Johnny's Trading Again

Over the four years I've been blogging, I have been the recipient of tons of cards and bobbleheads and all kinds of other stuff from John at Johnny's Trading Spot. He is a megacollector. Not only does he want all the Braves ever -- as he puts it, he only needs "like 108,000 more Braves cards" -- but he also puts sets together too. So, it looks like I definitely need to send him some cards again soon.

This is especially true because he sent me yet another package of cards about a month ago with some fantastic Brewers to add to my collection. Let's start with a short print from 2017:

Eric Thames seemed initially to be a very inspired signing by the Brewers early last year. Of course, he was not that much of a different player than when he went to Korea. It helped him early on that teams did not know whether he could handle what they were serving up to him -- especially the Reds. 

These days, Thames's playing time is getting squeezed a bit by the Brewers surplus of outfielders and corner players -- it's tough to find room for Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Domingo Santana, Ryan Braun, Brett Phillips, Keon Broxton, Jesus Aguilar, and Eric Thames on the same roster. Of those, Phillips and Broxton have options remaining, and Aguilar was a waiver wire pickup last year who might find himself there this year if the Brewers can't clear that logjam.

We'll see how good David Stearns is in that trading process. So far, he's made me a Believer.

Strangely enough, 1981 Kellogg's seem to elude me. 1982 and 1983 are plentiful, it seems, but 1981...maybe kids just didn't want to remind themselves about the strike by buying baseball cards. Still, these two Brewers stalwarts were both very much needed for my collection. 

The Greatest American Hero was one of my favorite TV shows in 1981. William Katt as the everyman superhero who screwed up and made mistakes but in the end always beat the bad guys was kind of an inspiration to me as a 9-year-old, because I always screwed up and made mistakes. My visual memory of that show tied to this song is the scene where he flies into a billboard and crashes. He was also about as graceful as a rhinoceros high on LSD. Plus, Connie Sellecca was hot.

Now, though, she's just married to John Tesh. That was after being married to Gil Gerard (yeah, Buck Rogers from that three year show at the end of the 1980s).

Gotta love these snowflake/holiday cards from last year. Well, actually, you don't have to love them. To be honest, I'm sort of agnostic. They are cool and all, but I'd prefer them if they weren't a glorified parallel. I guess they are pretty cool. They do put me in a holiday spirit, even though the only holiday really upcoming right now is St. Patrick's Day. Guess I'll have to drink a Guinness.

Sort of like the cards, I'm a bit agnostic on Madonna -- especially her early career. If you didn't live through that era, well, imagine if Taylor Swift spurred on an entire army of teenage wannabes who dressed like her and you have the feel of what it was like when Madonna first got big. This was really one of her first hits, and she became a phenomenon.

John has been sprinkling these Fleer Excel cards throughout the blogosphere. You have to love that El Paso Diablos card of future Brewer and Astro Mark Loretta!

I am still working on putting together my minor league want lists for the Brewers. I'm working on refining my Milwaukee Braves want lists currently, so that's taken more of my time recently. That and listening to tons and tons of different podcasts. 

If you have any podcast recommendations, let me know. 

When I think of 1995, I think of the time when I met Oasis. Speaking of which, I really need to find my signed concert ticket from that day. Of course, they were gobshites then and are gobshites now. Time has certainly revealed that Noel was the more talented of the Gallagher brothers. 

Oh, and f**k Man Citeh, Noel & Liam. 

It might seem weird that my favorite item from this box (which had a ton more things in it!) is a media guide, but I love media guides. Part of me thinks I should go back to my efforts to buy up as many old (but good) baseball books as I could. The other side of me, though, thinks I should stick with the Brewers but buy up every Media Guide in sight of every team. I know I have the Brewers from 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 at a minimum.

And maybe I should do that. I enjoy the background about the players and all, and I also enjoy tidbits like seeing Fred "Chicken" Stanley showing up to work for the Brewers in 1992 -- one of the 1970 Brewers came back home.

John, thank you very much for the cards and ESPECIALLY for the media guide.

