Dollar Stores 101 #SuperTraders

For a while in November -- while everyone was still shocked that the Earth kept rotating on its slightly tilted axis despite the fact that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series -- I was getting concerned about my collecting. Trade packages had dried up. That was entirely my fault, since I have been very blasé about collecting generally lately. The time I have available for collecting had dried up too, as the real world of work and Thanksgiving and wanting to spend time with my wife all came together to make my card time limited.

Then, just after Thanksgiving or thereabouts, packages just started rolling in. My desk is a mess now of cards needing to be cataloged, sorted, scanned, marked off want lists, and added to player collection lists and binders. I have at least six or seven packages waiting to be scanned right now.

I do have one package that I scanned a while back and which I just haven't gotten around to posting. Probably two or three weeks ago now, I got a package in from Sportscards From the Dollar Store. It was an eclectic mass of Brewers cards, but I only scanned a few of them. Now, whatever else was in the envelope is somewhere on my desk...gah....

In honor -- or should I say, in honour -- of the envelope from the Dollar Store, I thought about dollar stores generally. There seem to be different stores of this nature all over the place. So, here's a few I know of being around where i live.

1.  Family Dollar

Dollar stores often have good deals on items that you buy every day. It's just that most of those stores tend not to be places you go every day. For instance, the Family Dollar near me has $1 rolls of wrapping paper, 88-cent 2-liter bottles of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and $3 tubes of Colgate toothpaste. Not bad prices. Maybe I should shop at this dollar store?

Appropriately slow in starting out here -- because, well, I'm slow starting today anyway after a 3.5 mile run/walk in 37 degree weather (I know -- I've gotten weak having lived in Georgia for 21 years) -- let's go to 2010 Upper Deck. It's too bad Upper Deck had its license stripped by MLB. Cards like this -- even if it is a typical pitcher-grimacing photo -- remind me how good a simple design can be...unlike pretty much anything Topps has done since it got an exclusive license.

2.  Dollar Tree

I just realized that I have three Dollar Tree stores within three miles of my house and 21 stores within 10 miles of me. Crazy. D

Dollar Tree has the same kinds of deals as Family Dollar -- $1 rolls of wrapping paper seem to be a dollar store staple. Dollar Tree also has the always good 4.5-oz. bag of Cheez-Its for $1. Mmmmm....Cheez-its...

I feel like stores like Dollar Tree have taken over from what Sears and JC Penney used to be -- the local department store where people did all their shopping, including everything from tires to appliances. The reason that they have taken over is that Sears and JC Penney have floundered about trying to position themselves as better than Wal-Mart or as equivalent to a mall department store like Macy's.



Within my Dollar Store package, I got a Topps Chrome and a Topps Update of two pitchers who should be available at a dollar store. The two Italians did not cover themselves in glory in 2016. Capuano came back to the Brewers as a sort of elder statesman innings sponge, but he failed in that role when he got hurt after just 16 appearances and 24 innings in the first two months of the year.

Garza signed for a four-year, $50 million contract after the 2013 season. He's got one year left on that albatross...er, deal. Garza started the year on the DL and did not make his debut until two weeks after Capuano was done for the year. Garza pitched acceptably on occasion -- his first two starts over 10 innings yielded just one earned run, and his last six starts (33-1/3 innings) provided a good run of results as well (2.97 ERA, Opponent's BABIP of .299 means that was right on too). The problem was that those 8 starts bookended an 11-start stretch (58-1/3 innings) of a 6.02 ERA (opponent BABIP: .309...again, nothing out of the ordinary there).

Between Garza and Ryan Braun, the Brewers will spend over half their payroll on two players. Together, they may have a WAR of 0, with Braun's positive negated by Garza.

3.  Dollar General

I have to admit -- I get confused by all these different stores. With these names, you can see why. Unlike Dollar Tree and more like Family Dollar, Dollar General tends to have more items that cost more than $1 a piece or don't cost exactly a dollar. For instance, looking to my favorite gin mixer of ginger ale, two twelve packs of cans of Canada Dry Ginger Ale cost $5 here. Like the other stores, wrapping paper starts at a buck. But, you can also get a Star Wars coloring book here for $1. Can you do that at Family Dollar?

Well, probably. I don't know.

Speaking of Ryan Braun, here's an orange parallel from 2011 Bowman. This reminds me that the reason I have stacks of cards on my desk to sort is also caused by the fact that I got bogged down in 2013 Bowman parallels and ran out of steam on cataloging. 

I guess I should try to get my police cards into sheets instead.

