Bowman's Coming, But I Need to Post Heritage

At the beginning of this year, I decided to stop trying to chase new sets by happenstance and, instead, jump into the case breaks that Chris from Crackin' Wax does.  I like that Chris is a Packers fan living in Minnesota, and I enjoy watching and listening to he and his wife going through the break with the cards. I also like that he donates money to charity as a result of his breaks.

I haven't had much luck scheduling-wise in catching the breaks live, though. Every time a break is scheduled, I seem to miss it. This weekend, though, I should be able to catch the Bowman case break. I noted this on Twitter recently, but I've never been more excited to pay more than the average slot cost in my time back collecting.

In fact, it's probably the first time I've ever paid more than the average slot cost for the Brewers thanks to the fact that Topps probably can't pick out Milwaukee on a map if you spotted them its location in Wisconsin. I mean, I heard that native New Yorker President Trump today identified Wisconsin as a state that borders on Canada. It does not, but that's pretty typical for a lot of New Yorkers -- there's New York, there's LA, there's Florida (a/k/a "Retirementland") and there's "the rest."

But I digress.

The most recent break that I took part in was the Topps Heritage break. Let's talk about the set through the Brewers cards:

We start with the player that Milwaukee would charitably call "the Forgotten Man," Chris Carter of the New York Yankees.  The way that Eric Thames is going, Carter will be the answer to a trivia question of "who did Eric Thames replace as the starting first baseman for the Brewers?" Thames's story is incredible -- I mean, it has to be for him to have two ToppsNow cards in the month of April!

Clearly Topps spent approximately $8 of effort on this leaders card. They reused the portrait portion of Carter's regular card as the photo for the HR Leaders card. The Arenado photo got reused on the 1968 Heritage Game card and the Bryant card makes an appearance in the Heritage set on his "NL All-Topps Selection" card. It's inspired decisions like this that show why Topps deserves the monopoly in licensed cards that it has.

Now it's time for the former Brewers portion of this post. Thankfully, Will Middlebrooks didn't make an appearance in this set. Somehow, though, Chris Capuano did. As for Scooter, well, I'm happy that he is getting to play in his hometown. The Brewers really don't have space for him anywhere, and Gennett simply did not have the ability to play elsewhere on the diamond to make his presence useful.

Two starters for this year's team. My stomach just sunk when I read on Baseball-Reference that Garza has a vesting option for 2018. Oh God No. Could that happen?

Well, thankfully, Garza has spent too much time on the DL for that option to vest. Thankfully. It's now a unilateral team option that could be exercised for $5 million. I would not doubt that the Brewers could use that option as a trade chit somehow if Garza can stay healthy. The team may even exercise that option depending on how players develop or how this year plays out. We'll see.

As for Peralta, well, he currently leads the National League in wins with three. Congratulations.

Next up: the guys who've come from elsewhere to play pretty well as Brewers. In order: the Mayor of Ding Dong City has come to Milwaukee and is slugging like crazy -- of his 18 hits through April 24, 14 of them have been for extra bases. Shaw is a candidate to stick around for a few years depending on how guys like Isan Diaz and Lucas Erceg develop. Shaw is still cheap and isn't arbitration eligible until 2019. I can see him being a Gennett-type -- kept around while necessary, dumped when not.

Hernán Pérez is a similar guy, I think. He's the "super-utility" type who will be useful to play all the positions while the Brewers develop better options. He doesn't walk enough -- only 18 walks in 430 plate appearances last year -- so he has to keep his batting average high to be useful. He reaches arbitration after the 2018 season; we'll see if he's still a Brewer then. Incidentally, the Brewers have had both players named "Hernan" play for them -- Iribarren and Pérez.

Keon Broxton has started the season slowly again. He showed a fair amount last year in the half-season he played (.784 OPS) but he cannot afford to relax at all with the prospect-studded outfield at Colorado Springs.

Finally, we have the youngest player on this page, Jonathan Villar. That's right -- Villar has been in the majors since the age of 22 with Houston back in 2013, and he's about six weeks younger than Pérez. He's almost a full year younger than Broxton. Shaw is older than Broxton by three weeks. Villar also comes up for arbitration in 2018.

