Thanks, Jenny

A new-to-me blogger and Twitter card collector is Jenny Miller who blogs at Jenny's Card Collecting. I was excited to get rid of some Twins cards -- even though I'm about 98% sure I'll be attended a Twins/Brewers game at Target Field in May, that doesn't mean I have to keep Twins cards around the house, you know. I knocked off a bunch of Jenny's Twins Project needs from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In return, Jenny sent me a couple of cards that I needed for my collection. It being a Thursday night I figured I'd go for musical accompaniment. Then again, I might say that about any day. I just like musical accompaniment. Believe it or not (I know, you believe it), I actually put a spreadsheet together of all the songs I've used on my blog. I'm up to 806 right now (before this post)! Crazy.

Anyway, let's see what Jenny sent:

Yes, it's a Maverick from 2018 Topps. With the logjam in the outfield brought about by the off-season trades, Mav will probably end up at Triple A unless the team keeps him over Broxton as the guy who can fill in at CF behind both Cain and Yelich. Then again, since both Cain and Yelich can play center and with Braun, Thames, and Santana all still available, why would the team keep either Broxton or Phillips in the major leagues? Tough situation.

I unwittingly told two or three people that I needed only Brett Phillips to finish out my Series 1 Topps run for 2018. Thing is, I still need a Ryan Braun because I spaced out and forgot I need two of those. So, I duplicated Phillips just like I'm duplicating this song. I know I've played Cowboy Mouth's "Jenny Says" before -- my spreadsheet tells me so -- but I like the song, the band is from New Orleans, and I'm going to New Orleans next month. So there.

Speaking of needing two Brauns for my base sets, here's a 2017 Stadium Club that I needed. This one was, in fact, for my team set as the second of the Brauns from that year. It's always good to get closer and closer to completing team sets.

This reminds me to say two things about team sets and how I'm collecting. First, I will gladly take any and all inserts and parallels of non-player-collection Brewers that you want to send my way. But, I'm not as militant about feeling like I need to collect those going forward from sets from this year forward. 

Second, I am also happy to take any and all Brewers cards of any genre, year, or make that you might want to send to me. That may seem intuitive, but there were times I really was not a huge fan of all the duplicates. Now, though, I'm saying bring 'em on. Of course I prefer cards I don't have -- but I'll take the others too.

I shouldn't use a song using the past tense about Jenny so soon -- I know that. But I really like this song off Hot Fuss by The Killers. As much as Brandon Flowers comes across as a self-important ass at times, the band's first major label album was one of the best albums of the mid-2000s in my opinion. It didn't hurt that I was in a major Brit Pop phase and this album worships at the altar of New Order, The Cure, and Depeche Mode.

Finally, Jenny sent me a Zach Davies 2017 Stadium Club card. Zach is an interesting guy. He looks like he should be delivering the morning paper on his bike like it's 1984 until you see his tattoos all over the inside of his left arm. Nothing wrong with that at all -- but it adds a little edge to him as a result. Davies benefited from good run support last year, and his strikeout rates were troubling for his future growth. Then again, he's only 24 years old so perhaps that will come in the next couple of years.

Let's close this out with a little Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. They are almost certainly known best for their cover of the Motown song "Devil with a Blue Dress On." This song, "Jenny Take a Ride," was the band's first top 10 hit, selling over a million copies and going gold. 

But...there's one more song that needs to be played...it's a cliche at this point, but so what:

Jenny, thanks for the cards. Hope we can trade again soon.

Recharging and Collating

The last two months have been brutal for me with work. Being gone thanks to being crazy busy last month led directly into being out this month with busyness and ABA meetings. The next thing on my agenda is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I figured I'd better write something now before I let another week go by.

I wish I could say I was recharging. I feel like Steve a/k/a Cardboard Jones f/k/a The Chop Keeper has reinvigorated and reinvented his collecting: he moved on from being the Chop Keeper as the Atlanta Braves morphed into a team he did not recognize and became Cardboard Jones at Collating Cards -- the set builder. I could see doing that at some point in my life, but my chase for Brewers keeps me moving forward. I don't have it in me at this point to be anything more than a one-note collector of Brewers in many respects.

That is, until such time as I decide that I'll become an oddball type collector and try to get at least one card from every oddball and minor league set in what I consider the modern era of post-World War II.

See, I don't like easily attainable goals. It's too Easy.

Steve's change of collecting has aided me a bit. Steve used to collect the Braves, as I mentioned above. His decision to go to set building of sets led him to send some Braves stuff my way. To be fair, he never disappoints.