4. five Below

I've gone into this store once about a year ago. I had to stop at the Office Depot next door to pick up some supplies for one of my wife's charity activities. I found some packs of 2015 Topps Series 1 in what might have been a retail or hobby box -- I didn't take a close look. The problem was that half the packages had actually been opened and rifled through. If there were any inserts in it, they were long gone. 

There's pack searching, and there is outright thievery. That was clearly the second.




Putting Molitor and O'Leary together may seem to be a weird thing. But it makes sense here because, under Sal Bando's management as general manager and in Bud Selig's eminent ass-hattery, both O'Leary and Molitor were simply discarded like those commons in the packs at Five Below. And, just like those commons, Bando and Selig made no effort to stop the thievery -- they just watched it happen as their pockets were picked.

This O'Leary card, though, reminds me that I am going to put together a real want list for all Brewers minor league teams. The first step is identifying them. Sort of like admitting that I have a problem.

5.  Ollie's Bargain Outlet

While Ollie's does not have that magic "dollar" word in their name, Ollie's is a big-time closeout store. They buy up huge lots of random things that other retailers can't sell or that the manufacturers or middlemen get overstocked and then sell them at cut prices. Thing is, though, that most of their deals are ones that you just have to go to the store to see. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see them start selling those awful 2013 Panini Triple Play cards soon. I mean, if Dave and Adam can't get rid of cases of them for $44.95 (suggested retail price: $475.20) or a 24-pack box for $3.95 (suggested: $23.76), it would seem that Ollie's is the next step.

Michael Reed played most of his 2016 season at the age of 23 in Triple-A Colorado Springs. He has appeared in 159 games at Triple-A, and in 640 plate appearances, he's slashing at .248/.363/.369. He is a singles-hitting outfielder who, as a prospect, is the equivalent of putting along in the right lane on the interstate driving five miles per hour under the speed limit while the Porsches and Maseratis and Lamborghinis in the left lane (model names: Lewis Brinson, Brett Phillips, Corey Ray, and Trent Clark) go blowing by him so fast that all he feels is breeze. 

I mean, Reed is still listed as the 27th best prospect in the Brewers organization. It's just that there are eight other outfielders ahead of him (add in Monte Harrison, Ryan Cordell, Demi Orimoloye, and Tyrone Taylor to those other guys) just on the prospect list and Domingo Santana and Keon Broxton in the majors. 

So, maybe someday soon, you too can find a Michael Reed blowout sale at your local dollar store.

Many thanks go out for the great cards.

Brewers from The Dollar Store #SuperTraders

Hey, y'all. I took the last few days off away from blogging. It's not that I was burned out or lacking in ideas or lacking in post material. 

Okay, there was a little bit of each of those in my taking a break, other than the material thing. More to the point, I found myself wanting to read a bit. With my schedule as it was this week, a choice had to be made between blogging and reading. So, I read.

I started re-reading The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, and I found myself longing for a new version of James's Historical Baseball Abstract. He's almost due for a reissue, after all. The first edition came out in 1985, and the second edition came out in 2001. So, on that schedule, one should come out next year, right?

I love history. Baseball history is my favorite to read about, in large part because that is the history I have read most. There are so many stories in baseball history that have been told to the point of where myth seems to become reality -- for instance, the whole Abner Doubleday creation myth, which has its own Wikipedia page and, yet, when you Google "who invented baseball" the response is to produce a picture of ... Abner Doubleday.

All that is just for explanation's sake. I could have easily written something earlier this week to talk about the great mailer I received from Super Trader Sportscards from the Dollar Store. Thanks to Jaybarkerfan putting together that group, I traded for the first time with Buckstorecards. I sent an envelope of Mets across the border, and in return, I received some great O-Pee-Chee and other Brewers in return.



Starting with O-Pee-Chee from 1975, we have George Scott, Johnny Briggs, and Billy Champion. Over the first seven seasons of Milwaukee's existence, Scott was definitely the best player to don a Brewers uniform. He spent five seasons with Milwaukee -- splitting two separate stints with the Red Sox up. In those five seasons, Boomer slashed at .283/.342/.456 (OPS+ of 131) with 115 HRs and 463 RBI and five Gold Gloves in five years.

The Brewers did well in both trades involving Scott. In 1971, the Crew got Scott, Ken Brett, Billy Conigliaro, Joe Lahoud, Jim Lonborg, and Don Pavletich for Tommy Harper, Lew Krausse, and Marty Pattin. Getting Scott by himself was a benefit enough, but the other players' contributions weighed that trade in Milwaukee's favor (though Harper did well for the Red Sox).