Here are the two horizontal cards -- youngster Orlando Arcia (whom some in Milwaukee are already wondering whether he is a bust...at the age of 22...thanks to his lifetime slash over 74 games of .217/.264/.345...oh my god he's Rey Ordoñez) and Harvard grad Brent Suter.

Suter actually follows me on Twitter thanks to the fact that I passed along a message to him from Ray Peters, so I've got that going for me. Perhaps because of that, I really hope for the best for him and want him to be in the major leagues with the Brewers. After all, no pitcher should have to pitch in Colorado Springs regularly.

Finally:

I got one copy of the New Age Performers card of Orlando Arcia. I mean, I really hope Arcia develops and all, but his bat has never been his strong suit. Still, he needs to pick up the pace at the plate.

Now, this case was pretty terrible for me. I didn't get any Ryan Braun cards from the short-printed high numbers. I had to hit eBay for those two. Oddly, though, the hardest card to find -- which I also purchased on eBay -- was the "Then and Now" card of Villar with Lou Brock.

Here's hoping that the Bowman break treats me right this weekend. I'd better be in the chatroom though to get some of that famous Crackin' Wax Chat Room Mojo©!

Highly Arbitrary and Completely Subjective

I have gotten cards on numerous occasions from Brian at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. Weirdly enough, despite my penchant for music posts, I have never done a Minneapolis music post to thank Brian for cards. 

First things first -- this post will not contain any Prince songs. Even in death, the Purple One and his lawyers kept nearly all of his music off the internet, and any music on the net gets removed very quickly. 

So, some of you may wonder what is left once you take the Prince out of the equation. The answer: a TON. Perhaps it's the need to be indoors all the time, but Minneapolis has produced many, many top bands. 

Like, say, this one:

Semisonic was a great alt-rock/power pop band from the late 1990s from Minneapolis. Their one big hit was this song, "Closing Time," which was apparently written by Dan Wilson about the birth of his second child and not about a bar's closing time. Weird. 

Wilson is now known almost as much or more for producing Adele's album 21, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2012.

To go with this big 1990s hit are three big 1990s cards. With each passing day of seeing Topps caring less and less about Brewers fans and me looking for ways to get reinvigorated about collecting in the face of this, I find myself actually thinking that cards from the 1990s are cooler and better than what we have now. Yes, card companies had parallels and inserts, but they didn't swallow up the main set. The base cards in the 1990s were still collectible and companies tried hard to make them interesting as opposed to being an excuse to make 70 different versions of the same damn card.

It was a simpler time. It was a better time because there was competition. And, it was a worse time because some cards had to carry warnings that kids with epilepsy should not buy the cards thanks to the flashy mirrored stuff on them -- like these three cards.

I'm cheating a little bit here because Hüsker Dü is actually from St. Paul rather than Minneapolis, but it's my blog so I'm cheating. Hüsker Dü featured noted alternative rocker and recluse Bob Mould as its singer. Mould was a freshman at Macalester College when he got the band together, and the group formed because Mould and drummer Grant Hart bonded over a shared love of the Ramones.

They got the name of the band from a board game of the same name that means "Do you Remember?" in both Dutch and Norwegian. They gigged around Minneapolis for a while and became hardcore punkers -- attracting the attention of the Dead Kennedys Jello Biafra, who then signed them for his label Alternative Tentacles.



Baseball these days can be a cruel business. Even though Chris Carter tied for the National League lead in home runs in 2016, the Brewers chose to non-tender him. The move makes a ton of sense in many respects: the team tried to trade him, designated him for assignment, tried trading him again, and then signed Eric Thames out of the Korean league for about half or less what Carter would have made. Carter is going to land on his feet somewhere, but it is a strange thing to see a guy with 41 homers cut.

Nelson and Broxton are still Brewers as of this writing. I feel like I need to say that about everyone on the roster with Slingin' David Stearns as the GM. 

As I think about it, it really makes sense that Minneapolis/St. Paul would churn out incredible music -- especially alternative music. You have a huge city that is cold -- turning people slightly off kilter. Add in a major university with tens of thousands of students who need entertainment. Throw in the artistry and imagination that universities tend to draw as well, and you have the recipe for all kinds of great stuff.

Like The Replacements, who were sort of an early incarnation of a cross between grunge and emo. They were very heart-on-sleeve -- as "I'll Be You" shows. Westerberg went solo after the band broke up and wrote a couple of songs for the 1992 Cameron Crowe movie Singles -- the biggest one probably being "Dyslexic Heart."