Let's start with the cards:

Starting with the three earliest cards, we have 3 from the very green (for the Braves) year of 1958. Casey Wise is an interesting story, even if he would be completely persona non grata in my house based on his choices of colleges and universities. While he started his collegiate career on scholarship at the University of Texas (not bad), Wise eventually received his degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Florida (very bad). He then played baseball (and was terrible...more on that in a minute) before going to dental school at the University of Tennessee (flat out ugly) -- becoming the first orthodontist in Naples, Florida.

As to being terrible, Wikipedia quotes The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book as saying, "His may not be the worst Major League hitting record of all time, but it's definitely in contention." How bad was it? Well, over four seasons with the Cubs in 1957 -- which explains the weird blue brimmed hat and the M appearing over what appears to be a scribble, the Braves in 1958-1959, and Detroit in 1960, he came to bat 352 times. He "hit" .174/.243/.240 -- a career OPS of .483 and a career OPS+ (average is 100) of 32.

Wow. Hope he was better at orthodontics.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago/a couple of posts ago that I got two Red Schoendienst 1959 Topps in the space of about 3 days -- one from Commishbob. This one is the second one.

Harry Hanebrink caught my eye in this group for being someone I did not know. Hanebrink was a native St. Louisan who somehow ended up being signed by the Braves in the late 1940s after a tour in the Navy. He had a weird batting stance and hitting approach. As it was described by Hanebrink in his SABR Biography, "Feet very wide. I don't even take a step, but I come forward with the bat three times then take one fast cut when the pitcher starts to throw. All the fans used to count cadence on every pitch at Hartford, clapping and shouting: 'One, two, three, dip.' I guess it looks funny, but I can hit better that way."

Whereas Casey Wise was godawful terrible, Hanebrink was just bad to mediocre -- an OPS+ of 60, slash line over 345 plate appearances of .224/.279/.315; at least he hit for a little bit of power. Hanebrink returned to St. Louis after his career and become a real-estate broker for twenty years before deciding to drive a park-and-ride shuttle at the St. Louis airport. He passed away from a brain aneurysm in 1996 at the age of 69.

Finally, there is the one 1960 Topps card before we get to the oddballs. Pizarro had a long career that started with Milwaukee in 1957 and continued all the way until 1974 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His SABR Biography notes that between the minors, the majors, Mexico, and winter ball in his native Puerto Rico, his career win total in the regular season was 392 and his overall total was over 400. 

He was the son of a construction worker/cockfighting trainer and gambler whose personal love for the nightlife was well known; in one book Where Have You Gone, Vince Dimaggio? he was quoted as saying, "I love to celebrate. I only remember the parties, the women, the hot times." He learned he could throw hard by being a bit of a delinquent -- throwing rocks to hit bottles in a game called piedritas. He is quite the character and is still with us at the age of 80.

Now, for the oddballs:

This postcard sized card is of Vermont's own Ernie Johnson Sr. The elder Johnson led his son Ernie Jr. into the broadcasting profession, in that Ernie spent years and years as the color commentator for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves -- starting in 1962 and ending in 1999.  Ernie Jr. even worked games with his dad in the mid-1990s (1993 to 1996). 

The reason I mentioned that Ernie is Vermont's own is that this card was issued by the Vermont Historical Society in 2000. Others in the set include Jean Dubuc, Pat Putnam, Birdie Tebbetts, and, of course, Carlton Fisk.

Thanks to Steve, I now have three of these photos of former Braves -- he also sent me a Frank Torre in the past. Apparently, I am still missing at least the Andy Pafko card, as an eBay auction lists a lot of 4 including the three I have and Pafko.

These are pretty cool, and it makes me wish that I had made the effort to go back to Wisconsin to see a game at County Stadium one last time before they tore it down after the 2000 season. It was a dump, but it had character. You were close to the field in nearly every seat and the place had history. Yes, it was falling apart and the team needed the ability to close a roof to keep folks from freezing, but dammit that place had character.

And finally:

This is my first Jay Publishing Milwaukee Braves card/photo. This one is from 1961, and it is the same size as the Ohio Casualty Group photos from above. 

These last cards show clearly why oddballs rule. It's easy to get the Topps runs -- relatively easy, at least. But it's a lot more fun to go oddball.

Many thanks go out to Steve for the great cards and the oddballs.

Card Show, Post 2: Atypical

When I asked for musical recommendations on Saturday, the very first responses I got came from Crackin' Wax and Zippy Zappy. Crackin' Wax a/k/a Chris f/k/a Topher jumped in immediately with his personal favorite band from 10 years ago, and Zippy Zappy chimed in with his favorite music from 1000 years ago.  Huh?

