Christmas with All Trade Bait All The Time

Here amongst the baseball card blogorati -- which is sort of like the Illuminati but with bubble gum stains-- discussions often turn from baseball cards and baseball to discussions on beer and bourbon and other similar vices. Since we are all collectors, a lot of us like to collect experiences on tops of our cards.

One of the guys with whom I interact regularly is Oscar from All Trade Bait, All the Time. Oscar is a unique dude. He is a Dodger fan -- which is as unique as sand at a beach in Florida in the blog world -- but he is studying Buddhism on the way to getting a Masters degree in Buddhist Psychology. Oscar also is one of the beer guys, as he gets together with buddies and samples beer and cigars.

Oscar is just a all-around good dude.

He confirmed that with his "club PWE" mailings recently. Here's what he sent to me:

This card is a subtly terrible photo. The way the lighting hits Brock's mouth makes it appear that he's missing a tooth or two up front in his mouth.  He also looks a bit hungover. 

Oscar, is Brock a member of your beer club?

This photo looks like Vaughn was in a photo studio in front of a green screen and the background was photoshopped in. In fact, I'd bet dollars to donuts that is what happened here. I don't think that lighting behind him occurs naturally.

Is Gary Sheffield a Hall of Famer? The answer to that question has to start with the elephant in the room: his steroid use is admitted and well known.  He gave an interview saying that Barry Bonds introduced him to the BALCO labs. He claimed he did not know that BALCO supplied him with steroids. 

I tend to give very little weight to such claims of a lack of knowledge.

The more relevant question relates to his overall numbers. On some levels, he should be a Hall of Famer. The Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor puts him #78 overall with a 158 score (likely HOFer is around 100). The Hall of Fame standards test is a Baseball-Reference creation that puts him at 61, with the average HOFer around 50. 

On the other hand, looking at JAWS and WAR, though, and comparing him to right fielders, his career WAR is below the average HOF RF, his 7-year peak is below average, and his JAWS is below average. And, the black ink and grey ink standards there also say he is not a Hall member. 

I think that's right. Just because he went over the 500-homer mark does not make him a HOFer. He doesn't get there without steroids, either. Sorry Gary.

Not sorry.

The Brewers paid Franklin Stubbs $4 million over 2 years, yet lowballed Paul Molitor after the 1992 season and offered less than $1 million a year. 

I don't get it either.

Minis! These UK Minis were never on my radar screen in the late 1980s. Apparently enough of them were printed then, however, that they are typical filler in repacks. The "Tiffany" version is pretty cool though.

This is what it would look like if a baseball player were also a stalker. Probably.

Another mini! I keep putting off buying the 12-pocket sheets for these cards, and yet with GQ and A&G pushing out more and more minis, I am probably going to have to break down and buy them. Zach Davies had a good year last year -- he's a solid mid-rotation starter for the Brewers. Hopefully, going forward, he will end up lower in the rotation thanks to others jumping him rather than him sinking down without being passed.

And, finally:

Thanks to all the random parallels that infect Topps sets like the Zika virus migrating into Miami, I feel like I have or should have this card already. But, it's a high number in Heritage, meaning it's a short print. Why is it that I have about three or four of those chrome parallels for it, but this is the first copy of this card in my collection? 

Are the chrome parallels more readily available than the regular base set cards? If so, that's ridiculous. Base set cards should be more plentiful than parallels. They should -- if set collectors meant anything to Topps, that is. 

Well, at least I like beer.

Thanks, Oscar, for the PWE, the beer recommendations, and the fact that you are just a good dude!

Musical Dodgers, Accompanied by Brewers

Everyone knows Jim as the creative force behind Garvey Cey Russell Lopes, Timeless Teams, Oh My O-Pee-Chee, and, now Frankendodger. Jim's understated style and writing is a true credit to his favorite team, the Dodgers. 