Both of these cards are from the 2016 Topps Update set. It's Lucroy's swansong card, essentially, as a Brewer player thanks to his appearance as an All-Star. The Boyer is one of those foil parallel things that scan nearly indistinguishably from the base cards. 

As this year has gone by, this design has grown on me like a weird mold growing on cheddar cheese. It's not attractive. It's kind of greenish. You know it is something you probably should just throw out. Eventually, someone else probably will throw them out. No one will miss it, and once you realize it's gone, you end up buying another.

I am very surprised that Information Society is from Minneapolis. They just felt and sounded so damn British. Maybe it was just that I was listening to a lot of Depeche Mode in 1988 when this song, "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" came out. A lot of folks call it "pure energy" only -- and what with Leonard Nimoy saying that phrase over and over, why not?

Lead singer Kurt Harland has scored numerous video games outside of his work with Information Society. I don't know any of the games, but he worked with Crystal Dynamics and Electronic Arts.

I have yet to catalog all of the cards I need from insert sets from all the years that Topps has issued them. Eventually I will. Maybe I will. Hell, I don't know. Maybe I never will. I just know that I have not seen this Record Breakers card before. At least I don't think I have.

Lyle Overbay. Yup. That's him. Good guy. At Wrigley. Looking confused as to why anyone wanted to take his photo. 

Good guy though. Smashing bloke.

No, I have no idea where that line of thinking came from either. Just went with it.

Some people think that Courtney Love was in the band Babes In Toyland. In a March 2015 interview, the band confirmed that Love was never in the band. As drummer Lori Barbero stated, "[Love] lived in my house, and one time I think when we were rehearsing she came down and probably picked up something and tried to play and we were just like, 'get out of here.'"

Babes in Toyland never got as big as Hole did, though you can definitely see why people think the two are related outside of the whole coincidence of Love living with the band's drummer. Babes in Toyland had much more of an impact in the UK thanks to John Peel's love for the band. When Peel loved your band, you got known. Seriously, just find anything as a "Peel session" on whatever music streaming source/iTunes/YouTube and you will hear fantastic music. 

Michael Ratterree never had a chance, really. He was a 10th round pick in 2013 out of Rice University. As a 22-year-old when drafted, he had to show a lot quickly. He did play very well in Helena in the Pioneer League -- but he was old for the league so he should have destroyed it. Then, he moved up to the Midwest league and, for a brief stint, Double-A Huntsville in 2014. It did not go well -- .228/.344/.442 slashline. 

It went even worse in 2015. As a 24-year-old in the Florida State League, he slashed .150/.260/.221 in 282 plate appearances and, then, retired with a broken hamate bone problem in his hand. He's now a construction superintendent in Houston and he is a 3rd degree connection for me on LinkedIn. Hey Michael, if you ever find that you need a good construction lawyer, you know how to find me here. 

Many thanks go out to Brian for these cards.

Topps Now: The Numbers

As the world changes and information becomes available at everyone's fingertips, a lot of companies have fallen way behind or by the wayside entirely. Nearly everyone who is old enough to have been able to turn on a computer in the 1990s probably used America Online to first get online. I certainly did. Yet, now, AOL struggles for relevance and the guy whose voice welcomed millions of us online (after the obligatory cracks and beeps of our modem connecting) now is an Uber driver in Ohio.

In our little world of baseball cards, the card companies, too, have struggled to stay relevant. Ever since the heyday of the early 1990s, companies like Fleer, Upper Deck, Donruss/Playoff, Pinnacle/Score, MLB Showdown, and Topps have tried various gimmicks to get new collectors interested in cards. Let's be honest -- the new gimmicks were not really aimed at existing collectors, though if those things helped get people to buy more packs, then sure, that would work too.

The latest craze, of course, is Topps Now, which was so successful so quickly that Topps expanded it almost immediate from baseball into MLS, UFC, WWE, politics, and television shows I've never watched. Indeed, Topps is continuing to issue cards even today -- issuing cards for the Players Choice Awards (I guess issuing 18 for the Gold Gloves would have been too many, or maybe they didn't notice the Gold Gloves being awarded on the night of the election...morons in MLB).