Yeah, really. 

ZZ is rocking the medieval, while Crackin' Wax is all over Mutemath. Considering that this post is really just a way to show off the rest of my non-Topps Brewers purchases from a card show six weeks ago, all the retro feels appropriate. 

Starting things off: Vox Vulgaris - Cantiga 166

Be sure to listen to at least the 3:30 mark, where there's a drum solo that would make Dave Grohl jealous. No, seriously, there's actually a pretty decent drum break in the middle of the song. To be fair, this song is a good representation of medieval music in many respects. There are a lot of folks who really dig this music. 

To me, well, I have to admit: it's a bit of a yawner. Granted, I didn't expect to start dancing in my chair as if it were a medieval version of Lil Jon or something, but this one was quite subdued.

Subdued is an appropriate way to feel when the Donruss reboot brand shows up. If only Panini could figure out the fact that the damn D doesn't need to take up a quarter of the card, they might have a decent design. Panini is just so frustrating. Maybe if they had logos. Maybe if they had a better designer. Maybe if they stopped making baseball cards.

ZZ must have been in a very quiet, pensive mood when I caught him on Saturday. This medieval waltz is slightly more upbeat, but man...

Medieval music is less engaging to modern ears not because it is medieval. It is because of technology and musical evolution. Musicians did not start using polyphony -- playing intervals of the same chord rather than playing in unison -- until the last half of the ninth century. It took quite some time for that to spread. 

Further, written music did not evolve until later in the Middle Ages. Church music was learned by singing along with the group and listening to match pitch -- no one read music, and harmonizing just did not happen in the Church until the 10th or 11th century.

Finally, the instruments of the Middle Ages tended not to have great range in dynamics -- in how loudly and softly they could play. For instance, the harpsichord was probably invented in the Middle Ages, and it could only play either loud or soft -- not in between. 

While there are certainly going to be outliers from these general points, I'm going out on a limb and saying that orchestral music today is better now than it was in 1400.

There was a rich vein of Diamond King cards in the dime boxes I was going through. I have to admit that I really liked the cards too -- in hand, they feel special...almost like canvas. Perhaps Panini should use that to their advantage and make the set more about forgotten players of the 1910s through the 1950s more than about current players. 

Give me a card of George "High Pockets" Kelly (a Hall of Famer, by the way, and perhaps one of the worst decisions of the Veterans Committee of the 1970s, but still...) or Dolf Luque or Carl Furillo rather than yet another card for Babe Ruth. I know -- could be more difficult to get permission and all -- but wouldn't a unique set be worth it?

Okay, time to switch gears.

MuteMath came out of the New Orleans music scene in the early part of the 2000s. I recall this song best from them -- it's one that would get stuck in my head constantly about 10 years ago. 

Excitingly, MuteMath will be coming to Atlanta to play the Shaky Beats Festival in early May. Joining them on the bill are The Chainsmokers, Kaskade, Griz, and one of Dayf's recommendations -- Bonobo. 

You know, I miss going to shows sometimes. I haven't been to one in quite a while, but I find that the music I like tends not to draw 45-year-old men. I look a bit out of place, to say the least.

Speaking of "out of place," finding these Score Dugout Collection cards from 1996 in a dime box was a bit out of place to me. I don't believe I have ever seen these before, so finding what appeared to be a complete set threw me off. I knew immediately that I did not have these, so into my stack they went.

When Chris recommended MuteMath to me, he thought initially that the band was from Atlanta. We quickly figured out that was wrong and that they are New Orleanians. Whenever I think of New Orleans bands, there are a number of bands I think of, but the one of recent vintage that really grabbed me was Cowboy Mouth. 

Cowboy Mouth was really big around here about 20 or so years ago. They had a really big hit with "Jenny Says" in 1997. Okay, "really big" is relative -- the song hit number 26 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and Number 33 on the Modern Rock chart. It was huge here. The lead singer, Fred LeBlanc, is also their drummer, and he played in a band called Dash Rip Rock for a while in the late 1980s as well.

Rally caps might be some of the dumbest things I have ever seen on a baseball card. Even dumber than Jay Johnstone with the Budweiser umbrella hat. That's just ghastly.

On the other hand, the Ben Oglivie card in the Ted Williams set is downright beautiful. Benji was always a favorite thanks to his flailing swings at the plate, his high-energy warm-up cuts between pitches, and his real love for the game that always showed itself when he played. He is also a very smart man, too.

Okay, can't quit that soon -- so let's hear that "big hit" by Cowboy Mouth:

Thanks for stopping by tonight.