On the other hand, it seems that the Dodgers have spawned some truly, well, interesting  songs as tributes to the Dodgers. I did a little poking around on YouTube and found a few fan songs. I don't know how to describe them adequately -- words are entirely insufficient. You have to listen to these to truly appreciate them. Thankfully, there are enough songs for me to use to show off the cards that Jim sent to me.

1.  Danny Kaye -- "D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song"

Danny Kaye's old song about the Dodgers came out of his love for the team -- having been born and raised in Brooklyn and later moving to Los Angeles to become a star. You have to be at least in your late thirties to have any recollection of Danny Kaye as an entertainer, since he passed away in 1987. 

Kaye, though, was a lifelong baseball fan who was a part-owner of the Seattle Mariners for its first five years of existence and who would, from time to time, travel with the Dodgers and his old pal Leo Durocher.

Let's start appropriately old school to accompany that song. I know that I should have saved that fantastic Lou [sic] Burdette and Bobby Shantz card for last. I love how Shantz looks like he is about 12 years old next to 1957 World Series hero Burdette. Considering that Shantz stood just 5'6" tall and, according to Baseball Reference, weighed just 139 pounds while Burdette was a strapping 6'2" tall, that size difference is just about right. Incidentally, Shantz is still with us and will turn 91 years old in September.

The two Spahns are from 1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes set. I needed both and actually still need both again for my Milwaukee Braves collection. That team collection is where the Mathews card will go.

2. DJ Felli Fel f/Ice Cube, Tyga, & Ty Dolla $ign -- "Dodgers"

DJ Felli Fel name checks about the entire 2013 team, front office, announcers, and most of the first three rows of Dodger stadium in this hip hop tribute. Did you hear, by the way, that the 2013 Dodgers started from the bottom?

Listen to the song and you might hear that.



Apropos of starting from the bottom, it's your 2016 Milwaukee Brewers stickers! I am as much of a proponent of having a simple set as anyone. But, somehow, I never see any of the "modern" stickers -- say, the last 3-5 years -- really show up on blogs. I guess either people are not proud that they have these Topps stickers in their collection, or literally no one actually collects these stickers.

Thoughts?

3. Becky G -- "Dodger Blue"




Becky G is an attractive woman -- almost a girl, really, in that she is barely 19 years old. In the past, she has collaborated with Pitbull and she has even gotten a CoverGirl contract beginning in July 2014. 

None of that happened thanks to this song. Lyrically, it's horrendous. Musically, it sounds like what it is -- a teenager trying to sound cool or tough. God this is terrible. 



The only thing that Jim sent my way that really deserves to be paired with that execrable song is Gary Sheffield. His time in Milwaukee was a trainwreck that ended with a 50-game 1991 season in which he slashed .194/.277/.320. He was traded to San Diego and promptly led the National League in batting average in 1992. He later played a little over 3-1/2 seasons for the Dodgers after coming to LA as part of the trade that sent Mike Piazza to the Marlins. 

4. "Dodgers Fight Song"

Holy crap -- is that Mr. T as Max Headroom? Bloody hell, as the Brits would say -- that is absolutely awful too.  Let's try something else....

Ozomatli -- "Can't Stop the Blue"

At least that video by Ozomatli doesn't cause epileptic seizures. This song is actually much more of a funk song than it is anything else. That makes it eminently more acceptable to my ears than that previous ... "song".

Dodgers fans, did either of these songs ever get any airtime in the stadium?

Let's get things back on track with an oddball, a parallel, and the logoless. That Ryan Braun is from 2016 Donruss, while the Lucroy is my first Diamond King card from this year. I do like the canvas feel that the Diamond King cards have, and the artwork on the cards is top notch. Diamond Kings hide the licensing issues much better than Donruss does.

The Yount is the 1992 Cracker Jack Donruss card. Importantly, it is a different photo from the one used on his regular Donruss card. If Topps did these today, you know damn well that they would recycle the same photo from the flagship set -- those photos are expensive after all, and collectors don't deserve anything "new"!

