Recent Purchases

I was going to go to a card show today, but I'm fighting a cold and don't want to subject everyone at the show to that. Instead, here I am organizing and writing a blog post. 

Over the past few months, I've started buying a LOT of Brewers cards. Part of that has just been backfilling the many holes in my collection through Sportlots, eBay, and COMC. 

For example, one hole in my collection came with buying Nelson Cruz cards. In 2006, Doug Melvin decided that he wanted a "Proven Closer" and traded away 30-year-old Carlos Lee and 24-year-old Nelson Cruz for Francisco Cordero, Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, and a minor leader (Julian Cordero). The Brewers got two years of good relief pitching from F-Cordero, 30 total games from Laynce Nix, and 141 games of a 0.1 WAR from Kevin Mench. Lee still had 8.4 WAR and 137 HRs left in his bat, and Cruz--who'd been marooned in the minors by the Brewers for reasons that escape me--had 18 seasons and 42.1 WAR yet to come. 

I guess that career is why this card was nearly $20. 

I've also loaded up on a lot of Christian Yelich cards. I think I have added at least 350 Yelich cards since the end of the season--and probably more. His back surgery this past season probably helped lead to the sell off by others, and it probably also did not help the Brewers not having him at the top of the order in the playoffs. Here are just a few:

I hope your Sunday is going well. 

COMC Black Friday #5: Jonathan Lucroy

It's been one week since I wrote on here. That's thanks to my five-day sojourn to Palm Desert, California, and back for a work convention. I went out there on Tuesday because of having meetings all day Wednesday, and I didn't make it back to Georgia until Saturday due to having seminars on Thursday and Friday. 



It wasn't a bad place to be for five days.

I thought about posting yesterday, but I just did not have the energy for it until much later in the day -- after reacclimating to the time difference and all that -- and that would have put the post in the midst of the Super Bowl. After watching that game, I think most people now understand truly how terrible it is to be a fan of teams in Georgia. I only picked up a Georgia Bulldog affliction, and even that is terribly bad for my mental health. I can't imagine what it's like to be a lifelong Falcons fan at this point, though.

At any rate, now that the Super Bowl is over, baseball is just around the corner. Pitchers and catchers report across MLB next week, and the World Baseball Classic isn't far behind. The WBC roster for the United States features two catchers -- Leesburg, Georgia's own Buster Posey and the pride of Eustis/Umatilla, Florida, Jonathan Lucroy. That is an excuse to me to post my Jonathan Lucroy cards from my COMC Black Friday haul. 

Let's start logoless:

I pay very little attention to Panini products, and that is probably a little unfair. Actually, it's not unfair -- it's just how I think. I don't think of Panini when I think of cards. I'm starting to think that I should eschew buying any Panini except for my player collections. Not having logos hurts its products badly. Having to recolor jerseys makes things worse. 

Then, suddenly, I get to the end of a year and realize that there is a chrome Donruss product. I literally have no idea when this Optic product came out, what it's composed of, what Brewers are in it, what stupid overwrought parallels there are, and whether I should even care as to what the answers to those questions are. 

But, I do care a little bit. Enough to buy them if I see them cheap.

Speaking of overwrought parallels, I bring you King Bowman of the Parallels. I picked up a green parallel serial numbered to 150, a refractor serial numbered to 500, and a bubbles refractor serial numbered to 99. And yes, I had to look that up on my Lucroy collection page. Almost to 200 now -- ringing in at 196. Gotta love all those parallels fattening up the Lucroy Collection.

What? There are more parallels?

Of course, and this will not be the end of them. I think one of these is the Topps Limited Parallel, one is a mini, and one is the Chrome "Prism Refractor." By the way, did I miss out on hearing that Topps failed to label its refractors in the 2015 Chrome set? I'm pretty sure I have one, but I can't tell for sure because I don't think it's labeled.

See, this is the problem with being both a completist and too busy to pay attention to everything. I miss news from like 18 months ago and look like a moron here asking about it.

But seriously, any help on this?

Then, we have the purple chrome things from Heritage. I really feel like Chrome in Heritage makes little sense. I can understand the desire to have old cards with that new card shine and all, but why make it an insert in the regular Heritage set? I'd prefer it as a standalone product, to be honest, because that way I can choose whether I want Heritage Chrome. 

Plus, purple cards look dumb to me. It's way too much like 1990s sports logos for my tastes, and 1990s sports logos tended to be very dumb.

More Parallels! This time, from 2015 Finest, including the Refractor, the Purple Refractor serial numbered to 250 (there's that damn purple again!) and the Prism Refractor. This card is nice and all, but the only thing that differentiates it from Panini is the fact that (a) the Brewers logo is in the lower left corner, and (b) the colors are right.

