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!

Cards from the Juice Box

Hey, I heard you missed me.  I'm back!

My week away from home -- sleeping in hotel rooms, meeting new (often very strange) people and seeing old friends -- ended on Friday night. It was only four nights away, to be exact, but I successfully picked up a cold/sore throat and slept perhaps 9 hours from Wednesday through Friday. So, it was a great feeling to get to sleep in my own bed, to see my wife and our two cats, and to get back to the friendly confines of my office/baseball card room.

Even before I left, I had received my first-ever package from a gentleman named Trevor. Trevor has started a blog called "Juice Box Baseball."  I received several comments on my blog from Trevor, so we exchanged e-mails about cards and want lists and the like.  A few days later and Voila! Baseball cards arrive in my mailbox.

Trevor is a Houston Astros collector. Hopefully he will post more soon.  In the meantime, though, here are the highlights from the great envelope of cards that he sent my way for my player collections and/or team collection, punctuated by some juicy music.

Jose Valentin

Yes, there are many readily available cards from the 1990s and early 2000s that I need for my collections, such as these two Topps base set cards of Jose Valentin. I still need both of these one more time for my team collection.  

So what juicy song goes with these two cards?

How about a song from 34 years ago called "Queen of Hearts" by New Jersey native Juice Newton? It's a funny thing about country music -- most of the popular songs from that genre really aren't all that "country" at all. Think about it: if you were alive in 1981, you couldn't avoid this song no matter what radio station you listened to -- country or pop -- as it hit Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, Number 14 on the Country chart, and Number 2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.  Heck, even Alvin & The Chipmunks covered it.

So, the next time you hear someone complain about how Luke Bryan or Taylor Swift really isn't country, know that Barbara Mandrell and Johnny Cash were saying the same thing 35 years ago about Juice Newton.  And what that has to do with Jose Valentin is the square root of bupkis.  

B.J. Surhoff

Surhoff's 1995 Donruss card lists him as a catcher and third baseman. It was the time when everyone in the majors wanted a Tony Phillips thanks to Sparky Anderson's use of Phillips all over the diamond to give other players a day off.  Surhoff was always an incredibly earnest player as well.  As this story from The Washington Times said in 1999, everything Surhoff felts was "writ large across his mug."

To go with that...hmmm....

I'd never heard of or heard this song or this band before today, but it fits here.  The song is called "Juice" and the band -- called Headless Chickens -- was big in New Zealand in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Sort of like Surhoff in Milwaukee.  Take a listen and tell me that this song isn't incredibly earnest with emotional heartstrings being tugged the entire way. Or, it may just be obnoxious, throwaway tripe that got released in every country around that time.

Actually, it's not bad at all, really, so I'm going with the first part of that choice.

Rob Deer

A 1989 Topps Big card of the big three-true-outcomes slugger Rob Deer graced this package as well. I remember buying Topps Big in those cellophane wrappers back in 1989 or 1988. As was the case for the 1989 Bowman set, Topps Big are tough to store in sheets for us binder guys and gals -- they fit, sort of, in the 9-pocket varietals, but they are such a tight fit that you are really jamming them into the pockets. 

Did someone say jamming?

Let's go to Jimmy Kimmel jamming with Oran "Juice" Jones last November on Kimmel's 47th birthday. "The Rain" was Juice's biggest hit, reaching number 9 in the US, number 3 in Germany, number 4 in the UK, and number 6 in both Ireland and Belgium.  Watching this performance from 2014, I feel like Juice may be the world's coolest one-hit wonder ever. Dude is a bad ass.

Prince Fielder

Because Trevor sent me four Fielders for my player collection, we get two songs here.

This Prince Fielder 2007 Topps Turkey Red had me Googling the card to double check the date on it without picking up the card (a crazy thing since the card is right in a stack in front of me as I type this).  

But, that search led me to Dick Perez's website where he sells some of his original art -- such as this absolutely awesome Eddie Mathews acrylic (for $2,000...wish I'd found this site when I was single and had much more disposable income!).  If you like Dick Perez's art, you should poke around there. He has it sorted by team and then by player, and he has some photos with stories about his career.  His early work in particular was fantastic.

Sort of like...

Ahhhhh...rollin' down the street, smokin' indo, sippin' on gin and juice. Laid back....

Snoop's debut album had a creativity and fun about it that couldn't be replicated later in his life for all the obvious reasons. 

Okay, on to the final two cards.

