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.

A Two-Card Post

As COMC's prices started getting out of whack a bit, I started frequenting eBay a little bit again for cards. Mainly, I have focused on getting some cards that just don't appear on COMC -- or at least I don't see them there.

Plus, there is also a little bit of the immediacy thing. Because eBay is so vast in its listings, it is seemingly much easier to find a card that scratches the particular itch I might have at a particular time. It's that whole "give it to me now" thing that we have turned into as a culture, I suppose. 

Anyway, enough of the lede. Let's start with a little mood music.

Back ten years ago, I decided to go on a vacation by myself. I hadn't met my wife at that point -- wouldn't for another three years -- so I said, "enough waiting around...it's time to live life and see the world that I want to see." Because I had gotten totally sucked into the Premier League at that point, I said, "London it is." Now, I should have gone to Manchester to support "my" team, Manchester United, but instead I went to London and saw three games there instead.

Plastered all over the Tube Station walls were ads for this album called "Inside In" by The Kooks. Intrigued, I bought the album and really liked it -- and, in fact, recognized this song as one I'd heard before.

Still, it's always fun to be introduced to something -- someplace -- entirely different and new. 

I think that extends to new players in the minor league system as well. The Brewers' draft in 2015 was widely praised as one in which the Brewers got a significant infusion of high-end talent into the system. One of the potential steals in the draft came when, at pick 55, the Brewers selected Division II standout Cody Ponce from the Cal Poly Pomona Broncos. You can't tell it from this photo, but Ponce has looked a little more like Kenny Powers in the past.

Anyway, Ponce is 6'5" tall and weighs 235 pounds. He fell to pick 55 because of a sore shoulder during his junior year in college, but the guy has serious stuff: a legit fastball that can hit 98 MPH and, apparently, it now has real cut action on it...as Ponce shows here against Yasiel Puig (through a fence):

Cody Ponce vs. Yaisel Puig. 98 with slight cut actionhttps://t.co/V7FHKNCIIe

— Chris Kusiolek (@CaliKusiolek) September 30, 2015

I have been hearing tons of great things about Ponce coming out last year (after 46 innings in the Midwest League with 36 Ks and four walks and a 55.1% ground ball rate, I'm not sure how bad things might be said) and again this spring. After reading this scouting report on the Brewers SB Nation site Brew Crew Ball, I decided I needed a Cody Ponce autograph. 

I got the one here for $5 -- and I know I probably overpaid, but come on, it says "Go Brewers!" After seeing all the cool cards with inscriptions like this that Matt at Bob Walk the Plank has gotten, I was sold.

The second of the two cards here isn't nearly as cool or have as much of a story -- other than featuring a manu-relic of a logo that still says, "1970s Brewers" to me.

It's another Braun for the Braun collection with a cool commemorative patch that was maybe $2 or something like that. 

And because I can't end on such a seemingly boring/uninspired note, how about one more song?

Inspired by 1970, it's the #52 song of that year, but it might be the best one all year in my book.

Thanks to a huge mailday on Monday, I have a ton of trade packages to catch up on, so look for me again tomorrow.

Trade Bait from the Card Show

As I mentioned Wednesday, I went to a card show a couple of weeks ago two days after Christmas. I hit the jackpot as far as Paul Molitor cards were concerned.  With the smaller show, though, I had a bit more money that I'd budgeted available for me to spend. 

So, before I left the vendor who had those Molitor and Yount binders, I checked out what else he had. In the middle of his table, he had a bunch of random small sets for the low price of just $2 each. There were a ton of minor league team sets -- none of which really caught my eye. The seller and I had a good laugh about how even minor league sets were overproduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s while I flipped through those.

I stopped, though, when I started finding some cards that interested me.  For instance, I knew for a fact that I needed both of the cards below for my player collections:



While the Cooper might show up somewhere in a dime or quarter box -- and maybe I could have waited out life for that to happen fortuitously with the Carter -- I very well might have agreed to pay $2 for these two cards together.  Instead, I got the complete 33 card set for $2. So, if you're looking for that elusive Bill Buckner card, or the George Foster, or the Tony Armas...or, more likely, George Brett, Rod Carew, Johnny Bench, Steve Garvey, Carlton Fisk, Pete Rose, or Mike Schmidt -- well, let me know you want it.  The link above is to the Trading Card Database set listing, so take a look.