Then, in 1976, the Red Sox quite inexplicably decided that they would rather have a 32-year-old Scott coming off a decent but not great season rather than a 26-year-old Cecil Cooper coming off a decent but not great season. The Sox got one last excellent year of Scott in 1977 before age caught up to him, leading to his trade to the Kansas City Royals for Tom Poquette. The Brewers got 11 years from Cooper, including five all-star seasons and three Silver Slugger Awards.

Other than these great, old O-Pee-Chee, the package from Canada skewed toward serial numbers and minor leaguers. Let's go with the minor leaguers first.



It's my second Cody Ponce autograph from Leaf. Buying the first one I got might have jinxed him, since he went on the DL shortly after the season started with forearm fatigue. Remember, boys and girls, There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. There are pitchers who are pitching currently and will be hurt later on or were hurt before, and there are pitchers who are currently hurt.

Jacob Gatewood is a kid the Brewers drafted out of high school in 2014 with the 41st overall pick. The last time I talked about him in February of 2015, I noted that, at 6'5" tall, it seemed likely that he would shift to third base -- and that he needed to hit more to develop. Well, it was not a stretch to say that since the Brewers have one of the game's best prospects at the age of 21 at Triple-A. But, my prediction came to fruition this spring when Gatewood was moved to third base. Now, he needs to learn how to take a walk -- something he has yet to do in 104 plate appearances this year at Single-A Wisconsin.

Jorge Lopez made his major league debut last year, getting two starts in September. He's been getting bombed at Triple-A Colorado Springs this year so far, and the worrisome part of that is that he is averaging nearly a walk an inning. That will just not fly in the big leagues.

Tucker Neuhaus was drafted as a shortstop in 2013 out of high school. He's now playing second base for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, but will be out for a few more weeks due to a broken finger. It's too bad -- he was off to a sizzling hot start.

Trent Clark is just a kid barely out of high school in Texas, so he's still working in extended spring training at this point. The team decided not to push him to a full-season league as of yet, and he'll probably find himself assigned to the Helena Brewers in the Pioneer League.

Now, for some serial numbers:



The top two are nice cards -- the Gold parallels from Topps serial numbered to 2013 for Gorzelanny and 2015 to Parra. The Gerardo Parra era in Milwaukee seems like years ago even though it ended only last July. The pitcher the Brewers got in return for Parra -- Zach Davies -- hasn't pitched very well this year in his four starts (19-1/3 innings, 10 walks, 13 strikeouts, 28 hits allowed) but, he's young (only 23 years old) and the Brewers aren't going anywhere anyway. His most recent start was a good one, so hopefully that will bode well going forward.

Gorzelanny is toiling away at Triple-A Columbus this year in the Cleveland system. I'm shocked to learn that Gorzelanny is still just 33 years old. He came up in 2005 with Pittsburgh at the age of 22 and put up his best season -- and just under a quarter of his entire career's innings in the big leagues -- in 2007 at the age of 24. I guess that's why it seems like he should be so much older now.

Chris Capuano returned to Milwaukee at the age of 37 this year for one last go-round. He's pitched decently (though he is walking too many people too, with 12 walks in 16 innings so far) but his role is really to give the Brewers some innings when the starter gets knocked out too early...which has happened a ton this year, unfortunately. 

The best part of this entire envelope is very clearly the Paul Molitor Triple Threads Gold Parallel serial numbered to 99. For quite some time, there has been a groundswell in Milwaukee for the Brewers to put a Molitor statue outside Miller Park. Currently, there are statues of Robin Yount (of course), Bob Uecker (makes sense), Hank Aaron (okay, I can see it for his Milwaukee Braves/Brewers days combined) and Bud Selig (fine, he brought the team to Milwaukee) -- but there is not a statue of the second-ever Brewer in the Hall of Fame.

Why is that? Almost certainly, it is because Molitor left the team after the 1992 season when Selig and Sal Bando lowballed Molitor and made a contract offer of just $900,000 for just one additional season. Molitor signed on with Toronto instead for 3 years and $13 million (and turned down the Angels offer of $6.5 million for 2 years). Molitor has said in the past that he had no desire to leave Milwaukee, but the team told him "There's not a lot we can do right now given our circumstances." 

Sure, Molitor was going to turn 36 during the 1992 season. But, he was coming off an injury-free season in which he appeared in 153 games. 

This is the very reason why I abhor Bud Selig. Selig created the "circumstances" to which Molitor referred -- giving people like Edwin Nunez and Ron Robinson million-dollar contracts in 1992 and Tom Brunansky and Bill Doran in 1993. But, yeah, Molitor is the guy who was disloyal, right Mr. Selig?

