Quick Walk Down the Plank

One of my fellow 2014 rookies in the blog world, Matthew Scott of Bob Walk the Plank, is much more on top of getting trade packages out to people than I am. He reached out to me recently and told me he had an incredible Jeromy Burnitz parallel to send my way, so I was immediately excited.

It took a week or so to arrive after he told me about it. Or maybe it didn't. I can't recall -- it's been 6 weeks now. I'm terrible. I know.  

At least The Murmurs put out a song about me.

That's the clean version. Be glad for that. 

At any rate, I owe everyone who has sent me cards recently that big apology -- that I suck and have slacked at posting lately. I've been enjoying my time away from daily blogging the past couple of weeks by getting my Topps inserts organized. I'm all the way up to 2010 right now. It feels good to get those finally into a book and for me to know what I am actually missing.

Back to Matt, though. I hope soon to send him some beer soon, or to have the opportunity to grab a beer in person together. 

But, until then, trading baseball cards will have to suffice. And while Matt teased Jeromy Burnitz, he actually topped himself when he sent me cards. 

How? 

Well, let's start with the least impressive of the cards I got from him:

I've written about Michael Reed before, in particular that he is has a good batting eye but not much power. Reed has had the misfortune of being in the wrong organization in 2017. In both 2015 and 2016, Reed spent a little time with the Brewers in the major leagues. This spring, however, he found himself getting optioned all the way down to Double-A Biloxi. He's been passed by a host of OFs, included Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton, Lewis Brinson, Ryan Cordell, and Brett Phillips, among others. 

Rather than plant Reed in Colorado Springs behind that last trio, he finds himself in Double-A. Since he was drafted 6 years ago this year, I would not be surprised to see Michael Reed coming soon to a waiver wire or Rule 5 draft near you -- unless Slingin' David Stearns can turn him into a pitching prospect.

Speaking of Brett Phillips...this one totally blows Reed away. The only thing that would make this card better would be if it had a multi-color patch in it.  Or maybe logos. Either one.

This has quickly become one of my favorite Panini cards, though. 

Phillips does need to show that his 2016 was a fluke and that he can make sufficient contact to be a major leaguer. He had problems with that in Double-A, but the Brewers still moved him up anyway. He slipped down the prospect list some this year due to that.

Okay, now, onto the Burnitz card Matt promised:

Okay, this one is well worth the hype. It is a 1999 Skybox Premium Rubies serial numbered 2 of 50. Seriously, to get a card of that rarity from 18 years ago is pretty damn cool -- and to be a guy that I collect just makes it better.

Matt, many thanks to you for the great cards! And everyone else -- please forgive me. I know I suck.

Thanks Again to Matt from BWTP!

It has to get boring to Matt from Bob Walk the Plank to read all the thanks and kudos and homilies about the cards that he douses all of us in the blog world with. I mean, is there a blogger out there who has made Matt aware of his/her presence that Matt has not sent cards to? 

It had been a while for me in getting cards from Matt. That's my fault, really, since I have been serving as opposing counsel to him in his war with JBF. It's also my fault because I let my supply of padded envelopes disappear, leaving me unable to get many things out in the mail to anyone. 

But I did get a little envelope recently from Matt. As always, it had some fantastic cards inside. I'm in a musical mood today -- perhaps it should be more sturm und drang than light and airy with the election tomorrow and all . . . I'm a bit scared for our future with the two candidates we have running, to be honest. But, I need a musical pick-me-up. So, let's turn to the music of West Virginians. 

Let's start with the most unusual of these artists:

Wilber Pan a/k/a Pan Weibo a/k/a Will Pan is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer-songwriter and rapper. Pan was born somewhere in West Virginia (according to his really messy Wikipedia page) but moved with his family to Taiwan at the age of seven. I say his Wikipedia page is messy because it contains the following sentence:  "He was offered an athletic scholarship in basketball by a NCAA Division III college, (which do not offer athletic scholarships) but chose to continue his education at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (aka Cal Poly Pomona) in the United States."

The thing is that the scholarship story came from a now dead link from a Chinese language website -- so there is absolutely no way to tell how right/wrong/mistranslated this "offer" may have been. He has won lots of Chinese language music awards, though, so he must be popular.

Jean Segura had a really good year this year for Arizona. Like many Brewers fans, I honestly believe that there is no way at all that Segura has the rebound year he had in Milwaukee. His time in town was marred by his son's death, and you have to think that he needed a change in scenery to help him through that grieving process. 