5. "Los Angeles Dodgers 2013 - We Own the West"

This is just a fan video of photos/clips set to a Dropkick Murphys song. Why the Dropkick Murphys, though? I don't get it. The Murphys are as Boston as Boston can be. I understand it's the theme, but couldn't they find a song by someone not so clearly associated with another city?

Of course, it's still a great song, and this person put a ton of work into this video. If you're a Dodger fan wanting to get fired up about some recent nostalgia, this is the video to watch.

Recent nostalgia for Brewers fans has been hard to come by in many respects. Trading Khris Davis away was a good move for the team, since in return the Brewers got a real live catching prospect in Jacob Nottingham. 

Trent Clark was the fifteenth pick overall in 2015. He's struggling a little bit this year as he is a 19-year-old playing in the Midwest League, but his batting eye and approach is top notch. Through 113 plate appearances so far this year, he's slashing .217/.357/.380 (yes, that .217 is correct -- 20 hits in 92 at bats, but 20 walks, 8 doubles, 2 triples, and a home run are in there too). It's very early in his development, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him making his Milwaukee debut at the age of 22 in 2019. 

6. "Dodgers Fan Song"

This song isn't bad. It's not great, either. There is something very generic about it...it really seems like the intent of this song was not to get fired up so much as it was not to offend anyone. No smack talk. No name checks. It's really cliche-filled nothingness to me.

It's like it's meant to appeal to a 55-year-old woman living in Simi Valley. And, judging solely by the look of the posting account, that might be exactly who wrote the song.

Not that there is anything wrong with being a suburban housewife.



These early 2000s Topps cards have much the same feel to me. Generic. Well, they are less generic looking than the cards from 2010-2014 that Topps put out -- what with that ubiquitous white border every year and all -- but these cards do not appear to be anything about which someone will wax nostalgic. 

At least I won't.

Jim -- thank you very much for the great cards you sent my way. I hope my critique of Dodgers fan songs from YouTube led to some laughs for you.

Red, Red Foley

Can we all agree that this pub where the video is set is the world's worst pub in the history of mankind? It's too full of people, there's a random dude wandering around without a shirt, the bartender is slow because of being on crutches, you'll get your pocket picked, it's totally smoke-filled with everyone smoking like fiends, it's a world fully in black and white, and at the end of the night the only person you end up with is the random dude walking two dachshunds. 

That really doesn't have much to do with this blogpost other than the whole "red" thing. I was doing some searches on eBay recently for things that I've had stuck in my head lately -- in particular, Red Foley stickers. For whatever reason and despite seeing these available for sale from time to time, Red Foley stickers have evaded me. I probably should have bought these with my random Amazon credit instead of those stamps, but I didn't.

Anyway, I found a buy-it-now of a seller on eBay who must have loaded up on a bunch of Red Foley books from 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, and 1993 because the seller has a ton of "mega lots" of Red Foley Stickers for a total of $8 with shipping. Mega lot? $8? Count me in.

So, what did I get?

Lots of Younts:

And, other than that weird one at the top with the big green circle impinging on the photo of Yount, I've got at least four of each of these. It is interesting to see the two stickers both numbered 103 -- from 1992 and 1993 -- appear to have been photos taken from the same at-bat. 

Another interesting sidelight that I just picked up on is the fact that it appears that Yount must have had a shoe deal with Pony. That's a brand that I had totally forgotten about before seeing these stickers. Also, I don't ever remember seeing this ad for the shoes:

I didn't see Robin in there, though.

The good thing about buying lots like this that I often get multiples of players that I collect as PCs. With my oh-so-strict rules I've created for myself (which I break regularly if I choose), I try to get one card/sticker for my PC and then another for my team collection. As I have gotten into this more, though, I've started establishing more lines -- things like, "for cards serial numbered under 100, I only will list PCs on my want list rather than trying to build team sets for each" and, "I don't care if super old stuff isn't serial numbered...if the oddball is tough to find, having one copy of it is enough."

The downside to this lot buying is getting tons of doubles, of course. Also, for whatever reason, none of the different years contained any Paul Molitor stickers. I'm guessing that the seller parted those out in a separate sale.

