Cards from Robért of $30 a Week Habit

Out of the blue last week, an envelope from Robért of $30 A Week Habit arrived at my house carrying a multitude of great cards. If you know something about Robért, you know about his Serial Insanity Frankenset. As best I can tell, he is still four cards away, maybe three (there's some cognitive dissonance going on there) from completing that set.

His love of counting and numbers and such gave the inspiration for me to go for a numerically themed music post. That's right -- these songs all have numbers in their title to honor Robért's insanity.

"Song 2" -- Blur

Woo-hoo, indeed. This song comes straight from the "Creep" by Radiohead book of songs that sound nearly nothing like most of the rest of the band's catalog. I wonder if it came about in the same way as "Creep" -- that is, that someone heard a guitar lick and created a song around it. 

Of course, "Song 2" got sampled and played at nearly every NBA game from 1999 through about 2012 to destroy the hearing of every patron in the building, all in an effort to create fake excitement midway through the third quarter of a game between the 2006 Bucks and the 2016 76ers.

NBA Fever: Catch It!

Of course, I like "Song 2" and only wish it hadn't turned into a stadium cheer. I like these Triple Threads base cards too. I just wish Topps would give up on the charade of base cards mattering in a set like Triple Threads and just go to the Dynasty plan of all relics all the time. That way, I could ignore it.

This way, though, I have to try to pick up two of each of these cards (still need one more Braun!) to satisfy my player collection and my team collection.

"Four Horsemen" -- The Clash

I've liked The Clash since 1982 when, as a 10-year-old, I fell in love with the song "Rock the Casbah" off Combat Rock. I sort of forgot about them during the rest of the 1980s as I noodled through any number of different genres of music -- everything from Oingo Boingo to the Psychedelic Furs to Soul II Soul and Metallica and Anthrax. 

I got to college in 1990, and a guy who lived in my dorm whom I hung out with a fair amount got me back into The Clash. I gave him a tape, and he dubbed London Calling onto it for me. I wore that tape nearly out. The guy ended up being my roommate my senior year and, later, through his wife, I got my start in construction law through him. 

So, in a way, The Clash made me what I am today.

I guess, in many ways, the same can be said about 1982 and the Milwaukee Brewers. I was a fan before 1982 -- definitely. We watched games on TV when we could get them; that meant usually about 15 to 20 away games a year on a UHF station in those days. I never went to a Brewers game that I can remember, though, until baseball cards led me there in 1982. 

Thanks to Brewers Police Card day in May of 1982, my love for the Brewers and baseball cards was cemented. That wild ride through that magical season -- and getting to see the Brewers' last home game in 1982 in Game 5 of the World Series -- was spearheaded by the MVP and Molly.

"Three Little Birds" -- Bob Marley and The Wailers

While many people hear "The Clash" and think "punk," the reality is that Joe Strummer (in particular) and the rest of the band were influenced a great deal by reggae. That's particularly obvious on The Clash's first self-titled album in their cover of "Police and Thieves."

So, following The Clash with Bob Marley makes complete sense.

In fact, those two together make much more sense than some of the tribute sets that have come out over the years. Did we need a clear Pinnacle insert? Probably not, though they look pretty good. Did we need short-printed Goudey photos in 2008? Almost certainly not. Did we need blue-bordered Heritage in 2014? No, but for the Brewers I'd argue that the blue-border is a definite improvement on the original.

"Six Underground" -- Sneaker Pimps

I've always been a sucker for British bands. I've always been a sucker for bands with female lead singers whose voices are strangely sweet sounding, like Kelli Ali of Sneaker Pimps in this song. It's sort of like Mazzy Star, though Mazzy Star was more like "hey let's get high and put on a CD and listen to the whole thing on repeat and 7 hours will pass and we won't even notice because every single song sounds nearly the same and the music is just ethereal and where the hell are we now?"

You know? I don't, but Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star was pretty hot in that video 22 years ago when she was 28 and I was 22.

I'm now officially rambling.



Minis from Gypsy Queen kind of strike me as being a good idea in a Mazzy Star sort of way rather than in a trip-hop Sneaker Pimps sort of way. Sure, I needed the Lucroy for my player collection and all, and the Jungmann -- well, there's no need to feel down, Taylor. But they just seem like they would have been a better idea when I was 22.