P-Town Tom's Music

P-Town Tom is a blog world legend when it comes to sending out cards. He's so prolific in sending out cards that I literally had to go back through the posts of cards I've received from him (Here's 1 2 3 4 and 5) to make sure I hadn't used Tom's own profile to mine music for the cards I've gotten from him.

Thankfully, I had not. Also thankfully, I pretty much like the bands Tom feels comfortable enough to share. Indeed, one of those bands is actually a local Atlanta band. So, with no further ado, let's get to the cards and the music!

O.A.R.

O.A.R. is probably my least favorite band on Tom's list. I haven't heard much by one of the other bands, but I've just never been much of an O.A.R. fan. It's a bit too overly emotional -- and not in that emo-style like Bloc Party either. I should like them more, though -- I mean, the band has a saxophonist, after all. 

That said, I did pick the one song by O.A.R. that I distinctly recall hearing on whatever alternative music source that I was listening to back in 2006 -- probably XM Radio's Ethel, if I had to guess. It's all very yearning. I want the overly attractive couple in the video to stop fighting. Maybe that would stop all the weird mold from growing everywhere. I could hope. It just hurts to watch that happen.



Yes, I was kidding about all that earnestness I was feeling. Fleer, though, was not kidding about its emotion-laden set called, appropriately enough, Emotion-XL in 1996. 

I have to argue with this premise, however, in that neither Attack nor Studying nor Towering is actually an emotion. Attack is an action or a noun, but I have never felt "Attack".  Under attack, maybe...but never just "Attack." 

I mean, when is the last time you asked someone, "How do you feel today?" and they responded, "Oh, I'm Attack." Or, even, "I'm Towering today. How about you?" Same goes for studying -- it's something you do, not feel.

Grammarman, to the rescue!

Night Terrors of 1927

Here's the other band I've really never listened to on Tom's list. Now, I've heard of the band's guitarist's previous band (Rilo Kiley), and I've heard of their collaborators Tegan and Sara, but not too much from this band. The collaboration with Tegan and Sara, called "When You Were Mine," is pretty good, though the lead singer sounds a bit like Brandon Flowers of the Killers to me.

I didn't expect to get certified autographs of a Texas Ranger from Tom. He sent these two cards to me in the wake of the Brewers claiming Ramirez off waivers from the Cubs on May 31, 2016. I got this package from Tom the next week. Then, the day after I scanned the cards in and got them into my scan folder, Ramirez was claimed off waivers from the Brewers by the Twins. 

I guess I should pass these along to a Twins collector.

In his Brewer career -- and unless he comes back at some point in the future -- Ramirez threw 1-2/3 innings, allowing 2 hits -- both home runs -- while striking out three. In other words, I have more Neil Ramirez certified autographs than he had innings with Milwaukee. Cool!

Manchester Orchestra

Here's that local Atlanta band that is in Tom's favorite band list. The once-powerful alternative radio station in Atlanta, 99X, played this band all the time back in 2008 and 2009. 99X broke Collective Soul and Butch Walker (and his band, Marvelous 3) back in the 1990s, but with alternative music and radio generally waning in the past decade, 99X fell on hard times.

Thankfully, Manchester Orchestra has found a fairly decent audience worldwide. But, they are about as Mancunian as I am -- both of us like a lot of Manchester's music (and I like Manchester United, though that fact could be a fight-starter amongst Mancunians split between the Red of United and the Blue of Citeh er, City).

Speaking of Red, here's current lefty setup pitcher Will Smith -- who is also, mind you, a Georgian (originally from Newnan). Will came over to the Brewers in exchange for Nori Aoki in the 2013 off-season. Considering the work that Smith has put in since (3.10 ERA in 139-1/3 innings with 58 walks and 184 strikeouts), just imagine how good the Royals bullpen would have been last year having added that arm to the mix. Yikes.

For what it's worth, Smith is in red here because he was drafted by the Angels in 2008 out of community college before being traded with Sean O'Sullivan for Alberto Callaspo.

