Thanks to Three Big Names in the Baseball Card World

In the interest of picking up the pace on my thanking people a bit, I thought I'd combine a few thanks into one post. It's bad that I have to do this, because the people here getting thanked deserve their own posts. But I also need to do it while I have some time and have the desire to write a bit.

Let's start with a guy whom I'd never heard of before this year. He's burst onto my scene -- though, pretty clearly, there were a ton a people who knew him already -- thanks to his location in Georgia. I'm talking, of course, about Joey a/k/a Dub Mentality on Twitter and on his blog of the same name. 

I forget what the occasion was for this package. Perhaps it was just, "Stop whining about Topps and take these cards." In any event, he sent some good stuff my way:

What a true olio of cards. There are two of your 2017 Brewers MVP Travis Shaw -- thanks, Red Sox! Glad you guys wanted to give Pablo Sandoval another chance! Have fun storming the castle! 

The two Stadium Club cards are cards of infinite sadness. Villar's season was a huge step backward after last season, and Nelson got hurt on the basepaths and damaged his labrum severely enough that he's likely to miss time next year. If Nelson had stayed healthy, perhaps this season would be winding down with the Brewers looking down on the Rockies, rather than the other way around.

Then, there are the Bowman Platinum. Of course there is Ryan Braun. Trent Clark spent his age 20 season in High-A Carolina, where one website named him the 8th best prospect in the league on the strength of a .224/.361/.349 line with 21 doubles, 6 triples, 8 HRs, and 37 SB (on 42 attempts). He'll be in Biloxi next year. The other guy is Brandon Woodruff. Woodruff has found himself in the Brewers starting rotation in September with middling results. He's likely to start next year in the rotation at the age of 25.

Finally, there is Corey Ray. Now, Ray was named as the 4th best prospect in the Carolina League, but that is based on athleticism rather than performance. The club has to hope that he shows enough next year that he can be a good trade chit for pitching/whatever need arises, because it's looking more and more like Ray will not outdo Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, and Lewis Brinson going forward, and Trent Clark may have passed him too.

Many thanks, Joey -- here's some Deftones for you!

Next up, I have thanks going out to another Twitter friend, RobbyT a/k/a Boobie Maine. Robbie collects Detroit Tigers cards, and he used to blog about them several years ago. He blogged three times this year for the first time in four years. Robby is a bit down on his Tigers these days, and so he changed his avatar on Twitter to the Astros logo. This makes sense, after all, with half the Detroit team that can still walk and does not have herniated discs traded to Houston. 

At any rate, in response to my 1980s Baseball post on the Donruss Action All-Stars sets, Robby sent me complete sets of the Donruss Champions set, the 1984 Action All-Stars, and the 1986 Action All-Stars:

Brewers and Strawberry, baby. I have no idea why I decided to scan Darryl Strawberry instead of either Paul Molitor or Cecil Cooper (who are both in that set), but let's not ask too many questions right now. Maybe I'm just trying to get Peter's attention, even though it's not 1995 Fleer.

Since Robby likes 80s music, here's a little Funky Cold Medina to get him more chicks.

Thanks, Robby, for the great 1980s sets!

As an aside, I had a little fun this summer reliving 1989 by rapping this song with friends. I know the words, still, without any help. 

I miss Spuds MacKenzie, though.

Finally, I got a single card PWE from my good friend Wes a/k/a Jaybarkerfan a/k/a Willinghammer Rising. Wes has decided to go dark on his blog for a while -- a decision that sucks for the rest of us but one I totally understand, what with my seeming inability to blog more than a handful of times per month as of late.

Anyway, Wes is making plans to hit up the National next year, and hopefully I'll be there too. 

It's the first time in three years that I have the summer reasonably open, so it's a good opportunity. You can see the card that Wes sent my way behind the message, but it's in such great shape, you need to see it by itself:

Billy Bruton was always a favorite of my grandfather and my mom. Bruton was born in Panola, Alabama -- a now unincorporated town that sits barely in Alabama and about 20 miles from Scooba, Mississippi -- the home of Last Chance U's featured school the past two years, East Mississippi Community College. 

Bruton got his chance in baseball thanks to scouting from the Negro Leagues. He had joined the Army for 6 months and, rather than returning to Alabama, he moved to Delaware instead. There, he got to play softball and sandlot baseball. It was there that his life changed. 