"One Hundred Punks" -- Generation X

This song came out in 1978 from a band named for a sociology book from 1965. If that lead singer's voice sounds familiar, well, it should -- it's Billy Idol. I first heard that song on a compilation album of punk songs called Punk You! Songs for the Discerning Slacker Punk that also featured such awesome songs as "Oh Bondage (Up Yours)" by X-Ray Spex and "Alternative Ulster" by Stiff Little Fingers. If you like punk music at all and haven't heard of those songs, you need to check them out.



I could have sworn that I had this Eddie Mathews already. It's a Gypsy Queen insert this year, I think, but it marks approximately the 79th straight year that Topps has used this same photo on one of its cards for Mathews. 

Okay, that's an exaggeration. But, it's got to be close to at least 15 years running that that photo has appeared on a Mathews card. Heck, it even appeared on a TCMA card in the mid-1980s. Maybe instead of a rainbow, I should do a "Mathbow" of as many cards as possible with that photo. 

Naw. I'd go broke.

The other Braun insert looks suspiciously like a mugshot. Maybe that is what some unlicensed card issuer should do -- issue a set of baseball mugshots. 

But, then again, Braun was never convicted of a crime. Just of steroid use.

Thanks for the great cards, Robért!

The One-Man Acoustical Jam Vintage Card Show

Thanks to Dave, the Cardboard Junkie, I was able to find out about the very cool one-man traveling card show operated by a gentleman out of Norman, Oklahoma named Roger. Roger really doesn't keep his website all that up to date -- it hasn't been updated since 2011 -- but that's kind of unsurprising. Roger's very much a paper-and-postcard kind of guy.

He has a loyal following around the country. People hear about his shows initially like I did -- by word of mouth. Once you go, you get on his mailing list. He then drops you a postcard -- always green, I'm told -- that you look forward to seeing three or four times a year which gives you the heads up that he's coming to town with his boxes and boxes of cards.

It's a hell of a lot better than a mailbox full of realtor flyers.

Roger caters to the high-end collector, in many respects. In the boxes I saw there, he had top-of-the-line tobacco cards, rookie cards for multiple sports, and top condition commons and stars from the 1940s through the early 1970s. The box I flipped through is probably the same one Dave focuses on, though -- the more reasonably priced cards that Roger has bought over the years that have writing, or minor creases, or not quite perfect centering, or not quite perfect corners.

The cool thing to me was just sitting there chatting with Roger and the other guys who stopped in. This is a regulars-type crowd, but it's an incredibly welcoming crowd.

I added to a number of my player collections, so let's start with the Joe Adcock cards:

Thanks, Joe, for talking to the good folks in Tulsa. That interview was, I believe, done in 1957, as Adcock said that "this" season would be his eighth in the majors. Joe says that he was feeling great and hadn't missed many games the previous year (he played 133 in 1956). Unfortunately, he played only 84 in the Braves World Series season. Still, he was only 29 years old at the time. But for those injuries he encountered, it's entirely possible that he would have hit 400 HR in his career.

These two Adcocks were among the most expensive cards I bought. The one on the bottom is the 1954 Johnston Cookies issue, a Milwaukee Braves oddball that fits well with the city of Milwaukee. The one on the top is the 1953 Bowman Color set. I bought this one and left behind a bunch of other Braves from that set thinking, "why do I have them listed on my wantlist? They're all Boston Braves!"

Then I get home and see that Joe is listed on the back as a Milwaukee Brave. The moral of the story is that I should always trust my wantlist.

For the life of me, I can't find a YouTube interview with Harvey Kuenn anywhere. Just for that, I'll turn to this fantastic Shepherd Express article for a great photo of Harvey with Sy Berger.

Harvey deserves that respect. Just like these two cards give him:

Yup, two oddballs. I can't help myself. Of course, I also am not 100% sure whether the top card is a Jell-O or a Post card from 1963. The bottom one is definitely a 1961 Nu-Card Scoops with sharpish corners.

I picked up a couple of Eddie Mathews cards too. Let's turn to the official Hall of Fame biography video for Eddie:

I haven't picked up the first ever Sports Illustrated with Mathews on the cover, but it is on my list of things that I definitely want. A 1954 Bowman, though, is not on that list any more.

Well, okay, it still is because I need another one for my Braves team set, but man is that card a nice card for what I paid for it. Again, other than the Kuenn Nu-Card Scoop and the Adcock Johnston Cookie card, these all came out of the "bargain" bin with few cards costing more than $5 each.