I mean, it's nowhere near the same, but my grieving process when I had to put my dog Clea down due to multiple health issues in 2010 was aided immensely by moving in with my now wife. It helped me not to go to the condo where Clea and I lived and find it empty. I can only imagine what it would be like with losing a child. 

Also, I'd bet that Segura feels more at home in Arizona with its much larger Hispanic/Latino population over what Milwaukee has. 

Who's next?

So, the former host of Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall, somehow got himself inducted into the West Virginia Hall of Fame. This video is from March of 2016 for Peter's 90th birthday. Peter Marshall is really named Ralph Pierre LaCock, and he was born in Huntington, West Virginia. The above is a funny interview that Fred Willard did with Peter.

Marshall actually did make a number of appearances on Broadway and on London's West End in a number of musicals. In fact, Marshall appeared in the musical Bye Bye Birdie -- a satirical send-up of America's reaction to Elvis Presley -- for its entire 268 performance run.

Also, something I am sure I knew at some point in the past but I had forgotten: Peter's son is none other than former Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Royals, and Yokohama Taiyo Whales first baseman and outfielder Pete LaCock. I think Marshall is actually pointing out Pete in the audience at the beginning of this clip.

Another fine Jean Segura autograph gets added to my collection. If Segura had not been traded, he would have been fighting with Scooter Gennett for time at second base and with Jonathan Villar for time at short this past season -- at least until Orlando Arcia was called up in August. Segura spent most of his time at second for the D-Backs this year. Again, he had a great year -- 6th in the NL in WAR for position players, according to Baseball Reference -- but I don't think there is anyway that happens in Milwaukee.

Plus, Jonathan Villar is actually a year younger than Segura.

Hawkshaw Hawkins was also born in Huntington just five years earlier than Peter Marshall was. But Hawkins died a long time ago -- on March 5, 1963. The song here, "Lonesome 7-7203," was his only number 1 song, and it probably got there because of his untimely demise. 

Hawkins was in Kansas City with a group of artists doing a benefit concert for a DJ's family. One of the other artists, BIlly Walker, got a call and had to get back to Nashville, so Hawkins gave Walker his commercial airline ticket. Hawkins then hitched a ride back to Nashville with the other two artists, Cowboy Copas and Patsy Cline. After stopping to refuel in Dyersburg, Tennessee, the plane took off and hit bad weather about 20 minutes later. The plane crashed near Camden, about 90 miles from Nashville.

While this excellent card does not deserve such a morose introduction, well, someone had to get it. This is a 2015 Topps Tribute Green Relic card serial numbered to 150. These Topps higher end cards tend to get lost to me when it comes time to put team sets together. 

It's not like I see too many Tribute singles just laying around at the card shows I attend, and any relic serial numbered to 150 never comes terribly cheaply on eBay or any other outlet. It's a shame that there are so many of these types of cards around because it makes all of them less desirable. 

There is something to be said for scarcity of products just as much as there is scarcity of a particular card. If there are 6 different sets issued and each has 5 parallels serial numbered around 100, you're looking at 3000 "higher-end" cards available. People still expect a premium -- even if that is not really that scarce and even if the only reason this one is numbered to 150 and some other card with the same photo and a similar cloth swatch is numbered to 175 is that this one is green and the other one is blue.

Bill Withers was born in someplace called Slab Fork, West Virginia -- a place that apparently has 202 people in Raleigh County not very far from Beckley. Slab Fork is in the heart of coal country, and there are some incredible photos you can see when you look at the Google Image Search for it. 

Maybe it was this rural upbringing that led Withers to record his best known song -- "Lean On Me." I know a lot of children of the 1980s know this song for the Club Nouveau remake, but this version from Soul Train is just more soulful and seems almost more meaningful too. 

I went through Bill Withers's part of West Virginia back in 1993, when I had a summer job working for a guy who contracted with furniture companies to install furniture on institutional projects. My first ten days of working with him was spent at seven different state parks in West Virginia -- Bluestone, Babcock, Canaan Valley Resort, Lost River, Cacapon Resort, North Bend, and Tygart Lake.

It's a beautiful state, and this song really gives a feel for the kind of people that Bill Withers sang about. Yeah, there were a lot of mountain folk. Many of them were not well educated, and most of them had not spent much time outside of their hometowns (well, other than at Cacapon, which is about 2 hours from Washington, DC). Most of them worked hard, scratched out a living as best they could, and were as excited to meet someone not from their town as I was to be in West Virginia. 