Specifically, Negro League great Judy Johnson -- who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975 -- got the Philadelphia Stars to sign Bruton. Johnson heard of Bruton on the recommendation of Johnson's youngest daughter. Bruton caught the eye of both Johnsons -- making Judy's daughter Mrs. Bruton.

Bruton lied about his age to get signed by the Milwaukee Braves, shaving two years off his 23 years to claim being 21. The Braves decided 21 wasn't young enough, so they called him 19. Only on his retirement from baseball did Bruton disclose his real age.

After retiring from baseball after the 1964 season at the age of 38 and after spending his last four years in baseball in Detroit, Bruton became an executive with the Chrysler Corporation. He spent 23 years there, working mainly in Detroit and rising to become a special assistant to Chrysler president, Lee Iacocca. He retired in 1988, and moved back to Delaware to life in his father-in-law's former home (Judy passed away on June 15, 1989). Bruton worked with charities there for several years before he suffered a heart attack while driving and passed away on December 5, 1995.

Apropos for Bruton, here's a brief video of him hitting a walk-off single in Game 1 of the 1958 World Series. Everything seemed so sedate in the 1950s...

Wes, many thanks for this card and for all the cards you've sent me through the years.

Get Off Hiatus, Chop Keeper!

A couple of weeks ago, Steve from the Card Chop announced that he was taking a summer hiatus from blogging. His reasoning is sound -- fighting blog burn out and working long hours combined with the familial responsibilities during the summer can take a toll on anyone.  I speak for myself and a lot of other bloggers, though, when I say come back soon, Steve!

Apparently to celebrate his stepping back a bit from blogging, Steve was kind enough to send a package my way -- even making reference to the #WarwithJBF monster packages along the way:

What frightening things I might find? What do you mean?

Those Wacky Packages are awesome.  I've never collected them, and probably won't, but that Twerx bar with its "Break Me off a Piece of That!" slogan is almost certainly scarier than Jason Voorhees.  I mean, Jason isn't real...but that scary-ass backwoods twerker is as real as it gets.

Thankfully, Steve didn't just sent me those. Otherwise, I would have considered that whole package to be just a big Troll-up. Steve sent me a few cards as well -- a few great cards, that is.

Not a bad start -- Rickie and Prince, the "Brew Crew" (imaginative name there, Topps).  

As a side note, crazy weird groups of players put together on a single card for no apparent reason other than the photographer caught them posing together -- like those Fleer cards in their first ten or so years of existence -- are sorely missing from cards today. Sure, it's great that I can get a Skittles rainbow of refractors of Trevor Plouffe, but how about giving me a card featuring Pat Neshek talking to Munenori Kawasaki?  Or a David Price and Sonny Gray "Anchor Down" card? Would it be such a bad thing to make cards fun again?

Now, to be fair, that was the only Brewers card that Steve sent to me.  

The rest?

Del Crandall and Bill Bruton -- two of the early stars of Milwaukee Braves baseball.  As a kid, I had no idea how good of a baseball player Del Crandall really was. I only thought of him as the really not-so-good manager of the Brewers and the Mariners.  As for Bruton, I only think of him as a Milwaukee Brave, but he finished his career with four seasons in Detroit.

And there were two more cards too:

More Delmar!  And Johnny Logan too!  I love the play at the plate that Del Crandall's card has and the double-play/turning two on Logan's card.  I wonder -- has Topps sold off that original artwork?

But those weren't even the best part!

Holy Johnny Logan Autograph!

Steve, thank you very much for the great cards including the awesome additions to my Milwaukee Braves collection and especially the Logan autograph!  Enjoy your time away from the blog, but you better come back.  Otherwise, you'll be forced to watch this video on constant loop like some sort of classical conditioning straight from "A Clockwork Orange."

Card Show Purchases: The Vintage

When my interest in baseball cards was rekindled earlier this year, the one new spark that produced a flame in me immediately was to seek out cards that I did not collect when I was a kid -- either because I couldn't find them or, more likely, because I couldn't find them in a price range that I could afford then. Since I now can afford some of those cards, I decided to collect some of those cards.  

Once again being choosy, though, led me to decide to collect only Milwaukee Braves cards. Yeah, I have nascent player collections of Joe Adcock, Warren Spahn, and Eddie Mathews, and I'll probably add 1957 World Series MVP Lew Burdette to that. But, I want to collect all the Milwaukee Braves cards I can. At least from the major sets.

Since I haven't catalogued those PCs yet, I was careful about what I bought from any of those players.  But, I knew that I had not picked up the Mathews or Spahn from Gypsy Queen.  