The orange refractor from 2011 Topps pairs well with one of Fielder's final cards as a Brewer player (rather than those after-the-fact cards that Topps puts out from time to time). In retrospect, Fielder leaving Milwaukee started the window closing on the Doug Melvin Brewers's opportunities to contend. Fielder left a big hole behind both in the lineup -- the lefty power bat needed to balance out the rest of the team's right-handedness -- and on the field.  

Corey Hart was a good fit there for a while, but his injuries took him away from being the first baseman.  Then, the Brewers messed around with people like Travis Ishikawa, Mat Gamel, Taylor Green, Brooks Conrad, Cesar Izturis, Yuniesky Betancourt (seriously...WTF is that?), Juan Francisco, Sean Halton, Alex Gonzalez (another shortstop? Huh?), Mark Reynolds, and Lyle Overbay playing first base in 2012 through 2014. That failure to address first base with a real hitter before 2015 and Adam Lind was one of the biggest failures in Doug Melvin's tenure.  That, and signing Jeff Suppan to a four-year contract for $42 million.  The Suppan contract will always be a stain on Melvin's record.

So, what do I have to close this out?

Three 6 Mafia, of course.  Of course.  Jordan Michael Houston -- a/k/a Juicy J -- is one of the founders of Three 6 Mafia out of Memphis.  Sadly, one of the co-founders of Three 6 Mafia -- Koopsta Knicca -- died this past week at the age of just 40 years old from a brain aneurysm. 

Trevor, thanks for the cards that you sent to me.  I've got a package all set to go out to you this week. And for everyone else, Trevor needs a fair amount of late 1980s junk wax -- so check out his want lists!

Cards from All Cardinals All the Time

Recently, an unexpected package arrived here in the north Atlanta suburbs from Ray at All Cardinals All the Time.  He is a Ray Lankford supercollector, and with those two Rays in my head, I immediately thought of this:

Huh?  Yeah.  When I was in college, I was a member of the Vanderbilt Marching Band.  One of our more notorious band members was a guy named Ray.  Everyone has a friend -- or knows someone like -- Ray.  Ray is that guy with the really loud voice who can be heard over everyone heckling the referees but who doesn't necessarily have the best grasp of the rules of the game.  So rather than yelling about something like whether a lineman is getting held on a pass rush, Ray would just yell one of two things: "Hey Ref, you need Gatorade because your calls are as weak as water" or "Hey Ref, You Suck!"

He was a real wordsmith.

Within the band, there was a group of guys who attended Belmont University (side note: yep, Vandy's Marching Band really was the marching band of Vandy, Belmont, David Lipscomb University and Trevecca Nazarene College...we wouldn't have had enough people otherwise, I think) who were a little bit older than most folks in the band. By that, I mean they were 23 or 24 and not 18 or 19.  They liked Ray a lot but enjoyed making fun of him as well. So, they appropriated MC Hammer's song "Pray" and turned it into "Ray!"  We need a Ray, just to make it today...

Anyway, long intro just to give you a frightening look into how my brain plays word association and turns it into the first chapter of "The Sound and the Fury" -- you know, the part of the book that was the tale told by an "idiot"?

So, getting back to why I have a blog, here are the highlights from the cards that Ray sent to me...highlighted by music, of course.

Jeromy Burnitz

According to this website, Jeromy Burnitz used the song "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd as a walk-up song at least one time during the 2002 season.  Ray was kind enough to send me six Burnitz cards that I needed either for my player collection or my team collection:

Jeff Cirillo

"Got a Machine head, it's better than the rest, green to red, machine head."  Cirillo used this song, according to this list, during the 2008 season while employed by the Minnesota Twins. Maybe he used its first few lyrics to remind himself to "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in...."

To be fair, I really liked this song when it first came out in 1995.  By 2008, though, I was a little bit tired of it.

I'm not tired of getting Cirillo's cards for my collection though, and Ray sent me this one that goes into my team collection:

Geoff Jenkins

Using that same list as the one from Cirillo, it appears that Geoff Jenkins really liked Jay-Z in 2008.  He used two songs as his walk-up music: "Dig A Hole" and "30 Something."  Can't really fault him for using either song, to be fair.  Jay-Z had his fastball then. He's good now, but he's more of a junkballer now, if you know what I mean.  

Before 2008 and according to a now-available-in-archives only page that used to be on ESPN's Page 3, Jenkins used Usher's "Yeah!"  So, Jay-Z was an upgrade.

Ray sent me two Jenkins cards from Jenkins's prime.

Dave Nilsson

I couldn't find anything talking about his walk-up music or any other music he likes.  So, here's what we get instead:

Because I like Cypress Hill and liked listening to them back in college too.  