I actually like some of the parallels in Topps Triple Threads. I do. But the "amethyst" parallel on the left is just another purple. It is. It's serial numbered to 354, and this "amber" is serial numbered to 125.  

My brain immediately scanned my mental playlist and out comes a song by a band I've never really liked but which has kind of catchy songs. 

My problem with 311 is that the songs are repetitive and nearly all of their songs sound the same. Seriously. Now, it's not terrible music -- at least this one isn't, thanks to being all chill and beachy and all that -- but stuff like "Down" or "All Mixed Up" or "Beautiful Disaster" suck. It's the same damn chord progression with nearly the same rhythms.  At least that is the way it strikes me.

I like A&G X because of it being black. Of course, because it went well in year one (the card above, of course), Topps brought it back for another year despite the fact that it really was A&G XI.  

Apropos of nothing, let's listen to Len.

For whatever reason, one of the comments on YouTube made me laugh: "you can tell it's the 90's because no one is sleeved out with tattoos."

Hilariously true. 

Okay, the final cards may be parallels, may be base cards, but there are six left and I'm quickly running out of what little inspiration I had today. Still sleep deprived, I think.



So, scan dump of Jonathan Lucroy. That Topps Tribute from 2015 is very busy. All those swirls and weird lines trying to make it look high end only succeeds in making it look contrived.

On the other hand, Lucroy in a Wal-Mart parallel makes sense, somehow. Luc's a catcher. There aren't flashy catchers. Even the ones with some flair -- say, Tony Peña -- had plenty of substance and got run over more times than they could remember. That might have been the concussions, though.

The middle row features a Bowman silver parallel and a chrome rookie card for Lucroy. His ascent to the majors was so quick in 2010 that he featured both in the Draft set and the regular Bowman Chrome set -- but not in the base Bowman package.  

Finally, on the bottom row, we have a 2016 Stadium Club and a 2016 A&G Mini with an A&G back. Well, it might not be the A&G back, but back parallels are the most worthless and pointless of parallels, so let's just say it is. 

We need to close with a song, right? 

Speaking of overwrought and the 1990s, it's Scott Stapp and Creed, "With Arms Wide Open." Why would I subject myself and you to this? Because Jonathan Lucroy grew up in Umatilla, Florida. Umatilla also counts among its "notable residents" one Jaclyn Nesheiwat Stapp. Jaclyn was Miss New York USA in 2004 and Mrs. Florida America in 2008 -- after she married Creed frontman, Scott Stapp.

Thanks for rumbling through!

COMC Black Friday Buys #1: Jim Slaton & Bill Wegman

The first year I got back into card collecting in 2014, I did not even think to go shopping anywhere online for cards on Black Friday. That was mainly because I was going into a period of major uncertainty in my career -- one which has since been resolved to a large extent -- but also it was because I almost always am traveling back to Georgia from Wisconsin on that day after Thanksgiving. 

That was the case in 2015 as well -- getting back into Atlanta from Milwaukee, driving the 40 minutes home from the airport, and getting unpacked took up most of the day and almost all of my thoughts. 

This past year, though, was slightly different. First off, my wife did not go with me to Milwaukee for a couple of reasons too lengthy to get into here. So, I traveled by myself. That gave me plenty of time to read Twitter and the card blogs while traveling, and that gave me the reminder to check out the deals on COMC. 

As a result, I end up spending a decent amount of money loading up on cards. It wasn't so much the free shipping as it was the deals themselves that helped convince me to buy a number of the cards I got. I ended up buying about 250 or 300 cards that day, and then I got to wait for about a month to get them. 

So, today, let's start looking at the cards I got. We'll start with two right-handed pitchers who mostly started for Milwaukee in the years they spent with the team: Jim Slaton and Bill Wegman.

Jim Slaton

I only found two Jim Slaton cards that I needed -- his 1984 Topps Sticker (shared with Mike Heath) and his 1977 Hostess card. 

So, for those of you who barely recall (or don't at all recall) Jim Slaton, here's a quick rundown of his career. The Seattle Pilots selected Slaton as their 15th round pick in the 1969 June draft. In that draft, the Pilots selected Gorman Thomas with their 1st round pick. That made the 1969 draft a far more productive draft than 1968 was (literally only three players who made the major leagues being selected with an overall WAR of 0.6 among all three).

Slaton moved up quickly in the Brewers system and made his major league debut (as Brewer #53) on April 14, 1971, throwing 6 shutout innings against the Chicago White Sox and picking up the win thanks to a Tommy Harper run scoring single off Tommy John in the top of the 7th inning.

That was the first win of a still-team-record 117 wins as a Brewer for Slaton. He pitched in four other seasons outside Milwaukee for California (near where he grew up) and Detroit, totaling another 34 wins. He was traded to Detroit after the 1977 season in which he was an All-Star. Don Money had been selected as the Brewers representative for the 1977 game, but he came up injured. Slaton did not appear in that game, however, because he was scheduled to pitch against the Yankees on the first game after the break.