Imagine Dragons

I might have mentioned before here, and maybe I haven't. But, Imagine Dragons consistently puts out very catchy, lyrically interesting songs. This one, "Radioactive", "Demons," "I Bet My Life" -- all of them get stuck in my head with frightening regularity. This particular video having been "inspired" but an artist is particularly intriguing as well. Clearly a surrealist painter.  

Clearly.

Strangely, the lead singer, Dan Reynolds, looks like Blake Shelton to me.

Nathan Kirby does not look like Blake Shelton, but I'd guess that the Midlothian, Virginia, native sounds a lot more like Blake Shelton than Nevada native Reynolds does. 

Of course, Reynolds didn't have to go through Tommy John Surgery to be able to sing for Imagine Dragons. Kirby, however, blew out his elbow after just five appearances with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. His rehab is going well. 

I have mixed feelings about him at this point, since he gave his ulnar collateral ligament to his college baseball team's cause.  That baseball team was the Virginia Cavaliers, and Kirby helped beat my Vanderbilt Commodores in the 2015 College World Series by throwing the final two innings of the third and final game of that World Series.

Still, I hope he ends up healthy and helping the Brewers soon. It's the least he could do in my selfish little world. 

Thankfully, Tom isn't nearly as selfish as I am and sent me this great package of cards. Rest assured, Tom, that I have many, many Conlon cards that will be coming your way.

JBF Generosity III: The Team Collection Cards

This is the third and final post about the cards that Jaybarkerfan sent to me in a Priority Mail box a week or so ago.  I would have posted this earlier, but I've been focusing on putting packages together for people to whom I've owed some cards for quite some time and for others who read my previous JBF post and made a request that I try to send them some cards.

Now, rather than riff on and on about all these cards, I'm going to do a word association game of sorts. I was inspired by Night Owl's ELO post -- taking songs from an album and putting cards with the songs -- but I'm doing it in reverse.  I'm going to post a card and then provide a link to a song that the card brings to mind and why.  I'm only going to post 5 cards though -- I want to get back to packaging up cards to send out!

1.  Chuck Carr, 1996 E-Motion XL

The Song: The Distance, Cake

Since the songs about race and my fantasy league opponents in the early 1990s pounded the stupid "Chuckie Race Carr" nickname into my head, the first song I thought of was "The Distance." Coincidentally, the song was released in 1996 as well.

2.  Rollie Fingers, 1985 Donruss Action All-Star

The Song: Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything), The Dead Milkmen.

Something about the border on this card reminded me of Max Headroom, synthesizers, and synthpop. But, Rollie is too upbeat for some dire song from the Miami Vice soundtrack or some Herbie Hancock mix-up. So, I went with a song from 1987 off the album "Bucky Fellini" that made me laugh on so many levels back in the 1980s and even today still makes me laugh. "You wear black clothes and you're poetic. The sad truth is you're just pathetic."

Classic.

3.  1990 Topps Traded Dave Parker

The Song: I'm Only Joking, KONGOS

The big smile on Parker's face makes it look to me that either he's checking out a woman in the stands, or else he just make a joke. My brain went with the second to pick out this song.  I'm convinced that this song by KONGOS would be a great song for a drumline from a big marching band to get their director to arrange and start wailing away on their bass drums, quad/quint toms, and snares.

4.  1995 Fleer Matt Mieske

The Song: Awful, Hole

There were a few things that popped into my head when looking at this card. I mean, it's a terrible angle for a card photo -- basically, Matt Mieske's ass takes up about half the card. But every song about butts that came to mind are essentially paeans to the glories of large female butts or about females shaking their butts in strip clubs (you know, E-40's "U and Dat" or the obvious Sir Mix-A-Lot "I Like Big Butts" or the crunk-a-licious Three Six Mafia "Shake My Ass").  But, this card photo is just awful. So, the Hole song of the same name works here.

5.  1982 Topps Ben Oglivie

The Song: On Top of the World, Imagine Dragons.

Because, after all, Brewers fans got as close to being on top of the world in 1982 as we have ever been.  Yes, a bit cliched to think this way, but that's where my head went.

JBF definitely filled my mailbox up -- and my Brewers binders up -- with the box he sent me. For that, I thank you.  And, I am putting a package together for you -- I know, surprise!