Actually, they were far more excited than I was. But I was scratching out my own living.

Speaking of excited, how about these 2014 Brewers/2016 Texas Rangers? This is one of those framed cards that Topps has been doing with its flagship set, and it is serial numbered 17 of 20.

Word came out today that Carlos Gomez is apparently seeking a long-term deal -- up to five years in length -- as a free agent. Scott Boras, in his effort to sell ice to Eskimos, thinks that Gomez can get a big payday because Gomez is a "rare player" coming on the market. Boras is correct about that -- there aren't too many players who would think that they deserve a five-year contract just two months after getting released. As the Rangers website I linked to says, it's possible that Gomez could end up hanging out on the market for a while thanks to this type of talk.

Okay, last one:

Brad Paisley is 10 months younger than me, and he was born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, near Wheeling. My wife likes Brad Paisley a lot -- not as much as she likes Luke Bryan or Carrie Underwood, mind you, but she likes Brad Paisley. He has a number of hits, of course. I like this video and song for the world travel involved and for the point it makes -- that as much as he enjoys all the great stuff he has seen around the world, he still misses his home.

It's one of those songs that can make people wistful for wherever it is they live, come from, or wish they were.

A guy who understands a thing about Southern Comfort Zones is Jonathan Lucroy. He turned down a trade to Cleveland -- and what might have still been a trip to the World Series -- and instead got to go nearly home to Texas. Lucroy grew up in Florida, but really is a southerner despite that. I can totally understand that mindset too. While I enjoyed growing up in Wisconsin and enjoy getting back up there every once in a while to see family, the fact is that I'm much more of a southerner than a northerner -- 21 years in Georgia with 4 years in college in Tennessee will do that to a person.

As always, Matt, many thanks for the great cards. I'm sure most of these bands aren't really in your musical wheelhouse, but I hope you liked them just the same.

An Uneasy Peace Evaporates: Will Bob Walk Again?

All wars start small. They all do. Sometimes it is just a minor misstep, a small infraction, that leads to a cataclysmic disturbance. 

For instance, while in retrospect it is easy to see, very few people in 1914 recognized immediately that one assassination would reshape Europe. Indeed, the actions of a small group of assassins whose plans to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand were carried out by a 19-year-old named Gavrilo Princip, and it led in just over a month to a complete disintegration of Europe as those people knew it. 

The archduke's assassination led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. The Austria-Hungarian empire used the opportunity to try to take over all of the Balkans. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so Russia came to Serbia's defense. Austria-Hungary's alliance with Germany was therefore invoked, causing Germany to declare war on Russia. That declaration of war led France and Great Britain to get involved -- all through what the New York Times called "a web of previously established alliances."

The situation spiraled very suddenly and very quickly out of control, and in just over a month, the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary were squaring off against the Allied Forces of France, Great Britain, Russia, and eventually the United States. 

Like all depressing or cataclysmic events, World War I led to incredible literature and movies being made. German war veteran Erich Maria Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front -- a book quickly adapted into the Academy Award winning movie of the same name:

Sadly, the movie and the book appeared in the midst of the churning storm that Europe remained -- an uneasy peace. Great divisions appeared. Russia turned on itself, with the Bolsheviks overthrowing the government and forming the USSR. Germany suffered from economic problems starting early in the 1920s thanks to the oppressive terms for reparations imposed on it by the Allied Powers. Soon thereafter, the Great Depression worldwide piled on to make matters even worse.

The German people blamed outside influences for their troubles. It too crumbled internally and turned on itself, as did Spain -- leading to the rise of fascism there under Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Adolf Hitler rose to power, and the peace got even uneasier. Hitler came to power through his speeches and his charisma and his Brownshirts. Major changes came as Hitler consolidated his power and, eventually, decided his German people needed more "lebensraum" -- living space.

Since World War II, we have avoided wars that involve everyone. Perhaps it's the whole "mutually assured destruction" thing that nuclear weapons provide. Still, minor wars break out regularly around the world. One broke out in 1969 thanks to El Salvador beating Honduras in a World Cup qualifying match.

No, really.

Many wars lead to bloodshed, but some don't. The Cold War had skirmishes around the world that led to death and bloodshed, but the US and USSR rarely engaged one another directly. 

