War with JBF: Monster #4 is the Cooperstown Monster?

If Monster #3 is all about the unknown, Monster #4 declared its intentions immediately. Another slasher picture veteran emerged:

With an old-school villain like Jason, I expected a little more fight. But, like the evil monsters before him, Jason, too, did not expect the power that Gus calls on regularly to defeat his enemies.  Jason clearly underestimated Gus.  Gus, though, polished off Jason quickly.

Jason was protecting a 400-count box wrapped up in blue painter's tape inside a priority mail box.  On the box was a message:

HOF Monster?  In Brewers history, there have been five total Hall of Famers who wore the uniform.  In the order they appeared with the team, they are: Robin Yount, Hank Aaron, Paul Molitor, Rollie Fingers, and Don Sutton.  

I collect only two of those guys as PCs, and those two guys -- Yount and Molitor -- were literally the only two players in the box.  

What do I mean?  Well, there were tons of base cards, including quite a few that I needed for my collections:

This is a Topps Tiffany Parallel

 There were all kinds of stickers I needed too!

And then, there were oddballs.  Glorious oddballs.  I don't know why those MSA Discs are always such a draw for me, but they are. This Monster fed that fixation:

Add in a couple of 3-D style cards -- whether the Kellogg's or the 7-Eleven version:

Then, more oddballs.  

A few of these deserve special mention, though.  Two in particular:

I have a 1986 version of this Brewers/Pepsi Fan Club card of Paul Molitor. I was such a little dork or moron -- your choice -- back then that I actually filled it out and put my name on the back of it where there is a spot to do it.  

Some how and in some way, though, Wes found one from 1987 that was not filled out.  I mean, it's not that surprising that there are few floating around and all -- a lot of kids joined the fan club because for the low price of two Pepsi proofs of purchase and $5, a kid under the age of 14 would get twelve total upper deck grandstand seats for various Brewers games -- almost always weekday day games, of course. You know, the ones that are tough to sell for teams.  

But come on -- Wes lives in Alabama! Why would he have one of these laying around?

A similar thought crossed my mind with this card:

It's a part of the set that the local Milwaukee newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (created in the 1990s when the publisher decided to merge the morning Sentinel with the evening Journal under one umbrella), issued in 2000 to honor the first thirty years of Milwaukee baseball.  Fans voted for a player at each position for each decade.  Yount had four total cards in the set -- at shortstop for the 1970s, shortstop and outfield in the 1980s, and in the outfield for the 1990s.

Once again, why did this find its way to Alabama?

Well, as Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, ours is not to reason why.

Ours is but to look at inserts and smile.

While I'm in a poetic mood, quoting from The Charge of the Light Brigade and all, how about we take a brief poetic interlude to enjoy a poem from one of the greatest English poets of the 20th Century, Ted Hughes:

I found this jawbone at the sea's edge: 
There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed
To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust
Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold: 
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.

Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws, 
Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose
Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws
Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach: 
This is the sea's achievement; with shells, 
Vertebrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.

Why would I suddenly start quoting poetry?  Well, that poem is called "Relic", and relics were the highlight of the Hall of Fame Monster:

Those are some awesome cards -- especially that autographed Molitor.  There was one Molitor relic that stood above the rest:

Yes, that is serial numbered 2 of 18!  Seriously.  

This monster will be tough to top for me for all of the HOF goodness it contained.  But, to give a bit of a spoiler, there is nothing that can top the sheer cruelty of Monster #5.  

Yes.  Cruelty.  

War with Jaybarkerfan: Monster #3

I mentioned previously that, over the weekend, three monsters appeared at the same time from Hazel Green in my ongoing war with Jaybarkerfan,  The third monster was "only" an envelope.  What was in it?

Let's start with the monster inside the package:

Dracula has joined the fray. Just what I needed -- a blood sucker. I could bring out the lawyer joke and say that Dracula just left me alone as a professional courtesy, but he wasn't that kind.

I had to call in the cat again.

To be fair, Gus always does a great job.  He's been rewarded with treats and, in honor of the fact that today is National Hug Your Cat Day, he's even gotten a nice petting, brushing, and yes, he got a hug too.  He's taken down three monsters, after all.  He deserved it.

But the message on the letter is actually the important part.  Here's the letter without the cat attack:

As you can see, Monster #3 is a future scare -- entry into the Nachos Grande Archives Case Break! 

And suddenly, Dracula makes sense as the third monster.

But JBF did not want to leave anything to chance:

Guaranteed hits?  What is in there?  

Well, sorry to say that I tore through the unopened packs of 1991 Stadium Club that protected the two hits inside this tape monster.  Here, though, are the hits:

Luis Martinez was a product of the Brewers scouting in the Dominican Republic in the mid-1990s.  Signed at age 16, he did not come stateside until 1998 at the age of 18.  In his first two minor league seasons with Helena and then Ogden in the Pioneer League -- Rookie ball -- and, well, while I'm not a fan of W-L records to tell the story of a season, his does: over 98-1/3 innings, 17 starts, 32 appearances, he finished 0-16.  He allowed 130 hits, 8 homers, 100 walks, and struck out 90.  

By 2003, though, Martinez had a good year: 12-5 record including a 4-0 mark in Triple-A. The problem was that that year was literally his only decent year ever in the minor leagues.  It was an aberration.  Still he got his big league debut in 2003 as a result.  The results were predictable: in his four major league starts, he pitched 16-1/3 innings and allowed 25 hits, 3 homers, 15 walks, 18 runs (all earned) and struck out 10.  He had three wild pitches, and threw in a balk for good measure.

He ended up in Japan for a couple of years and looked decent, but this guy should have never sniffed the major leagues.  It says more about Milwaukee than anything else that he did. 

A happier card is this Sexson/Overbay relic card.  It's interesting to have this "team tandem" card in 2005 featuring these two both on Milwaukee though.  That's because Sexson and Overbay were traded for one another in December of 2003.  I guess Donruss/Playoff had some old Richie Sexson fabric laying around...or maybe just old Milwaukee jerseys laying around and a terrible photo of Sexson and said, "what the hell, just put them on the card together.  No one will care."

Okay, I care.  And I appreciate both of these cards and the entry into the Archives case break too.

But, Wes, my friend -- an invasion from is imminent.  Can you handle a monster yourself?