Anyway, here are the rest of the 1987s:

Next, 1988, featuring "generic sticker with generic font yelling team name in manner that one need not worry about licensing!":

Here's 1991, even though the Deer Sticker features a photo taken at least a couple of years earlier:

1992's book included Gary Sheffield in his high-top Nike spikes (obligatory E-5 not included):

And, finally, 1993 only had one other than Robin:

Buying lots on eBay can be frustrating at times, in large part because most lots end up comprised of 80 copies of one card followed by just one or two of others that should have been equally available and, then, the lot ends up missing some key cards or players. At the same time, though, when a lot like this comes up -- of something I had exactly zero previously -- I'll take all the extras in order to get a cheap kickstart on completing the team sets and PCs.

And can't we all use a good kickstart on our collections like that?

The French Connection

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to be out of town most of this week. So, I thought I would engage in a little bit of pre-programming to catch up on trade posts and to have stuff ready to post when I return from my trip.

This post is a bit of a long time in getting done. About a month ago, Kevin from The Card Papoy emailed me to ask for my address so as to send me some cards. Since he's from France, I had no idea how long it would take for them to show up (answer: about two weeks).

The great thing with Kevin -- and as is the case with Julie from A Cracked Bat as well -- is that Kevin was collecting cards at the time when I was not. That's a large timeframe -- 1990 to 2013 -- but he was able to send me a bunch of cards that I had never seen before.

Let's start with the player collection guys -- like Greg Vaughn.

I have to admit -- I'm a sucker these days for Stadium Club. I am becoming more of an unapologetic fan of full-bleed card photography and design with each passing day of looking at cards like these and Upper Deck's offerings in the late 00s.

These cards show those semi-decent, semi-garbage 1990s uniforms that the Brewers wore, and that attempt to keep an MB logo without using the old ball-in-glove look from 1978. 

Next up, card #87 of the Rickie Weeks collection:

I like the Topps Lineage set from 2011, though I'm not a big fan of the dark-blue backs without stats. I'm also unclear as to how this set shows any of Topps's "lineage."

Jose Valentin seemed to get a bunch of really cool "double play" photos on his cards in the 1990s. The two cards that I got from Kevin were not among them.

Now, I like art a lot. There are a lot of cool-looking mosaics out there, especially religious icons from the late Middle Ages. The Topps card of Jose Valentin, however, looks more like the pixelation experienced during a thunderstorm on DirecTV feeds than any kind of artistic effort. While these two cards will not make a "Top 5 Jose Valentin" countdown, they are still cards I needed for my collection.

And the Rest:

Back in the 1960s -- and as I got to see them after school in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- Gilligan's Island enjoyed a 3-season, 98-episode run on TV. During the first season of the series, the theme song gave the short shrift to the Professor and Mary Ann, calling them simply, "the rest."

I'm not intending to give these cards the same short shrift, but I'm also not going to talk all that much about the Pat Listach years. 

It is safe to say that the Brewers organization in the late 1980s through the 1990s did not have the best record in turning out major-league-ready talent. When you're signing guys like Bruce Ruffin, Franklin Stubbs, the skeletal remains of Willie Randolph, and Jim Tatum, it's not a good sign.

As for Gary Sheffield, well, his track record speaks for itself. There wasn't much the team could have done to make him happy and have him stay for most of his career since, after all, Sheffield wore out his welcome nearly everywhere he went -- 6 years in Miami, 4 in Los Angeles, 4 in Milwaukee, 3 with the Yankees, 2 with the Braves, 2 with the Padres, 2 with the Tigers, and 1 with the Mets speaks volumes about a guy who was never happy except perhaps with the Marlins. And, that would end as soon as the team started dismantling the 1997 team. Of course, Sheffield made over $168 million in his career. I'm sure he'll dry his eyes with $100 bills over my criticisms.

Nonetheless, this was a fantastic package of cards from Kevin.

Kevin, thank you very much for the cards -- they are much appreciated and I needed most of them.