Many thanks to Sportscards from the Dollar Store for these great cards and for the opportunity to revisit some history.

PWEs in the War with JBF

As we speak, bubble mailers are making their way to Alabama, to carry the word of Off Hiatus.  Propaganda in war is as much a part of the game as bullets and boxes, after all.  One wins or loses wars not only with dropping bombs, but with dropping leaflets.

The leaflets heading to Alabama have shown Off Hiatus's superiority to date.  Don't get me wrong -- the PWEs I have received have been excellent, and the number of serial numbered cards and jersey/bat inserts are large.  But, as JBF himself admitted, Off Hiatus prevailed in the first round.  And that win was based not on serial numbers, but on vintage and oddballs.

We will see how future rounds proceed.  To be fair, I am expecting that, eventually, I too will be as overwhelmed as Bob Walk the Plank became...and let's be honest, if Matt can get overwhelmed, there's no way I will avoid it.

Wes hit my mailbox machine-gun style in the first days of the war.  On the first day, there was one PWE, then two, then three, then four...and then five and six.

Those five and six showed up on the same day here in Georgia.  Here's what that looked like:

Yes, eleven PWEs!

Let's just run right through these, same as we did before, but rather than posting all of the cards, I will hit the highlights.

From Envelope one, JBF hits me right in the Player Collections.  We have the Peter Gabriel parallel from 2014 (that's what I call it...it's red rain, pouring down...) and a Rickie Weeks All-Star Game work-out Jersey relic from the 2011 Topps Update set.  

What about PWE 2?  More PC cards.  There's a B.J. Surhoff as a Toys 'R' Us Kid, er, Rookie and then two Yo's -- one from 2010 Upper Deck at the plate (and Gallardo was/is an excellent hitter...too bad he is in DH land now in Texas) and one piece of his jersey or undershirt or arm sleeve from Gypsy Queen.  Very nice indeed!

Now, the third envelope didn't have any PC guys, but it did have a beautifully framed John Axford Allen & Ginter relic, with the frame color-coordinated with the color of the relic.  If Topps did that more often for its relics, I would not complain!

On the other hand, the fourth PWE had four PC cards -- two more Surhoffs, a Plesac Sportsflics card, and a Burnitz swatch in lovely gray nylon:

PWE #5 was highlighted by some mid-2000s cards that I did not have an a relic from the same time from from the much-traveled Chris Capuano (who is making his 2015 debut for the Yankees as I write this) and a card from the equally well-traveled Mike Cameron:

Halfway there.  

Yes, halfway...this next one is the middle envelope -- or the median, for you math guys.  This one is highlighted by a Yellow Deer, a color-coordinated Ramirez, and a Cobra sighting.

The next envelop had another B.J. Surhoff card that I needed (this time for the team collection), a Chris Johnson pitcher-type who never made it past Double-A and probably got on this card through a nice win-loss record (13-6) and ERA (2.98) in 1990, and Johnny Estrada Relic.  I'd almost forgotten he was a Brewer.

Envelope 8: It's a Rickie Weeks Wal-Mart Parallel from 2014 and a Bill Hall NL Artifact from Upper Deck serial numbered 45 of 50 -- Sweet!

The 9th envelope of the eleven brought another Wal-Mart Parallel -- this time of Khris Davis -- and a full-sized card relic from 2014 Allen & Ginter of PC guy Jean Segura (who appears to be playing pretty well despite finding himself on the DL currently):

The tenth envelope had the one card from before 1980 that popped up in the PWEs and a Carlos Lee "Ovation Apparel" relic:

And, finally, we have a Robin Yount sighting...it's a 1983 Topps card that I have already, but it's still a Robin, and it was accompanied by an autograph from a guy who didn't last long in the Milwaukee system named Tim Bausher:

Bauser started with the Seattle system in 2001, got released, pitching in the indie leagues for a little while in 2003 where the Brewers saw him and signed him.  Bausher has a Brewers uniform on him -- probably from his time in Beloit in 2003 -- but, by the time this 2004 card was issued, Bausher had moved on to Colorado's Double-A Tulsa affiliate. By 2005, Bausher was in Triple-A with the Red Sox organization. In 2006, he moved on to the Reds organization.  For 2007, he was with the Royals system, got bombed in Double-A Wichita, and ended up in the Independent leagues again at the age of 28.  That's where Baseball Reference loses him.

So, now, for me, it's on to battle a monster.  The first monster, actually:

Pray for me, y'all.