Economic "wars" almost never lead to bloodshed, but they do lead to higher prices and lost jobs, often. One trade war broke out in the 1960s between the United States on one side and West Germany and France on the other. It was called the "Chicken War" because the European countries were trying to protect their own chicken farmers from cheap American chicken. In response, the US raised tariffs on light trucks -- a tariff which has basically kept foreign automakers out of the US market for light trucks because of cost to the consumer.

It also led to some really ugly-ass cars coming into the US from Japan:

Here in the world of baseball card blogs, we've had a few wars ourselves. There were the wars between Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, Upper Deck, Pacific, etc. in the 1990s over who could issue the most garish baseball cards, for example (by the way, I think Fleer 1995 won).

God that's terrible.

Those wars became wars of attrition. Companies fell by the wayside in the wake of the 1994-1995 strike one by one. A number of the wounds were self-inflicted -- I mean, did we really need 202 different insert types and 9 parallels in the 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings set? They might be great cards, but if you make that many damn inserts and parallels, you only inspire loathing.

We have also had trade wars here. The great Jaybarkerfan and I engaged in a multi-box, multi-post, multi-bipping masterpiece of a war that caused my collection to expand exponentially, added a Warren Spahn autographed baseball to my PC, and led to a Canadian invasion of Northern Alabama. At that point, we declared a truce.

My war with JBF was but a minor skirmish, though, compared to the all-out double nuclear armageddon engaged in between the two superpowers -- JBF and Bob Walk the Plank. It started innocently enough -- with Wes reaching out to Matt saying that he had some Pirates to send to Morgantown. It didn't take long -- just 6 months -- for all-out war to be declared.

Just three months later, Matt admitted defeat. JBF buried him with game-used jerseys, autographed bats, a canceled check signed by Ralph Kiner, and a special commemorative PSA Authenticated Jack Ham autographed jersey.

But, y'all know Matt. He can't leave well enough alone. 

The next thing you know, you start hearing rumblings. "He sent you what? An autographed bat? From whom? No WAY!"

Pretty soon, you end up writing a long post about the origins of wars and about chicken taxes.

You see, an email popped up in my inbox this morning. It was from Jaybarkerfan, which gives me an excuse to show another photo of the Real Mrs. Jay Barker:

Sometimes the ugliness of war has to be counteracted by beauty.

Anyway, Wes's message was short:

You tell Bob Walk the Plank that I'm coming, and hell's coming with me!

This is gonna get ugly, y'all. But I bet it will be fun to watch!

Cogitation and #SuperTrader Bob Walk the Plank

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had a post I was cogitating about prior to posting it. I had to reuse the word "cogitate" several times here because desire to engage in deep thought and reflection regarding the subject at hand caught P-Town Tom's eye as a new word. Ha!

At any rate, I was getting ready to talk about the Newsday article in which Derek Jeter collector and Topps employee/spokesperson Susan Lulgjuraj -- @yanxchick on Twitter -- is quoted noting that Topps tries to make products for everyone. By that, she means that the Opening Day product sells for 99 cents to try to entice kids to collect, and then Topps Dynasty retails at $400 a pack/per card for those people who are looking for lottery tickets and, instead, end up with an autograph/relic of Yasmany Tomas.

That's a real 1/1, and the eBay seller took less than $320 for the card from a $400 pack.

Then, as seems to happen with many things in our hobby, Night Owl said in 140 characters what I would have taken five paragraphs to conclude:

MORE your junk wax isn't worth anything anymore stories?? How bout story on delusional '80s collectors still existing despite these stories.

— NightOwlCards (@nightowlcards) March 5, 2016

So, instead, I'll post a card that came in the mail yesterday instead. I think three-fourths of the known world has received excellent baseball cards from Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank. I wasn't expecting anything from him, so I was surprised when I got an envelope.  It was one card, but it packed a punch.

What was it?

A 2015 Panini Cooperstown autograph of Rollie Fingers! And, indeed, on the back, it says "Milwaukee" above Rollie's name, so this indeed belongs in my collection. 

It goes well with a new page that I started working on yesterday. If you have ever been so bored or suffering from insomnia such that you started looking through my player collections, you may have noticed that for the players from the 1980s, I have a ton of in-person autographs of those players. Knowing that those are not the only autographs I have from that era, I decided to catalog all those in-person autographs. I got through the cards and the photos yesterday with only a few yearbooks and programs to go. That list is located here.