One last video introduction:



The coolest little fact in this vignette comes from Joe Torre, who said that he had the distinction of pinch-hitting one time for Spahn and also having Spahn pinch-hit one time for him.

Roger told a story about Spahn while I was there. He met Spahn and got to know him a bit. Spahn, though, was one of those guys who never remembered a guy's name but remembered a face. To Spahn, Roger was always known as "Oklahoma." Since Spahn settled there and, eventually, passed away in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Roger felt that Spahn just liked him for being a fellow Oklahoman on the baseball card circuit.

Okay, two more cards to talk about, and then it's a scan dump for the rest.

I actually purchased two whole Milwaukee Brewers cards from Roger, and one of them was one of the more expensive cards I got.

Here's the one that was cheap:

Mini team card! Straight into the Yount collection with that one, seeing as I needed it there. You can see Robin in the second row from the top dead center -- right behind Charlie Moore and Jim Slaton.

Here's the one that was not:

What a fantastic Kellogg's card! It's a 1971 Kellogg's card of Danny Walton. I suppose I could update my "Meet the Brewers" page for him with this. Maybe another time.

Finally, I got a ton more Milwaukee Braves for my Braves collection. I think I'll save them for later rather than just dump them.

Thanks for stopping by.

Card Chopping Broccoli

Nearly all of my memories of Saturday Night Live sketches come from the period between 1985 and 1990. Once I was old enough to stay up on a Saturday to watch SNL -- or at least old enough to tape the show on our fancy Curtis Mathes VCR...

...which looked a lot like that, as best I can recall -- I watched the show until I graduated high school or at least until it still was funny to me. As a result, I tend to remember guys like Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Dana Carvey and women like Nora Dunn and Victoria Jackson as "SNL." 

In that way, I feel like SNL is kind of like baseball in some respects. We remember our first exposure to the game -- the first superstars that we cheered for, or the our favorite team's best season -- as being better than that which followed. I haven't watched SNL pretty much at all since about 1996 or so, when sometimes after a night out in law school when I lived in walking distance of downtown Athens, I'd come home to SNL on TV (when I came home early).

My mind works in ways sometimes that are weird, in that it will attach a certain song/TV show/movie line to a certain word. I hear the word "smile" and Pearl Jam's "Smile" starts going in my head. I hear the word "profits" and Franz Ferdinand's song "The Dark of the Matinee" (specifically, the line "Who gives a damn about the profits at Tesco?") gets in my head. And, when I hear the word "chop," Dana Carvey gets in my head:



So, yeah, it's funny how memory works. That seemed a lot funnier back in the 1980s. Or, maybe, it wasn't but it was catchy enough to stick anyway.

All that is a long, long, long way of explaining that Steve, the Chop Keeper at The Card Chop sent me a great envelope of cards. Steve is always good for a few great Brewers cards, and I'm always sure to get some awesome Milwaukee Braves from him also. This package was no different.

There were a couple of Brewers that I needed:



I mentioned in my post about the case break I was in that I did not get any Gold parallels and only a couple of other parallels, so Steve was kind enough to send me a Gold Matt Garza parallel. If only the Brewers could find a place to send Matt Garza, but I don't think anyone wants to take on his salary for the next two years based off how done he looked last year. It's tough to pitch when you have to fight off your infielders trying to stick forks in you.

The other card is an MLB Debut retail insert of Nelson Cruz. Cruz was originally a Mets signee as an 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 1998. The Mets sent him to Oakland for Jorge Velandia (I haven't heard of him either). He spent four years in Oakland's system and showed real hitting ability in 2004 in Modesto (at age 23 in high-A, about right for the league) and at Midland in the Texas league.

The Brewers stole him from Oakland with pitcher Justin Lehr in exchange for Keith Ginter. He went to Huntsville and hit at age 24 in 2005 (.306/.388/.577) in Double A for half the season, and then hit .269/.382/.490 in Triple-A before getting a 7-plate-appearance cup of coffee in 2005. 

He hit again in 2006 in Nashville -- .302/.378/.528 -- before the Brewers thought, "wow, this guy might really be a hitter...let's trade him with Carlos Lee for Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, Francisco Cordero, and a minor leaguer." In 2008, he was designated for assignment by the Rangers, cleared waivers at the end of spring training, and went to Triple-A and mashed. In 2009, the lights went on for Cruz. He was an all-star and, in the seven seasons since then, he has hit 219 HRs and slashed at a .277/.338/.522 pace. 