Anyway, as many of you know, I've been tracking Topps Now. I tracked the cards all the way through the end of the regular season to tally up numbers on which teams were seen most frequently and which were ignored the most. I stopped at card 536 -- the "Giants clinch Final NL Wild Card Spot" card.

I was going to do more with it in terms of classifying the cards into "reasons for issuance" but man is classifying the reasons nebulous at best. Sometimes it would be just rookies hitting homers, sometimes it was a good pitching performance, sometimes it would be good pitching crossed with hitting, and sometimes it would be just a long home run. Throw in the cards for trades, retirements, all-stars, a no-hitter, and random cutesy stuff, and that became nearly impossible to track.

So, let's go to the lists instead, counting backwards from 30 to 1 in terms of fewest to most.

30. Arizona Diamondbacks: 2 cards

The Diamondbacks got only two cards all season -- Zack Greinke's 3-hit shutout for career win #150 on June 7 (281 purchased) and Paul Goldschmidt's walk-off homer on August 22 (294 purchased). Arizona finished 69-93 and cleaned house after the season, so perhaps the low number should not be a surprise. But the D-Backs did have 8 walkoff wins (including 3 out of 5 games in August on the 22nd, 24th, and 26th), so perhaps they should have gotten a few more.

29. Tampa Bay Rays: 3 cards

The only reason the Rays have three cards is that Matt Moore featured on the "Traded" card along with Jonathan Lucroy and others. The Rays had three walk-off wins, none of which featured on a Topps Now card.

28. Milwaukee Brewers: 6 cards

To get to 6, you have to include the Prince Fielder retirement card and the Jonathan Lucroy traded card. The other four were Aaron Hill, two team cards (one for the team's second triple play and one for scoring in every inning in a game in August), and one for Chris Carter hitting his 40th home run. The Brewers had only one walk-off win all year, and it was lost in the All-Star shuffle.

27. Toronto Blue Jays: 8 cards

Considering this team went to the playoffs, finished 89-73, and led the American League in attendance with 3,392,099 people at their games, it's hard to believe that they got only 8 cards. But it is pretty easy to understand why this might be: shipping costs to Canada being what they are might have limited sales of their cards. The top seller in the regular season was a Josh Donaldson card at 524. Still, there should be more.

26. Philadelphia Phillies: 9 cards

One of these was for having the first overall pick in Mickey Moniak. Three went to rookie pitchers. Ryan Howard only got one card.

24T. Oakland A's: 10 cards

Oakland gets to 10 by including Jimmy Foxx showing up on one of the 7,402 David Ortiz Now cards (more on that in a minute). 

24T. Cincinnati Reds: 10 cards

The Reds got to 10 by having a player on the traded card, a player on the "MLB Turn Back the Clock" card (#270), and with Frank Robinson showing up on an Albert Pujols milestone card.

23. Minnesota Twins: 13 Cards

The Twins count includes another Pujols milestone card (with Harmon Killebrew) and a card for the batting titles being renamed for Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn.

21T. David Ortiz: 14 cards

Topps should have just had a separate ToppsNow program just for Ortiz. 

I don't know why I find that funny, but I do.

21T (for real). San Diego Padres: 14 cards

21T. Seattle Mariners: 14 cards

From here on out, I'm just going to comment where appropriate. I'd like to end this post tonight, after all.

19T. Atlanta Braves: 15 cards

The Atlanta Braves were absolutely terrible until literally the last month of the season and finished just 20.5 games worse record-wise than the Blue Jays. But they got 15 cards.

19T. Kansas City Royals: 15 cards

Topps paid attention to the Royals as long as they had to. Almost all of these cards were before the end of July. Also, the Royals were the only team to feature an insect.

18. Pittsburgh Pirates: 16 cards

This includes sharing the Eric Kratz card with the Astros and a Roberto Clemente appearance on an Ichiro card. 

16T. Chicago White Sox: 17 cards

16T. St. Louis Cardinals: 17 cards

One of the best rookies of the season was Aledmys Diaz of the Cardinals. The 25-year-old from Cuba was an All-Star immediately and hit 17 HRs while slashing .300/.369/.510. He got 2 cards, or as many as David Ortiz had in April.

14T. Detroit Tigers: 18 cards

14T Texas Rangers: 18 cards

That counts Prince Fielder on both teams, since his card showed him in all three uniforms he wore. It also includes an Al Kaline cameo on an Ichiro card.