Okay, back to the envelope from yesterday. I feel like a little context helps see what a madman Matt really is:

Apparently, cards like this just appear on Matt's Morgantown desk like dust appears on mine.

Matt, thank you once again for the fantastic generosity!

Walking in Pittsburgh

Matt at Bob Walk the Plank needs little introduction.  Seriously, if you need an introduction to him, click on the link, read his blog, comment on a few posts, and offer to send him Pirates. He'll send you cards for your team collections/player collections happily and without reservation. At least that's been my experience with him.

The real problem with Matt, though, is that he has sent so many cards my way that I'm starting to run out of themes/ideas for posts to feature the cards he send my way. I'm in a loquacious mood today, though, so I came up with one to feature the fantastic five cards that came my way in his great Christmas giving spree.

Card #1: Mark Knudson Leaf 2013 "Memories Buy Back" 1 of 1

I appreciate 1 of 1 cards. I really do. It's just a shame that card companies stoop to manipulation of this type to create false scarcity. 

For what it's worth, I follow Mark Knudson on Twitter. He's a broadcaster with Mile High Sports and writes for AXS.com and, according to his Twitter bio, he "[doesn't] have a humble opinion." I've gotten into some conversations on Twitter with him about college football; he's very much an "East Coast bias" conspiracy theorist. At times, I agree with him, though -- for example, Christian McCaffrey should have been the Heisman Trophy winner this year.  

Anyway, a song to go with this card:

A shameful money grab by Leaf deserves a song called "Walkashame." 

Card #2: Greg Vaughn 2015 Topps Tier One

Matt sent a note with this envelope saying that he thought he had sent me this card already. He was right, but I don't mind.  It's a very nice card of a guy who was a bright light for the Brewers in the post-Yount days in the mid-1990s. 

My favorite memory of Vaughn actually comes from a game in Pittsburgh. I was there for a wedding of a college friend in early August of 1996.  We decided to go to a Pirates v. San Diego Padres game -- I suppose to say that we had been to Three Rivers -- shortly after Vaughn was traded to the Padres. Vaughn slammed a massive home run off Dan Miceli to lead off the fourth inning to help give Fernando Valenzuela the win (and set up Trevor Hoffman for the save).

So, to go with Vaughn and to celebrate that 20-years-ago home run trot:

Considering I only heard of this song thanks to RUN-DMC, that's the version I needed to use.

Card #3: Robin Yount 2008 Upper Deck Sweet Swatch Memorabilia

I love the loose thread in the middle of this swatch of fabric. With the gray color, I'm guessing this is from an away jersey from late in Yount's career...unlike the photo showing him in those wonderful blue away jerseys from the glory days. That uniform is probably my all-time favorite Brewer uniform home or away -- probably because, in the 1980s, we didn't get every game on TV...we only got away games.

This song is a recent favorite of mine; we'll see if it stands the test of time with me.

This song from Passion Pit is pretty catchy, and it always leads me to sing along with it. That's usually a good sign that I'll like the song for a while. On the other hand, I sang along with Billie Jean all the time in 1982...

Card #4: Yovani Gallardo 2008 SP Legendary Cuts Memorable Moments

So, this is the second 1 of 1 card in this envelope from Matt. I like this one more than the Knudson, certainly. It's a great addition to the Gallardo collection, but well...let's be honest. It's a little boring for a 1 of 1. No autograph, no swatch, no patch, no DNA-tested part of that scraggly goatee that Gallardo was sporting this year...just a single sentence about striking out 8 Kansas City Royals on June 24, 2007.

Let's wake up:

Pantera should wake y'all up. Usually, the piercing guitars played super loudly serves to wake me up pretty quickly. Other times, though, the repetitive guitar, bass, and drum lines in 1980s heavy metal -- especially Metallica -- will lull me to sleep. No lie. I've used Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on repeat as my fall-asleep music on overnight flights on at least a couple of occasions in my life already.

Card #5: Rollie Fingers 1999 Fleer/Sports Illustrated Autograph Collection

Rollie is a classic. I see his visage on a card, and it makes me smile. Those early 1980s teams were my "good old days" and always will be, and the trade after the 1980 season to get Fingers was truly a fan's life-changing event for me.  

Another classic?

Young Johnny Cash singing what would become a signature song for him -- so much so that his biopic was named for the song.

Matt, thank you very much for the Walk down memory lane and through these walking songs!