I was fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to speak to Mr. Slaton last weekend. He lives in the Phoenix area now. A lot of former Brewers seem to live in and around Phoenix -- perhaps because the Brewers have held spring training in Arizona for as long as they have been a franchise, I suppose. The good thing about that for those guys is that it is relatively easy for them to stay in touch with one another, to get together for charity golf tournaments, etc. 

My thanks go out to Jim Slaton for taking the time -- close to 45 minutes -- last Sunday to talk to me even as the Packers and Cowboys were playing. Both of us were watching the game too.

These two cards bring my Jim Slaton collection up to 57 cards/photos/autographs.

Bill Wegman



I was able to pick up 10 different Bill Wegman cards from COMC, all of which were quite reasonably priced because, well, it's Bill Wegman. 

The Brewers selected Wegman in the Fifth Round of the 1981 June Draft. I always enjoy looking at what other players the team could have selected, so here are a couple of notables that were selected after Wegman: John Franco (by the Dodgers with the very next pick), Devon White (8 picks later in the sixth round), Alvin Davis (in the sixth round by Oakland; he did not sign), Fred McGriff (9th round by the Yankees), and a right-handed high school pitcher named Mark McGwire, who was selected with the 199th pick overall in the 8th round by the Montreal Expos. Of course, he did not sign then.

Despite those "what could have beens," the Brewers did okay with Wegman. He stands 7th overall in team history with 81 wins (and second overall in losses with 90, 31 behind...Jim Slaton) and fourth in innings pitched behind Slaton, Mike Caldwell, and Moose Haas. He spent his entire 11-year career with the Brewers. He retired after the 1995 season at the age of 32 when, by his own words, he wasn't enjoying the game as much and was tired of the travel.

As this story from 2001 mentions, though, Wegman's life changed in the late 1980s. He became a born-again Christian and stopped drinking. He then returned to his hometown of Cincinnati and became a pastor at Faith Fellowship Church. He has since moved on to become an elder with the Grace Covenant Church and, now, he is also a grandfather. 

These 10 cards brought my Bill Wegman collection up to around 110 cards; I've added a couple of more since this package came in, so I'm now at 114 Bill Wegmans, which might be more than Wegman himself has.

Thanks for stopping by today and reading -- and there will be more catching up on trade packages coming soon.

I Like Free Stuff

Everyone likes free stuff, right? I mean, 

Now that I have everyone's attention, let me remind you that, if you haven't already entered one of my two contests -- either where you tell the story of your best card show find or, if you've never been to a card show, you tell me what you'd try to find at a card show.  Yes, it's two different contests.

Speaking of free stuff, I like the fact that COMC gives free store credit back when you buy stuff there.  I tend to load up on cheap cards -- no more than $1 or $2 -- when I shop there, so I hit their numbers to get credit pretty regularly.  I should have waited on shipping these to myself until I made my next order, but then I got a free shipping card...and I couldn't wait.  I wanted these cards NOW, if not sooner.

As a result and instead of waiting, I got a 7-card shipment from COMC.  The first card out of the package adds one card to my Jonathan Lucroy collection:

Perhaps the more-in-the-know-than-me people can tell me the difference this year in Finest between a refractor and a base card.  This card was sold as a refractor, but it was less expensive than Luc's base card. Add in the fact that the refractors don't say refractor anywhere, and I'm confused.  I mean, the base cards seem to have a slightly darker background when scanned versus the refractors but otherwise, the difference is as clear as a Scottish peat bog.

Mmmm, peat bogs....best when used to make Scotch, of course.

The other 6 cards from COMC filled in a few gaps in my Robin Yount collection.  With these six, my Yount collection stands at an even 800 cards -- which would be cause for a contest but, hey, I'm already holding one!

Anyway, here are those six cards, in no particular order:

So, from the top, I got a mini photo variation from 2015 Gypsy Queen, a 2013 Topps Tribute base card, the 2001 UD Decade 1970s Rookie Flashback card (which shows Yount at some point a good ten-plus years after his rookie year, oddly), a 2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes base card, a 2003 Donruss Elite All-Time Career Best highlighting Yount's 49 doubles in 1980 (a season in which Yount racked up an excellent 82 extra-base hits (49 2Bs, 10 3Bs and 23 HR...numbers he surpassed in 1982 with 46 2Bs, 12 3Bs, and 29 HRs for 87 extra-base hits), and, finally, the 1999 SP Signature Edition -- the year that everyone started going retired-player crazy in issuing sets, it seems.  Was this set so popular that every one of the card issues said "yeah, let's do that"?

Because these cards deserve a song, let's go straight for the obvious.

Thanks for reading and please, enter my contests.