Here's the Dave Nilsson card that Ray sent to me for my player collection:

Ben Sheets

According to this forum posting, Manny Parra and Ben Sheets both used "Welcome Home" by Coheed + Cambria as their intro music at various points in their respective careers. Personally, I never liked Coheed + Cambria. They sounds to me like a Rush tribute band using guitars instead of keyboards.  And, while I like Rush and all, I am hardly what you'd call a superfan of their music.

I am a superfan of getting cards like these, though:

Lots of great early 2000s Donruss there!

Jose Valentin

Finally, there's Jose Valentin.  These two songs came once again from the same list as the Geoff Jenkins music.  During his final seasons in the majors, Valentin played with the New York Mets.  During at least one of those years, he used either of these two songs by Don Omar -- "Salio El Sol" (the top video) and "Reggaeton Latino".  I'd not heard these songs before, but they are decent, I think.  

Just like Circa Thunder from 1998 is pretty decent. 

Actually, no, Circa Thunder is not decent. These colors on a card with that "Valentin" down the side is godawful terrible.  I really don't like the color orange -- every college team that wears orange (Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma State, Syracuse, Virginia) are all evil in varying shades of evilness.  This card reminds me of why I don't like orange.

But, it shows a Brewers player so I have to have it.  And since it shows a guy in a player collection, I had to have two -- and now, thanks to Ray, I do.

Thanks a lot for the great cards!

This Way to a Trade Post

It will be a trade post with Mark Kaz from This Way to The Clubhouse soon.  In other words, I will be getting a package out to Mark soon, that is, once I get everything put away from the JBF Monster packs. I'm almost done with it too. All that sorting puts trade packages behind, but I have to admit -- the sorting part is probably the most fun part.  It's even cathartic at times. 

But, in between monsters arriving in Georgia, I received a stuffed envelope from Mark filled with Brewers. Mark was kind enough to send these cards my way -- perhaps partially in thanks for my research skills in chasing down his Mike Piazza 1999 Fleer Tradition kite. Mark sent me a number of cards that I needed for player collections along with a couple of minor league cards too.

Let's start with those minor leaguers:

Matt LaPorta might be a familiar name to baseball fans for being part of the trade that brought CC Sabathia to Milwaukee just prior to his free agency. The Brewers pretty much knew that Sabathia wasn't signing with them, so they abused the living hell out of his arm -- and why not? No need to worry about the future if the future for the pitcher did not include the Brewers.  LaPorta is pictured here with the Helena (Montana) Brewers. 

Mike Farrell was an undrafted free agent out of Indiana State University who made it all the way to Triple-A New Orleans in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996. He never struck out enough guys to make it past Triple-A, though.  After his playing career, the Brewers signed him on as a scout as soon as his playing career ended in 1998, and he is credited with signing two players who made it to the major leagues -- Eric Fryer (who played 28 games with Minnesota last year) and Mitch Stetter (who last pitched in the major leagues in 2011 with Milwaukee).

Beyond the minor leaguers, Mark also sent me three Ryan Braun cards that I did not have. For whatever reason, 2009 seems to be a dead zone for me. I never find cards from 2009 at the card shows -- 2010 to the present, sure...2008 and before, yup, those too...but not 2009. So all three of these were greatly appreciated:

Some guys seem to have the same photo on every card.  Like the Braun "puffed out cheeks in his swing follow-through" photos above, it seems like Dave Nilsson is always looking up at something:

Unless, of course, he's looking down to try to block the plate.

Apropos for Nilsson being an Aussie, here's a photo of some kangaroos from, yes, 2009.  

Yes, I took this photo.

Anyway, Mark Kaz didn't send me to Australia, but these cards took me there.  

Back to the USA for a few more cards that scream "1990s".  

Why do these cards scream, "1990s"? Vaughn with the hat backwards, for example, reminds me of the joke we had about the Vanderbilt frat boy uniform in 1990: blue shirt, khaki pants, navy blazer, yellow tie, and backward dirty white hat with a Milwaukee's Best Light in his hand. Of course, Vaughn would not have fit in that well with that frat boy look because, well, Vanderbilt was 92% white at that time.  

B.J. Surhoff would have fit in at Vanderbilt, other than not having a name that sounds like two last names.  You know, like Walker Buehler or Dansby Swanson or Carson Fulmer -- all first round MLB Draft picks from Vanderbilt this year.