Cards from Bob Walk the Plank

Not too long ago, I didn't have much to write about. Now, all of a sudden, I have plenty of things to write about and about one-tenth the time to write about them.  

I'm not complaining about either thing.

About two days after I got cards from the Bubblegum King in Tampa, a bubble mailer from Morgantown appeared.  Matt breaks more boxes of cards in a month than I buy in a year. Sometimes I feel like he's Ric Flair to my Dusty Rhodes (RIP, Dusty):

I can almost picture Matt saying "I've spent more on cards I've given away than you've spent on your entire collection. WOO!"

So, why the hell not.  Let's use some of Slick Ric's interviews to introduce these cards.

Stylin' and Profilin'

It makes me chuckle that I believe Tony Schiavone is the guy to whom Flair is talking. For the past nearly twenty years (or more), Schiavone is a fill-in sports guy on a radio station here. He also is the radio voice for the Gwinnett Braves.

Flair was talking smack here back on March 8, 1986 about how guys like Ronnie Garvin didn't have a belt.  I love the intro here, though, as he walks in and starts with "Stylin' and Profilin'! Woo!"  

Like these two cards:

Two awesome autographs from the Panini Hometown Heroes set from 2013.  I don't really like the base set cards -- they are bland, yellow backgrounds with cards that don't feature anything like a Brewers uniform color on them.

"Ric Flair's Best WCW promo ever!"

This promo starts with Flair talking $hit about his son joining the NWO of Buff Bagwell, Scott Hall, and a few others. The main part of the promo is Flair talking about his upcoming cage match with Hulk Hogan.  

Flair really was one of the greatest talkers that the wrestling world ever saw.  This promo show how awesome Flair was at selling a match -- not that anyone needed to be sold on a Hogan/Flair match -- but man, he was awesome in this promo.

Again, kind of like this card is just an awesome...1 of 1 awesome, that is!

It's a 2012 Allen & Ginter mini printing plate of Yovani Gallardo! Gallardo has had a solid year for the Rangers this year, and I hope he keeps pitching well.

"To Be The Man..."

It's a quote I use pretty regularly.  Well, sort of...when the opportunity arises I do.

"To be the man, you gotta beat the man, Woo!"

Now, I know that Robin Yount won the MVP twice, and he is definitely one of my all-time favorite players.  He's my main player collection because of that, the HOF, the 3000 hits, and the full career spent in Milwaukee.  

But Paul Molitor always seemed like a more integral player. 

The team seemed to struggle without him in the lineup -- and well they should with losing the on-base percentage that Molitor brought with him. I recall Bill James calling Molitor one of (if not the) most fundamentally sound ballplayer in the 1980s. It shouldn't be surprising that he is succeeding in being the Twins manager, currently standing 5 games over .500 coming off four straight seasons of just dismal performances.

Matt, you are the man...I can't beat that!  Thank you very much, my friend.

Who Is Bob Walk?

Never fear -- this is not another one of those "Jeopardy!" posts.  Instead, to highlight another great bubblope from Vegas refugee Matt at Bob Walk the Plank, I thought, "what do we really know about his blog's namesake, Bob Walk?"  

Well, since Matt sent me five cards, how about we pick up five random facts about Bob Walk from Wikipedia and a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review interview with Walk from three years ago. 

1.  Bob Walk Fact 1: Walk Was Warmed Up and Ready to Pitch in the Bullpen when Stan Belinda allowed *that* hit to Francisco Cabrera in 1992

While Wikipedia has no source for this claim, the Washington Post mentioned it in an article two years ago as well in mentioning that, prior to 2013, the Pirates last winning season was that year in 1992.

A guy who played for the Pirates in that long losing spell was current Brewer Aramis Ramirez.

This great jersey bit from the 2015 Donruss set -- complete with a pinstripe! -- starts off the proceedings.  

Having nothing to do with that interesting tidbit about Bob Walk but still odd is the following fact: while Aramis Ramirez claims he is retiring after this season, he actually retired after last year and has been replaced by a bottle of Aramis cologne at third base.

Actually, that spokesmodel would probably hit better than Ramirez has this year.

2.  Bob Walk Fact 2: Bob Walk was the Starting Pitcher in Game 1 of the 1980 World Series for the Philadelphia Phillies

When asked about that start when the Pirates visited the Phillies in 2012, Walk said that all he though in the bullpen was, "Hey, all my buddies at home are looking at me now! . . . Like I said I think I was too young and dumb to be as nervous as I should've been."