13. Colorado Rockies: 19 cards

The Rockies finished two games better than Milwaukee, 6 games better than the Diamondbacks, 3 games worse than the Pirates, and 11 games worse than the Cardinals. But apparently it was a memorable season nonetheless, apparently. That might be because Trevor Story -- the Topps poster boy for April who signed off on a splashy exclusive signature contract shortly after a good start -- had 3 of the first 9 ToppsNow cards and 6 total before getting injured. Topps loved them some Trevor Story.

11T. Miami Marlins: 20 cards

11T Cleveland Indians: 20 cards

Is it surprising that the Indians were relatively ignored? Just six more cards than David Ortiz? I don't think it is. After all, Cleveland is in the Midwest and is not the Chicago Cubs.

The Marlins lept up the charts for cards thanks to the Ichiro-gasm around his 3000th hit (I'm not saying it was unjustified, mind you).

10. Baltimore Orioles: 23 cards

The Orioles had the same record as the Blue Jays -- 89-73. Mark Trumbo hit a lot of homers that ended up commemorated on cards. He appeared on 6 cards total.

9. San Francisco Giants: 24 cards

The Giants edged out the Orioles thanks to a Willie McCovey cameo on a David Ortiz card. 

8. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: 25 cards

Lots of Albert Pujols in the set too. While I picked on David Ortiz for being on 14 cards, Pujols wasn't far behind -- he was on 11 of the Angels 25 total cards.

7. Houston Astros: 26 cards

Carlos Correa appeared on 8 cards, including one for a "dramatic walk-off single." Of course, that was in May, when seemingly every walk-off got a card.

6. Washington Nationals: 27 cards

This one is a little surprising with the star power on the team. Daniel Murphy appeared on five cards, Bryce Harper was on seven, and Max Scherzer was on just two. Of course, 27 cards is still a lot.

5. New York Mets: 31 cards

Yes, we're getting into the major media market teams now, i.e., the teams that Topps pushes because they sell cards and make money. Especially Bartolo Colon (5 cards), Curtis Granderson (4 cards), Noah Syndergaard (4 cards), and Yoenis Cespedes (3 cards). There are probably others with more here, but the Mets are fairly evenly dispersed.

3T: Los Angeles Dodgers: 34 cards

3T: New York Yankees: 34 cards

Clayton Kershaw was on 6 cards. 

Gary Sanchez was on eleven, and that doesn't count the two different relic cards Sanchez had. That is 11 cards for fifty-three games in which he played in 2016.

Look, Sanchez was excellent in his first 55 MLB games (his 0-for-2 in 2 games last year getting factored in there by me...not sure if Topps did), hitting 20 homers in 201 at bats. He's 23, so maybe this is a new level of performance for him. It is not, however, consistent with his minor league performance. Just saying.

2.  Chicago Cubs: 40 cards

Kris Bryant was on 8 cards. Gary Sanchez was on 11. I think Topps overdid the Gary Sanchez. 

1. Boston Red Sox: 42 cards

It should come as no surprise that the Red Sox got so many cards. David Ortiz's retirement after an excellent season helped that, as did the young talents like Mookie Betts, Yoan Moncada, Xander Bogaerts, and Jackie Bradley Jr. Hell, Andrew Benintendi got more cards (3) than the Diamondbacks and Paul Goldschmidt got.

Topps pushed the Red Sox, though -- the Sox appeared on the Father's Day card, the Turn Back the Clock card, and the September 11 card -- oddly enough, from Rogers Centre in Toronto -- in addition to their own player cards.

These numbers should not be surprising, in the end. The better teams get publicity and accolades and have more positive moments than the bad teams do. But I can't help but feel that Topps is infected with some of that elitist bias on which some people are blaming Hillary Clinton's election loss. 

For Topps, it's being based in New York City that leads to a lot of groupthink about what games or events are worthy of being on cards. Yes, I get it -- it's about the money. But even the least purchased baseball Topps Now card (my man Chris Carter's card #523 sold just 178 cards) would be the second highest selling Topps Now MLS card, being behind only Frank Lampard's hat trick for NYCFC selling 255 cards on July 31 (The lowest selling? Toronto FC's first playoff win sold a terrible 34 cards on October 26).  At $10 a card, Topps is still making almost $1800 (gross, not net) on the Chris Carter card. 