Another of the $2 sets was a set that really had nothing for me. It is a ten-card set from Corn Flakes/Kellogg's and Sportflics in 1992. Of course, I am drawn to food issues and oddballs like a moth is drawn to a bright light, so I picked it up.



Bill Madlock is listed on the Dodgers, even though he spent only parts of 3 seasons with them (the end of 1985, all of 1986, and the beginning of 1987) and was never an all-star with the team (he was an all-star once with the Cubs in 1974 and twice with the Pirates in 1981 and 1983). Once again, if you're looking for any of the cards in that set, let me know.

The next bunch of cards up for grabs is hardly a rare set, but it's one I've never had in my hands. 

Here's the checklist for that set from the back of the King's card:

Disappointingly, I received two Bucky Dents and zero Jim Spencers. But the rest were there, including the great photo variation of Hall of Famer Rich Gossage:

Goose looks far less intimidating there -- without the massive fu-manchu mustache and with a smile instead of a snarl on his face. 

Still, if you're interested in some or all of that set, let me know.

The last two $2 sets were insert sets from the late 1990s.

The first one is the "Sandlot Heroes" insert set from the 1999 Pacific Invincible set. The set I got includes both variations for each player, so I have both of the Chippers, the Madduxes, the Ripkens, the Big Hurts, the Jeters, and the Piazzas, to name a few. If you need something from this insert set, let me know.

The second one is visually far more jarring than the first...

At first, I thought this might be Derek Jeter's first appearance here on Off Hiatus, but then I realized that I've posted his cards a few times before through repacks, other trade bait posts and in the 2014 Gint-A-Cuffs.  Still, I have never laid my paws on any of the 1999 Pacific Invincible Seismic Force insert set before this show, and now I have the entire set available for trade -- even if it does look like the same players are in each of these two insert sets.

And Finally

A video highlighting the 15 stupidest lottery winners (by one person's account) is probably appropriate for me as well. 

You see, during most of 2015, I didn't buy any unopened packs. This was a conscious decision for me. I'm not much of a set collector right now -- maybe I will be in the future, but I am not currently as chasing all the Milwaukee Brewers cards and oddballs I don't have is more than enough for me to chase. So, I find my money can be better spent loading up on COMC and Just Commons orders (I made my first order just before Christmas...spent $80 and got over 400 cards in the package...) rather than buying and ripping packs.

But, I wanted a special birthday gift -- something a bit out of my ordinary card sorting.  

So, I bought a hobby box of....

Bowman Draft. I mean, after all, the Brewers are rebuilding, so Bowman sets will be providing me with my hope for the future. The one guy I'm really rooting for is Demi Orimoloye, as I have mentioned before, in that I'd love for the Brewers to have the first African-born major leaguer in the Nigerian-born Orimoloye. I'm not going for an official PC for him until he gets to the majors, but I'm going to try to set myself up to make the PC in the meantime -- trying to get two cards for him from each set and the like.

Now, since it was a hobby box, I've got a ton of those cards available for trade as well. I didn't make much effort to differentiate between refractors and normal chrome cards unless they were colored differently.  Here are the inserts and my one autograph:

For inserts and that "Bowman Initiation" card -- which I think is a case hit -- it felt like every other card was an Andrew Benintendi card. I'd have happily traded the Benintendi Initiation for a Trent Clark Initiation card, but I am guessing that one of the Red Sox fans out there would love a little Woo Pig Sooey in their lives.

Of course, I see Walker Buehler's "Fantasy Impact" card, and think -- man, I wish that the Brewers had picked just ONE of the Vandy Boys so I could have had an excuse to have a minor leaguer PC. Oddly, one of my college roommates has the last name of Buehler and is a Vanderbilt grad as well. He even has his own Wikipedia page for his renown as an "all-time great" in Magic: The Gathering.  So, there's that.

Anyway, let me know if you have interest in any of the cards I've shown or mentioned here that aren't Brewers or Gary Carter. If we've traded before, well, then the cards are yours. If we have not traded before, that's cool too -- the cards are yours and I look forward to trading with you.

Be sure to e-mail me after staking a claim here as well to let me know your e-mail address and your mailing address.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend.