Then *poof* he was gone

For Brewers fans who troll around on eBay looking for items -- and especially for Robin Yount collectors -- a usual stop used to always be wfbookmen's page. Thanks to WF, I have added numerous Robin Yount relics and autographs to my collection -- sometimes at high prices, sometimes at cheap prices. From time to time, he might be a little slow in shipping for unknown reasons, but most of the time he's a solid eBay seller.

I'd stopped buying from him for a while to focus on picking up more team sets rather than the individual player cards. Plus, I'd often have to stop myself from bidding on far too many items. Then, I got one of his emails saying he had a bunch of stuff on sale with short deadlines for purchase. So, I looked at the stuff and, back at the end of January, I bought a whole raft of items from him (which I'm going to show below). It was a weird sale -- I was able to pick up many of the items by putting in a last minute opening bid on each, which usually doesn't happen.

But a weirder thing happened. Shortly after I left feedback, I went back to see what else he might have for sale, and a strange sight appeared:

Say what? Just like Kaiser Soze -- though hopefully without the international terrorist/bad guy overtones -- it seems like it was just *poof* gone. I hope he is okay -- as you can see, he's been a seller for over 19 years. Perhaps it was just a reaction to the continually increasing eBay fees.

At any rate, thanks to the big sale, I got a bunch of nice items. 

First off, we have two media guides from the Brewers early days. I eventually would like to get a complete run of the media guides in good shape like these two -- as opposed to the well-worn versions of my youth, which were my bedtime reading as a kid as if I would be tested on what Robin Yount's middle name is...which, oddly enough, is listed as "R." but many sources (including the late Bob Lemke) say that his real middle name was Rachel...leading me to believe that I too would use just the R and that his parents really wanted a girl when he was born -- but I digress.

Anyway, I don't have many of them currently, but I do like them. The 1973 one featuring Del Crandall and George Scott is particularly nice.

Another group of items that were available featured some of those Topps buyback cards with those wonderful foil stamps to "update" them. 

As you can see, other than the 1976 Topps Team card for the Brewers (with Hank Aaron placed in the center of the standing players), the rest all fit neatly into player collections -- Moore, Money, Cooper, and Oglivie are all core players from the Brewers teams of my childhood. I don't think I paid more than $1 for any one of these cards. These were, in fact, the items that were lingering without bids late on, so I snapped them up for the $0.99 open.

Something WF always seemed to have were the "higher end" sets like Triple Threads. He also seemed to have all the cool inserts and box toppers. I snapped up a couple of these as well:

I especially like the 2010 Heritage team stamps box topper with Braun and Fielder. I wish that Topps had done actual stamps for the new generation, as opposed to printing them on the box topper. Still, it's a pretty cool item to add to my Braun collection. I'm not sure that I'll find two more for both the Fielder and the team collections, though. I think this is the only one I've found (though I haven't looked all that hard).

Going deeper into the oddball side of things, this time around there were two team-issued photos and a couple of large oddballs for sale. 

In order:

The top one is probably from about 1978 or 1979 or maybe 1980. But, I think it's earlier because by 1980 Gorman Thomas was already on his way to covering up with the full beard look that would make him fit in well with Jayson Werth and Charlie Blackmon these days -- the halfway-to-homeless look.  

The next one has to be from 1983 (or it was a reprint from 1982) since it lists Harvey Kuenn as being "Manager." Harvey was the manager from May of 1982 through the end of 1983. Harry Dalton decided to fire Harvey at the end of the 1983 season after what appeared to be a disappointing finish -- losing 18 of 24 games in September of 1983 featuring a 10-game losing streak to blow the division title. Considering that Rene Lachemann came in the next year and led the team to a 67-94 record (featuring Paul Molitor missing most of the season due to Tommy John surgery), perhaps the chinks in the armor were simply displaying themselves a bit earlier.

The next item is a Cecil Cooper Mr. Z's pizza 5 x 7 photo. I have one of these already, but I kept this one unopened. 

Finally, there is the Jeff Cirillo black & white 5x7 photo issued by The Ohio Casualty Group. I really am confused by these because I'm just not sure if this is a giveaway or if Ohio Casualty just sponsored the team-issued set. I know that OCG issued a set of similarly sized photos featuring Braves and Brewers in 1999 for what was supposed to be County Stadium's final season (before the "Big Blue" crane collapse). But I don't know much more than that.

For the final items, well, it would not be a purchase from WFBookmen without some Robin Yount stuff infiltrating it.

The top item is one of those "Diamondmark" bookmarks issued in the early 1990s, when everyone was putting baseball players on everything. Skipping down, we have two serial numbered items -- one of Yount by himself serial numbered to 399 and one with Paul Molitor serial numbered to 1999.

The second item is an unused ticket stub from the 2010 game featuring a Robin Yount bobblehead for the team's 40th anniversary. It's incredible how many times the Brewers seem to feature that 1982 team and its players on bobbleheads, ticket stubs, and other stadium giveaways. This year, for instance, there is a Robin bobblehead being issued to commemorate his ride into County Stadium on his motorbike -- which was immortalized by Gavin on a Cardsphere Heroes card in 2015:

I will use any excuse I can to show that photo. 

At any rate, I'm hopeful that wfbookmen's exile from eBay will end eventually, or that he will surface on another auction site. My Yount collection hopes so too.

One Singular Sensation: A Card from Swing & A Pop-Up

While I have a post to write up about a filled bubble mailer, I don't have a filled bubble-mailer post in me right now. I've had serious issues with my attention span today for some reason. Usually that results from either too much sugar, not enough coffee/caffeine, or a general lack of interest and enthusiasm for whatever it is I'm working on that day. 

Today, I'll blame it on all three. I've been very good about avoiding sugary snacks overall as part of my diet, but I cheated a little bit today. I have a serious weakness for peanut brittle -- I know, random -- and -- even more randomly -- a vendor trying to get our copying business or something sent one of our paralegals a big bag of it. It was so incredibly tasty, but horrible for my diet. Add in getting only two cups of coffee -- in an effort to avoid the peanut brittle, of course -- and having to try to write a mediation statement, and my ability to move the ball forward at my office was next to nil. 

That lack of an attention span carried over to coming home too. So, I'm choosing to write up a single-card package that I received from Bert over at Swing And a Pop-Up. 

Yeah, it's a weird day. No attention span and the only inspiration I have for a post is a song from a musical I saw a friend's high school put on in the late 1980s.

Anyway, Bert was kind enough to send me a card that, as he put it, "belongs in your collection way more than it does mine." Being a generally appreciative sort, I will not disagree with a man or a woman who wishes to send me baseball cards of Brewers players.

Especially when it's a great card:

This manu-relic is from 2009 Topps, and it commemorates the fact that Robin appeared in the 1983 All-Star game that took place at the old Comiskey Park. If you're in your mid-40s, this was a very memorable game. 

It featured the first -- and still only -- grand slam in All-Star Game history. 

Yount at first, Carew at Second, Trillo at third -- and Fred Lynn steps up and hits Atlee Hammaker's pitch into the right field seats, as called by the two voices that all important 1980s games should have had calling the game, Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola. 

Just as importantly, when the teams took the field on July 6, 1983, the American League had not won an All-Star Game since before I was born. I was born in December of 1971, and the AL had last won an All-Star Game on July 13, 1971. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, you didn't need some silly "winner gets home field" crap to get the teams to play hard. Of course, the players also hadn't seen the guys from the other league already in regular games, so that made it much more special than it is now.

But, I digress. Harvey Kuenn was the winning manager for the American League in that All-Star game. It remains to this day the only All-Star Game that a Brewers manager has managed, so the team's managers are 1-0. #ToppsNow

Getting back to the grand slam, the fact was that Hammaker was absolutely annihilated in that game -- 2/3 of an inning, 7 earned runs, 2 HRs allowed (the other to Jim Rice). Of course, Hammaker faced 5 Future Hall of Famers (Rice, Brett, Winfield, Carew, and Yount) and a sixth player (Ted Simmons) that should be. 