As always, Topps can do better. 

It's Been a Long Week

Hi kids! Welcome back to the Off Hiatus Baseball Card Blog! If you've been wondering where I have been the past week -- and, judging by the emails and the tweets, you almost certainly haven't! -- well, I will fill you in!

Last week Saturday, I spent my weekend at picturesque Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. There, I watched as my Georgia Bulldogs came back and, with just 10 seconds left in the game, scored to go ahead of the Tennessee Volunteers. Of course, it being Georgia Football, that meant that we were being set up for one of the rarest of losses -- a "That Game" loss, as Bill Simmons put it in 2007...you know, around the time that Simmons's ego and paycheck started matching one another for which was bigger. 

A "That Game" loss combined two levels of losing -- a "Guillotine" loss mixed with a "Stomach Punch." A Guillotine loss is one where your team is in it or winning, but you can feel the inevitable breakdown coming. As Simmons said, you're angry at yourself for contributing to the bad karma and you are angry it happened at all.  A "Stomach Punch" game is a roller-coaster game that ends with an opponent making a pivotal, sometimes improbable play and ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can move at all.  

Simmons said only one game to him had made it to that level -- the 6th game of the 1986 World Series. This Georgia game made it there, though. UGA scored with 10 seconds left, and, sadly, my wife's uncle and I turned to one another and said, "that may be too much time left." It was, especially after the stupidity of a second-string defensive back running onto the field to celebrate the Ridley TD without his helmet on. Throw in a poor, short, kickoff and a complete Hail Mary, and you have a "That Game" -- one where ESPN's stats guys said UGA had a 99.9% chance of winning after Ridley's TD.

As if that weren't bad enough, we got an email during the game from my father-in-law saying that he wasn't feeling well at all. He ended up going to the hospital that night with kidney failure. He's been in dialysis all week, and only after the doctors started filling him with cortisone has he started feeling any better. The man is only 60 years old -- we're not going to let him go that easily.

Add in that my wife's older uncle is suffering from a disease very similar to dementia that comes on quickly due usually to a trauma of some sort, and last weekend was very, very long.

So, Monday came and my wife went home to help there. They needed her help with her uncle to get him to his various appointments as they try to get him into better shape, and my mother-in-law needed my wife's help because my mother-in-law was staying at the hospital with her husband -- as you would expect.

Of course, that wasn't enough drama. I had a conference for work that I had to attend in Chicago. It was something of a welcome respite from the disastrous weekend, but I really could have used being at home instead.  At least I had views like this from the hotel:

My hotel was on Upper Wacker Drive, so we had great views of Lake Michigan, the Chicago River Turning Basin, and the Navy Pier. Not that I got to go to any of those places due to all my responsibilities with our seminar, but at least I was around a lot of my friends whom I've known anywhere from a few years to over 20 years.

I got back in town late Friday night, and, yesterday, got up to run errands (like pick up dry cleaning and clean up the cats' litter boxes), and then I drove for two hours to my wife's hometown. I went to see her uncle and her dad -- who is now feeling a million times better thanks to the steroids -- and to take some things to my wife for when she has to go back there this coming week to help out again.

There are a few envelopes that were waiting for me here, so to get back into the mundanity of regular baseball card life, here's one of the envelopes. After my caterwauling to Topps about their ignoring the Brewers, of course the Brewers got two Topps Now cards in the final two weeks of the season. One of them was for turning their second triple play of the season, and that is the card that arrived:

The Brewers ended up totalling six Topps Now cards over the season, assuming that you count the Jonathan Lucroy "Traded" card and the Prince Fielder Retirement card with the Brewers. Of the other four, Chris Carter appeared on three of them -- the card for the team scoring in every inning in mid-August, this card for the triple play, and then his own solo card for reaching the 40-home run mark.

Carter was a heck of a pickup off the scrap heap for the team, as he ended the season tied for the National League home run title with 41. For what it is worth, he and Nolan Arenado tied both for the Homer lead and for the NL Games Played lead. No one in the NL played every game, but Arenado and Carter both sat out only two games each.  Carter also set a Brewers team record by striking out an incredible 206 times in 2016 -- but he finished 13 strikeouts behind MLB leader Chris Davis of Baltimore.