So, who knows -- maybe he doesn't become the player he's become if he's in Milwaukee. Cruz is certainly a natural DH, and the Brewers didn't exactly have a plethora of positions at which to hide him in that 2006-2012 timeframe with Fielder anchoring first, Braun in left, and Hart in right.

Okay, time for more chopping!




After that relaxing musical interlude, it's time to show some Milwaukee Braves!


I appreciate these Upper Deck cards more than I originally did. I did not realize that they were inspired by the T-202 Hassan Triple Folder cards until I saw a Dover reprint of one or two of the originals. Probably because my collecting never has focused on what I view as sort of prehistoric cards -- history began when Bowman did in 1948 to me...what can I say? -- these 1993 take-offs didn't make sense.  Now they do, and I like them a ton more.

And finally:



I tend to be pretty agnostic about the manu-relics. They would be about 8000 times cooler if they were real patches from real uniforms, but I recognize that those might be difficult both to find and to authenticate at this point. Plus, if they could be found in reasonably large numbers, I'm sure that Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Fleer would have used literally all of them up in the 2001 to 2005 timeframe.

Still, that Red Schoendienst patch is pretty awesome. Growing up, I used to think that Red played a lot more for Milwaukee than he did (only 4 years and 1140 plate appearances) or that he was a Milwaukee native of some sort (nope -- he grew up about 40 miles from St. Louis in Germantown, Illinois). My grandpa loved Red Schoendienst. It was probably because Red had one of his best seasons in the major leagues in 1957 (a year split between the Giants and Braves), tallying 200 hits and hitting .309/.344/.451 overall (.310/.348/.434 for Milwaukee). No matter -- whenever I see one of his cards, I think of my grandpa.

The other three cards fit quite nicely into my Spahn and Mathews player collections. I'm up to 115 in the Spahn collection and a fantastic 172 in the Mathews collection.

Let's chop something up one more time:



Holy crap. I'm tired just listening to that dude rapping!

Steve, thank you once again for an excellent cards from The Card Chop!

Other cards from the Card Show

I attended my first card show of the year on Sunday. I even got a box I thought about adding to the Super Traders group breaks (and probably will, eventually)...then I realized that 1992 Fleer Ultra will not have any cards for the Marlins (no loss there), the Rockies, the Diamondbacks, and the Rays. In other words, it wouldn't exactly be a great break because, well, I'd be leaving three people out from the get-go.

And, let's be honest. Bringing 1992 Fleer Ultra to the SuperTraders is sort of like bringing a Yugo to a car show. You can do it, and people might appreciate it for the oddity, but no one goes to a car show looking to see a sweet Yugo. Or AMC Gremlin. 

Still, I'll probably break that box and throw the results into the SuperTraders stuff I mail out. I'm thinking I'll buy a box or two online and throw all three together into one big break -- probably some time around Opening Day, so I can get a couple of good boxes.

Anyway, that digression aside, I want to emphasize that I'm still trading with whomever wants to trade with me. I'm sometimes slow to respond or reciprocate, and I apologize in advance for my inability at times to sit down and put packages together. 

I need a theme for the card show...let's see...let's put my iTunes "Top Rated" on random and see what happens.

"Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)" -- Three 6 Mafia ft. Project Pat, Young D, & Superpower

Yeah, how 'bout them apples. If you've read my blog before, you know that my musical tastes are all over the board. Sinatra to Anthrax, The Clash to The Cure, and sure, there's Three 6 Mafia too.  

What goes well with Lolli popping that body in the club?



My most surprising dime box find of the day. I really should have just grabbed all of the 1998 Pacific Crown Royale cards in that dime box. I could have used them for the SuperTraders! Damn. A missed opportunity. I think I equate these cards with rap music because of the trend in the 1990s -- and apparently still today -- to their use for storing assorted....ahem.... illegal paraphernalia.  

Or maybe that was just the use for Crown Royal bags that I saw on TV shows.

It's time to move on.

"Down Under" -- Men At Work

Like I said before, I'm all over the map. To be fair, I recall very distinctly that the first music I ever bought for myself was this very song on a 45-RPM single record. 

Surprisingly enough, this song has actual drug references in it. The first two lines of the song are: "Travelling in a fried-out Kombi / on a hippy trail, head full of zombie."  As this BBC article notes, that line refers to a Kombi -- an old VW camper van -- followed by "the hippy trail" of dropping out of the rat race in a very 60s fashion. And the "head full of zombie" is a reference to a very potent strain of marijuana, occasionally laced with angel dust.