Those photos are nothing original from Topps; I'm pretty sure that the Mathews photo has been on at least four different inserts in the past several years, and the same is true for Spahn.  

Now, these cards are new so they better be in perfect shape or else they better be free.  I'm not all that choosy on vintage cards, though, when it comes to condition. Let's be honest -- finding a few dime or 50 cent cards from the 1950s or early 1960s is likely to lead to finding these cards in less than ideal condition.  But, when I saw the vintage binder with dollar cards, I got sucked in.  

Hank's brother was nowhere near as good as he was, but not many people have ever been that good.  

Future GM Woody Woodward is looking very serious in his pose in foul territory during spring training.  He never hit any homers as a Milwaukee Brave and had a slash line of .207/.241/.257.

Did he have blackmail photos of the Braves GM?
    

Blasingame was touted as being the heir apparent to Warren Spahn when he was signed straight out of high school in 1961. He ended up on the Houston Astros in 1967. Eventually, his sartorial style featured in Ball Four.

Someone before me thought that Ty's hat looked better Red. Ty attended Clemson University, so after Clemson's recent trip to the land of Red and Black in Athens, he may disagree with that assessment.

Yup, it's a 1966. Joe's as disgusted about my inability to identify a 1966 Topps as I am. Topps avoided showing guys in hats so as to avoid the whole "Atlanta stealing the Braves and leaving Milwaukee without baseball" discussion.

Mack had to be happier than most of the Braves when the team moved to Atlanta, since he grew up in the ATL. Mack passed away 10 years ago and is buried in Forest Law Cemetery here in Atlanta.

Rico was one of the first players from noted Dominican baseball factory San Pedro de Macoris to make it to the major leagues, and he was the first San Pedran to be an All-Star. Indeed, he still stands fourth all-time in games played by San Pedro natives -- though Robinson Cano probably will pass him in the next year or two.

Lee Maye (not Lee May) played 7 years with the Braves beginning in 1959. He was a far better R&B and soul singer under his full name, Arthur Lee Maye.

See?

I love YouTube.

Bob Buhl to me will always be the pitcher who couldn't hit. I think it came from going 0 for 1962 -- 0 for 69 at bats, to be exact, with the Chicago Cubs.  With the Braves, his worst hitting year was probably 1954, when he went 1 for 31. 

Pisoni got a badly-drawn boy card in the 1959 Topps set. He had never played for Milwaukee before and had appeared in 9 total games for the Braves that season -- going 4-for-24.  After that performance, the Braves decided to send Pisoni back to the New York Yankees from whence he came in the Rule 5 draft.

Covington came up with the Braves in 1956. He and Hank Aaron were contemporaries in the Braves system and, according to his SABR biography, Covington had a propensity for two things -- getting hurt and pissing people off by opening his mouth.

I'm a lawyer, so I can relate with that second one.

This card of the Nitro, West Virginia, great is what may spur my starting that Lew Burdette collection.  It's actually in much better shape than most of these cards are, but that's not why I am going to start the Burdette collection. I'll start the Burdette collection because Lew went 179-120 with a 3.53 ERA with the Braves (6-11 in Boston in 1952, otherwise with Milwaukee) and he was the MVP of the 1957 World Series -- which, to date, remains the only World Series victory for a Milwaukee team.

When I tell people about my collecting the Braves, I tell them that while some kids went to bed with stories of giants and beanstalks, I went to bed with stories of Giants and Brutons. He didn't get to the major leagues until 1953 when he was already 27 years old, and he immediately led baseball in stolen bases in 1953 (with 26), 1954 (34), and 1955 (25). 

People didn't believe in stealing in the 1950s.  It was a simpler time.

Ray Shearer got a baseball card in 1958 for playing in 2 games with the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 -- one on September 18 and one on September 29. He passed away very young -- at the age of 52 in 1982 in York, Pennsylvania.

Bob Buhl appears to be questioning me about why I'm picking on him for his hitting when Al Leiter didn't get all kinds of crap in 2003 when he went 1 for 53 for the New York Mets.  

I'm sorry Bob -- I didn't know. 

Like I said at the top, I'd have rather these cards been in better shape than they are, and perhaps some day I'll seek out better and better copies of these cards for my collection. But I'm not buying these for "investments" so frankly, I really don't care if Ty Cline's hat is colored in red. I just care that I have the cards.

Even for Ray Shearer and his 3 at bat career.