NL and Major League stolen base champion Jonathan Villar did not appear on a Topps Now card, however. Villar probably would have gotten one had he hit one more home run in the final days of the season. Villar finished the year with 19 homers, though, so he did not join Joe Morgan (twice), Rickey Henderson (three times), and Eric Davis in the "20/60" club. Of course, it is worth noting that those players plus Villar are still the only ones to be members of the 19/60 club. But we like round numbers.

In the next few weeks, I'll get caught up here on the packages I've received. I'll also write a few of the "Meet the Brewers." But, one more thing I am going to do is recap the Brewers season and the players the team used this year. My love for baseball comes out through words and photos/cards. Since I am not making any cards or taking any photos, I have to write.

Thanks for reading, and here's to a happier, healthier rest of 2016!

A Little More Now

I've strongly criticized ToppsNow on Twitter for the team distribution that we have seen employed by Topps and, more to the point, the double standards that exist for players that get cards versus those who don't. It's crazy, I know, but I actually want to spend my $10 to get a Brewer on a card. 

That said, I also understand well the facts here. The Brewers are a team in transition that are not winning many games. They have only had one walk-off win this year -- and it coincided with Topps's All-Star Topps Now blitz. 

As you may know if you follow me on Twitter, I am tracking the cards issued by team. Up until recently, I've left out those horribly overpriced relics and autographs that have invaded the product. My plan is to let the regular season play out and see where the numbers are. You know Topps will issue a ton of cards during the post-season, but I want to see only the regular season numbers to see how they shake out.

And, at the end of the year, I'll probably do something more global in terms of data crunching. With all the data crunching I do for cards, you would think that I'm not a lawyer but rather an engineer or a scientist of some sort. The numbers in baseball fascinate me, and these are no different.

I'm also going to try to find the top moments that Topps ignored. If you have a nominee, comment below or send me an email or DM on Twitter.

I write all of this to tease the future, but also to celebrate the present. Topps issued two more of the ToppsNow cards that I felt needed to be added to my collection.

With music, maestro?

Of course, ya'll need to come with me NOW. I really have found that this song gets me going in the morning when I need a kickstart. Back in July, I went to my doctor and found that I had hit stratospheric levels of weight that scared me -- I was up at 254 pounds, and I felt worse than that. I finally got serious about getting off my ever-expanding ass and working out and eating right. 

Thanks to a modified Mediterranean diet -- mixed with a very liberal dose of "stop eating every f**king thing you see and want" -- along with doing a walk of at least 30 minutes every morning except Saturdays, I've kicked myself into better shape. I went back today and, fully dressed except for shoes, I weighed in at 233 there. I'm not done by any stretch of the imagination, but losing 21 pounds in 6 weeks is pretty good progress. 

If only Prince Fielder could have found a way to get himself into better shape and avoid all the pounding and beating that his ample body took, perhaps he'd still be playing major league baseball. To be fair, I have no idea what caused the neck problems that ended his career and caused him to have two surgeries to fuse vertebrae. Nor do I know whether he could have done anything to prevent the issue. 

Still, he tried to lose weight through any number of things -- vegetarianism, for instance. I guess he didn't realize that a vegetarian pizza is still a pizza.

For those of you who live in Milwaukee, this song may at least sound a little bit familiar. It's the at-bat song for the #11 prospect in all of baseball -- a guy most of you have heard of. He's made his major league debut, he's gotten his first major league hit, he's stolen his first major league base, and he has even hit his first major league homerun at the young age of 21. He's scuffling a bit right now as he adjusts to the level of his competition -- he is, after all, over 7 years younger than the average National Leaguer.

And ToppsNow? It's pretty much ignored Orlando Arcia.

It irked me a bit, suffice it to say. 

Topps being Topps, though, they found a way to shoehorn him into the Topps Now collection without actually issuing a card for him.

Arcia is #3, greeting the man-giant Chris Carter. This card was issued for the Brewers scoring a run in every single inning in a game against the Braves. That's happened less frequently than a perfect game has been pitched. And yet, I honestly believe it was a close call for Topps as to whether or not to issue this card.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to get to put this one into my collection. At least Arcia has a good chance to be around past 2016 as a Brewer -- unlike the previous three Topps Now Brewer cards of Fielder retiring, Lucroy getting traded, and Aaron Hill hitting three homers before getting shipped to Boston.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a good week.