And, to close out, nothing says the 1990s quite like 1995 Fleer or a Pinnacle card of any kind.  Yes, I realize Panini resurrects 1990s brands from time to time like a lurching middle-aged man revisiting his Vanderbilt 1990s frat days -- and it usually comes off similarly. It starts kind of fun -- everyone's having a good time, people overlook the flaws for a little while...then it starts going wrong. No logos for Panini or too much Scotch for Vandy Frat Guy starts wearing on the folks around them. Panini throws in 84 different parallels, Vandy Frat Guy starts thinking he can pick up like his 19 again -- and it all goes off the rails.

And, wow, where the hell did that stream of consciousness come from.

Mark -- please ignore my vacant stares and accept my sincerest thanks for these great cards and all the other cards you sent to me.  I have your address now, and I have the URL for your Zistle Wantlist, so I will be returning the favor soon.

I promise.

Bo Knows Trading

I'm positive that Bo, the man behind "Baseball Cards Come to Life" -- which is an excellent read to find out where some of your favorite players from baseball history are now -- has probably had the "Bo Knows" line used on multiple occasions for him in his life.  I mean, for any kid who was alive and can remember 1989 and 1990, the coolest athlete on the planet not named Michael Jordan -- and perhaps even including Jordan -- was Bo Jackson.

As far as I know, Baseball Card Bo is no Bo Jackson.  This Bo knows his baseball cards -- and he knows how to help knock a bunch of needs off want lists for someone like me, who didn't collect in the 1990s.

So what cards does Bo know?

Bo Knows Topps Gallery

And, apparently, Topps decided that Piet Mondrian should meet Jeff Cirillo.  

Bo didn't send me Piet Mondrian though.  I'm also unsure of what artistic movement Dave Nilsson is supposed to represent, though.  I guess the Classics is just supposed to mean, "classic baseball cards" or "classic photography."  

The more I think about it, the more I like the Jeff Cirillo card.

Bo Knows Fleer Ultra

Vaughn is right on that pitch.  The Eldred, though -- nice photo, but very confusing.  Is it a horizontal card, due to the logo location? Or is it a vertical card based on the name location?

Bo would know.

Bo Knows Angry Catchers

While these two cards come from different sets, they must be put together:

It seems something was attached to the Brewers shinguards they gave their catchers caused tremendous pain to shoot suddenly through their bodies.  This must have been somehow controlled by the photographer, who could control when the pain would shoot through Surhoff and Harper so that the photographer could catch the exact look on their respective faces when the pain came.

Or not.

But Bo Knows Triple Play

This is not one of my favorite Triple Play designs, but it is decent looking.  It's tough to screw up black borders.  But, to be fair, the huge silver/gray name at the top comes damn close to screwing up this design for me.  It's just unnecessary -- I see the players name at the bottom already, so why do I need the large version at the top?  Who needs that, anyway?

Oh.

Bo Knows Collector's Choice Special Edition

The first time I saw one of these Special Edition cards, I thought, "wow, Wal-Mart had its own parallels in 1995"?  

Jose Valentin's card, though, gives me another idea for a food issue -- get the David Sunflower Seeds promotional folks fired up!

No.

One of the highlights of the bottom Bo Jackson commercial above is when Wayne Gretzky appears on the screen and just says, "No."

This one goes to the original card issued by anyone for pitcher Jeff D'Amico, who was born exactly four years later than me.  The card looks tailor-made for a Panini card these days and features a high-school version of D'Amico at the bat on the back of the Classic Games card. 

Still, "No."

Bo Knows Donruss.

The Donruss logo with the team name, logo, player number, and position may be one of the 

most difficult to read portions of any card I've run across.  I know there are worse, but this is just tough to look at.  

And, finally....

Bo Knows Sports Illustrated

I did not have any of these Fleer Sports Illustrated cards from 1998 before I received this package from Bo. Back when Sports Illustrated still had staff photographers -- you know, before January of 2015 -- they had some of the best photography in sports.  Their spin doctors at that time claimed that the magazine's "commitment to photography is as strong as ever" as the magazine decided to go entirely with freelancers and use the same photos Topps uses -- Getty Images, mainly.

It's a sad state of affairs, but paper magazines are going the way of newspapers.  Either the coverage has to be incredibly local (and yes, local newspapers covering local news still do okay) or it has to be incredibly specialized.  Sports Illustrated is neither.

But those photos in 1998 were great. Perhaps SI will think about monetizing their photo inventory in the future by having card sets created for all the sports -- and perhaps swimsuits too -- that have appeared in those pages.  That would be a set many of us would buy.

Bo, thank you again for the great cards.