I'm pretty sure that if my mom realized that that is what the song meant, I probably would not have been able to buy that 45 back in 1982.

What goes with that?



I think these two items qualify. On the left, we have the very weird looking manu-relic of Eddie Mathews in a Detroit Tigers uniform. Mathews had a grand total of 57 plate appearances for the 1968 Detroit Tigers (for which he was paid $75,000...about $525,000 today...which is near the league minimum but in 1968 that was an impressive salary). His final at bats -- and his final hit -- were in the 1968 World Series against the Cardinals, which the Tigers won.

On the right side, we have Larry Pardo. Larry was a minor league pitcher in the 1980s for the Rangers and, later, the Angels. My god were his stats atrocious. In 500-1/3 innings in the minors, he walked 375 guys while striking out 361. In 1987, in the California League at the age of 21, Larry pitched 71-2/3 innings. He gave up 75 hits, 110 walks, and 31 wild pitches while striking out 63. He hit 5 guys for good measure. Larry later became a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers, though. His most notable signings: Michael Brantley and Ryan Braun. So, it has a Brewers logo on it. I bought it.

I'm not proud.

"Your Love" -- The Outfield

This song has always been a big favorite of mine from the 1980s. It's so damn catchy. Then, just like "Down Under," you listen to the words and feel a little skeevy.

As Wikipedia puts it bluntly: 

"Your Love" is written from the point of view of a man who tries to convince a younger female acquaintance to have an intimate night with him while his older girlfriend, Josie, is away on vacation.

Yeah.

Since we're talking about youngsters...sorry, it's all I've got.



I loaded up on a bunch of minor league cards. A fair amount of them are recent, and some aren't -- like 2010 Eric Arnett Helena Brewers card from the Topps Pro Debut set. Eric was old for Helena in 2009, when he played there. The guy was a first round pick out of Indiana University, and well, he was a 100% 1st round bust. He never played about high-A ball in 2012 and 2013 for Brevard County in the Florida State League. He didn't exactly do superbly, either. 2013 was the end for him in the minors -- assuredly he's moved on to something else by now...and he's pocketed his $1.197 million bonus too.

Okay, a couple more songs for a few more songs.

"Soul Meets Body" -- Death Cab for Cutie




In the mid-2000s, I had XM Radio. In my condo, I'd listen to XM, play video games or read books, and drink wine. That was a nice, relaxing weekend night for me. I enjoyed my own company. I didn't mind being alone. Life was good -- not great, sometimes lonely -- but still good.

I found some vintage cards at the show that fit that feel. They are good -- not great -- but good. I paid more than I should have, probably, in light of their condition. But I needed the cards for my Milwaukee Braves collection.



Like I said, good. Not great. Good. The Mathews is the most disappointing, certainly, since someone felt the need to change his affiliation in 1967 for those 101 games he appeared in. I mean, kid in 1967, did you really have to do that to a card from 1963? 

That Lou [sic] Burdette card looks like someone spilled a drink on it too. It was something like $0.50, so it wasn't pricy, but...you know...it could be better.

Okay, last one:

"Famous Last Words" -- My Chemical Romance




Filming this video hurt the band badly. Literally. Gerard Way (lead singer) suffered torn ligaments in his ankle, and Bob Bryar (the drummer at the time) suffered burns on his leg that turned into a staph infection.

Funny thing about this band is that I like their music, but their entire persona was so overwrought and pretentious that I probably would have hated seeing them in concert. In fact, I probably would have hated them personally, even. In fact, I recall seeing them live on some show and thinking, "what a bunch of prats."

Because, pretentious as I was, I would have used some British slang instead of calling them more choice American slang like "C**ts" or "a**holes."

None of that has anything to do with this last assortment of cards, though.



The Fielder rookie was in a quarter box. The autographs were like $2 each. The Hall UD Game Materials was $3. The Braun bat -- which I didn't check to see if I had and, yup, already had it -- was $2. The Lucroy 2014 Update jersey card was $2 also. 

I'll spare you all the shiny Panini I got. After all, there is only so much logoless stuff anyone can take at any one time.

But, I'll leave you with one final song off my playlist.  It doesn't fit with anything else on this page either.




But I like this song by Georgia boy Zac Brown anyway.