancouver hit .286/.359/.407 as a team. In 1987, the Diablos hit .300/.376/.483 as a team, and the Denver Zephyrs hit .299/.374/.498 (an .872 OPS). To put that into perspective, that OPS would put the team as the 108th best player in major league history (better than Jose Canseco, Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Roy Campanella, and Darryl Strawberry, among others). 

I mean, Steve Stanicek (yes, who? is the right question) hit an incredible .352/.396/.616 in Denver in 1987 after a .343/.448/.583 year in El Paso in 1986. When a journeyman/scrubb like Stanicek looks like he is somewhere between Jimmy Foxx and Hank Greenberg as a player, you know you are looking at some skewed results.

Add in the fact that the rookie league team in Helena also was located in a very favorable hitting atmosphere, and it left only the Single-A spots of Beloit and Stockton as places to get half of a gauge on what kind of hitters the club had.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that the team fell into the abyss it did in terms of player development by the late 1980s.

At any rate, thank you, Peter, for the great cards. Here's Belle & Sebastian's song "Enter Sylvia Plath" for your listening enjoyment.



To everyone else, go check out Peter's blog!