A guy for Milwaukee who really never seemed nervous -- but not because he was young and dumb, but rather because that was just his personality -- was Ben Oglivie. Oglivie was a very intelligent man who completed the New York Times Crossword Puzzle every day.  And, he started in Game 1 in the 1982 World Series for Milwaukee. 

This is my first "certified" Ben Oglivie autograph, though I have a few already that I got in person way back when.

3.  Bob Walk Fact 3: The guy loves chicken wings.

In his interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the following colloquy occurred:

App I wish I could invent:

Find the nearest chicken wings.

Favorite brunch food

Chicken wings.

Favorite guilty pleasure:

Chicken wings.

Hand it to Bob -- he's consistent.

Relevant to absolutely nothing at all related to chicken wings is this 2004 Fleer Genuine Insiders Reflections Parallel, serial numbered to 99:

As far as I can tell, Geoff Jenkins has never spoken about any kind of love he has for chicken wings.

4.  Bob Walk Fact 4:  The Braves Released Walk in March of 1984. He became an NL All-Star in 1988.  Great Job, Ted Turner!

Mistakes in player personnel decisions plagued the Braves in the early and mid-1980s. That's why they were so bad in the late 1980s -- signing Bruce Sutter to that ridiculous contract, for one, and cutting a guy like Walk for another.  Well, maybe.  Could the Braves have foreseen Walk cutting his walks allowed in half? Sure -- if you say that the walk rate going up the way it did in 1983 in the minors was the aberration and not the new normal.

Another player personnel move that could have been second guessed a lot was the return for Greg Vaughn in 1996. The team got Bryce Florie, Marc Newfield, and Ron Villone in return. One never knows what other options were available or whether the market for sellers was depressed, but that just seems low for a guy with 5 or 6 years left in his career.  

No matter.  Here's one Greg Vaughn:

It comes from last years Fan Favorites autographs.  The Brewers don't have any of those autographs in the mix this year, perhaps because Topps believes the Brewers don't have fans.

5.  Bob Walk Fact 5: He believes life would be better without the Designated Hitter

Well, of course he would.  He wasn't a very good hitter -- career line of .145/.180/.180 in 583 plate appearances. 

Maybe Walk just hates Greg Vaughn, whose best natural position was designated hitter. Perhaps, but Walk couldn't hate this card:

From the 2015 Topps Tier One Acclaimed Autographs subset, this Vaughn is serial numbered 29 of 399. I've never hated the designated hitter, to be fair -- I mean, it saved Paul Molitor's career, after all.  

Matt, thank you very much for these great cards. I'm sure you didn't learn anything from this short run through random Bob Walkdom, but perhaps someone did.

Mailbag Catchup: Commish Bob, Reader Angus, Mark Hoyle, Bob Walk the Plank,...and a Mystery

With Monster 1 of 6 Monsters looming on the horizon, I need to get caught up on some cards that have come in to the card room over the past couple of weeks.  So, let's walk through some of those.

The Mystery

First things first -- an apology. The reason for the apology is that I should know who sent me these two awesome Braves:

I should know because I remember corresponding by email with the mystery sender from Oklahoma who sent me these. I remember it well, in fact.  But I'll be damned if I can find those e-mails, and I certainly want to thank the man/woman who sent me my first 1963 Fleer card and a 1956 Topps card.

I just couldn't find any notes inside the envelope to identify the sender.  Compounding matters was the fact that it was trash day, so the bubble mailer went straight into the recycle bin and to the curb -- and it was gone before I had the chance to pull any information off the envelope.

So, to borrow from quickly-forgotten alt-rock band Geggy Tah:

eBay

The next item I received recently that I want to highlight was a bit of an impulse buy on eBay. Perhaps the worst thing that I could have ever done in my life was install the eBay app on my iPad.  I say that because I wake up during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep with some regularity.  The iPad can help my brain shut off or at least wear me out enough to get back to sleep, so that's often what I do -- pick it up and waste time.  One night, though, I spotted this card:

Then, I saw the serial numbering:

With the hope that the Brewers hold on to Lucroy as they are suggesting they will, I slapped a bid on the card.  Then I forgot about it until I got that "your auction is ending soon" email from eBay.  No one bid after me on it, so I got a card numbered 3 out of 5 for the starting NL All-Star catcher last year for a total of $6.25 including shipping. Yeah, it's Bowman-parallel hell and all, but it's nice to have a low serial-numbered card for a reasonable price.