Hammaker had an excellent 1983, as he led the NL in ERA+, ERA, FIP, WHIP, and BB9 (just 1.7 walks per 9 innings in 1983, just 1.4 in 1982). Hammaker was never again quite as good as he was in 1982 and 1983, though, as injuries -- specifically shoulder tendinitis -- in 1983 limited him to just 23 starts. Then, in 1984, he had rotator cuff surgery and bone spurs in his elbow. In 1986, he missed the whole year thanks to shoulder issues, surgery on both knees, and a viral infection. Later, he missed 1992 and 1993 with Tommy John surgery before coming back and pitching for the White Sox.

Two of his 5 daughters, Anna and Alesa, followed in their dad's footsteps in being athletes. In addition to his baseball career, Atlee played college basketball at East Tennessee State for two years. His middle daughter Alesa played basketball at Berry College here in Georgia, and youngest daughter Anna is now playing guard for the Kansas State Wildcats.

These days, though, Hammaker is now known almost as much for the fact his son-in-law is the reason that Jonathan Lucroy is playing for the Texas Rangers rather than the Cleveland Indians. That's right -- Hammaker's second oldest daughter Jenna married her fellow Tennessee Volunteer, Catcher Yan Gomes, in 2012 despite Atlee's plea to his daughter not to date a baseball player. 

Gomes had a terrible 2016 -- "hitting" .165/.198/.313 before hitting the disabled list on July 17. But, Gomes is 28 years old and is signed to a fairly team friendly contract through at least 2019 (with two team options in 2020 for $9 million and 2021 for $11 million, both with $1 million buyouts). And Gomes is nearly ready to return to the lineup -- which will force the Indians to decide if he will move to first base or stay as a catcher.

All of this from the 1983 All-Star Game. Who would have thought it?

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.

"That's a peach, hon!"

Finally. Finally I have done most of the work I needed to get done this month. I've still got a few errands to run and all, but my work is nearly done. So, I can finally sit down and bang out some posts to thank all of you who sent me cards this month.  It's quite a few.  The first group of cards comes from a reader, Mr Haverkamp. His want lists can be found here in case you might want to trade with him.

By Golly, I'm hot today! 

No, literally, it's like 65 degrees here today and it will be warm for most of the rest of the year. 

Anyway, I already showed off the super-cool 1970 Topps Scratch Off of Mike Hegan. The rest of the package was filled with stickers -- lots and lots of 1980s stickers!

That is a ton of stickers, and it knocked most of the 1981 Topps Stickers, the 1983 Fleer stickers, and the 1984 Topps stickers off my want lists -- or at least made some headway in getting stickers to me that I need for my player collections.

To go with all those stickers from the classic era of baseball stickers, we need musical accompaniment from a classic rock band -- the Rolling Stones -- with "Brown Sugar," which was the first track off their first #1 US Album, Sticky Fingers. Supposedly, this song was written for any one of a number of African-American women whom Mick Jagger either had sex with/had feelings for.

Of course it is. Mick would sleep with nearly anyone -- over 4,000, according to his biographer. He couldn't be arsed to recall which of the black women he wrote the song for, right?

Back to cards...quickly...

Mr Haverkamp also sent another early 1970s oddball my way:

Too bad I have written up Ted Savage in my Meet the Brewers series (which has taken a backseat as much as blogging has lately for me!). Then again, it's my series, so perhaps I'll go in and add this in as an "update." 

Someone needs to tell that dude on the left that he's really worthless. But then again, they are all just coins.

Okay -- a few more items to show. These are all cards (though some are still oddballs!), so hopefully y'all will forgive me for closing with them.

)

Mr H hooked me up with several random cards and oddballs from the 80s and one from the early 1990s that I needed for either my team set or for my player collections for these players. For some reason, though I have never had any problem finding either 1983 or 1984 Donruss Action All-Stars, the 1985 ones have been elusive to me. I don't know that I've ever seen an unopened 1985 pack in the wild or in captivity, for that matter.

But wait. There's one more card:

A well-loved Harvey Kuenn 1959 Topps, with a photo from an angle that makes the chaw in his left cheek look deceptively small.  Then again, it's just a pinch between your cheek and gum, right?

Yeah. That's about what I'd expect for that too.

HA!

Yup, it's just the Boys Round Here, with their "chew tobacco chew tobacco chew tobacco spit." Guess we'll never get that song live with Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert getting divorced.

Don't worry about that, though. Just send Mr Haverkamp cards. Because these cards are a peach!