As it stands, this card is also my only Bowman card to date.

Commishbob

Commish Bob of the always excellent Five Tool Collector also hooked me up recently without even a note of warning.  Bob did sent me a note, saying that he believed the cards he sent hit my want lists and, then, this...

...with the note saying, "The Burdette Exhibit card is cool, no?"

Oh, yes.  Yes it is! But I do have a question for you: it looks like the stat-back Exhibit version, but the back is blank.  Perhaps I'm not looking at the right websites/resources, but was there a blank-bank and stat-back variation with the same photo on it?
Bob also fed the Burdette PC a little bit more -- and the Adcock one too -- with these completely incredible 1954 Bowman cards:

And he threw in Wisconsin boy Andy Pafko to boot:

Add in some 1961 Topps, and you continue to make me wonder how I can ever repay you, Bob!

THANK YOU BOB!

Reader Angus

I don't know how to thank Angus enough for his largesse. This was the third time he sent me cards (here's the first and here is the second) in the space of about a month or so.  The other envelopes were excellent -- don't get me wrong -- but I feel like this envelope was by far the best.

Why?

It's not these cards, though they are great and go into player collections:

No, that's not the reason.

The reason is O-Pee-Chee!

Sorry, Hall of Fame O-Pee-Chee.  36-Year-Old O-Pee-Chee.  Just incredible.  

And, then, just when it doesn't seem like it could get any better, he goes and out oddballs me:

I mean, seriously, an oddly sized popup of Paul Molitor from the 1991 All-Star game at SkyDome n/k/a Rogers Centre?  And, Angus was cognizant of my PCs enough to send me two of these -- one for the team collection too!  Just awesome.  THANK YOU, ANGUS!

Mark Hoyle
Mark is the original reader-trader, at least for me. I feel 100% sure that he is the first non-blogger who sent me cards.  And, usually, when Mark is the one sending cards it means that you are in for a vintage treat.  

Not this time, though!

This is nearly as close to vintage as it got this time around -- a 1983 Donruss Action All-Star of Robin Yount, a 1986 Donruss Action All-Star of Paul Molitor, a 1988 Fleer card of Mark Kiefer, and a 1993 Pinnacle Dave Nilsson. Otherwise, it was new new new!

But then, something popped out of the envelope that looked to be vintage...but it's not really...

This made me do a double take.  I didn't think Stormin' Gorman had a 1973 Topps card...and indeed he does not!  I flipped the card over, and it was a blank white back.  I know what it is now, though -- a Bob's Lemke custom card without the back on it. printed on photo paper.  Seeing how gorgeous this photo and color looks in hand, I may just breakdown and buy a couple Brewers customs from Bob yet!

THANK YOU MARK!

Matt from Bob Walk the Plank
Finally, a package from Matt at Bob Walk the Plank arrived.  Matt is still trying to dig out from the war that he had with Jaybarkerfan -- and trust me, I have fear in my heart already with the onslaught that is on its way.  I viewed Matt's war with JBF in the same way I viewed all the snow in the Northeast -- it was great to watch from afar, but I wasn't sure how I would react in the same situation.  

Matt handled himself well and valiantly tried to survive the avalanche.  He did it, but just barely.  Thankfully, he immediately started thinking about others -- as he always does, it seems -- and lo and behold, a package showed up from him.

Let's start with the two cards for my PCs -- one for Rickie Weeks and the other for Ryan Braun:

The Weeks is a Donruss Diamond Kings Materials Bronze Parallel serial numbered to 100, and the Braun is the Gold Refractor Parallel from 2011 Topps Chrome serial numbered to 50.  An odd thing to me is that I don't own the base Chrome card from 2011, but now I have a card of which only 50 were made!

The remainder of the cards are excellent as always -- Matt seems to bust more wax and have more inserts, serial numbered cards, jersey/bat cards, and autographs than nearly anyone else I've encountered.

What more can be said about Matt and his generosity?  He's just a great person to deal with.  Thankfully, by the time I had received this package from him, there was already another one on its way to him.  

THANKS MATT!

And thank you all for reading.  With the monsters on the way, I have one post of Brewers from the card show from almost two weeks ago now and then....it's all Barker all the Time!

He's coming....and he's got his (second) wife with him: