A Brewers Lot on eBay, Part 2

Today has been a good collecting day for me, as I went to my local show for the first time in a couple of months and came home with a hatful of interesting stuff. But more on that later this week.

First, I have to close out my eBay purchase of a lot filled with items from the Milwaukee Brewers' history from the early 1970s.

I'm not a big newspaper clipping guy, in large part because newsprint photos tend to be pretty low quality items and, further, they are often larger in size and not easily stored. So, when this group of items included a decent amount of newspaper clippings, I was not super excited. Honestly, most of the items were pretty mundane or even trash-worthy -- rosters of all the teams in the league on opening day in 1971, or in mid-May of 1972, for instance. I just don't care about that stuff. If it's interesting to you, let me know and I'll send it to you.

There were a few clippings that were kind of interesting though. For instance, there was this one from the Sunday Milwaukee Journal on April 5, 1970 -- just a day or two after the city found out that they would be swiping the Pilots and turning them into the Brewers -- a team photo of the Pilots:



Even more interesting were two clippings that went together about the twentieth anniversary old-timers game that was put together for June 24, 1973 at County Stadium. The game was intended to reenact the first major league game between the Milwaukee Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals.  Here are the rosters:

I liked seeing what the players were doing as their occupation in 1973 -- and how the Brewers kept trying to pull in that old Braves magic through guys like Del Crandall and Jim Wilson being in charge of the organization.

Here's a nice photo of the Braves team, who also coopted then-Brewers coach Harvey Kuenn into their lineup:

Still, that stuff, while nice, does not exactly get my motor running.

The actress who played "Sister Christian" -- Macha Bennet-Shephard -- turned out pretty hot, even at the age of nearly 50....see?

If only she had somehow been included in the lot, well, that would have made my wife very unhappy.

Okay, back to the stuff I could buy legally. Brewers items, of course.

The featured items to me were the scorebooks, scorecards, and yearbooks. For instance, the lot included a copy of the Brewers 1970 Yearbook:

It's not a bad effort considering that it was thrown together in about 6 weeks. It is only 36 pages long, though I don't know how that compares to other yearbooks of the era.

The coolest thing amongst the scorecards is also an item that came closest to being the coolest item in the whole lot.

That's the front cover. It looks pretty plain. That should be no surprise, though. I mean, when the team moved to Milwaukee, it probably caught a lot of folks flat-footed. By that, I mean that usually stuff like this would be plastered in advertising, and the Brewer front office probably had to be put together first before it could sell tons of advertising.

How I know that has to be the case is that this is the interior of the scorecard:

The person who originally owned all these scorecards had the habit of writing down the lineup in pen and stapling his/her (probably his, based on the quality of the handwriting) ticket to the interior. As you can see, this ticket is from April 7, 1970 -- the very first Opening Day in Milwaukee Brewers history! According to the SABR Book that just came out, From the Braves to the Brewers: Great Games and Exciting History at Milwaukee's County Stadium, that day was a pleasant if windy day with sunny skies and highs in the upper 50s. Considering how the game ended 12-0 in favor of the visiting California Angels, the weather may have been the only highlight.

Just seeing this in the lot absolutely blew me away. It immediately became one of my very favorite items in my Brewers collection.

Thing is, there were three more items that are almost as cool. All of them are additions to my Robin Yount Collection:

This gorgeous Robin Yount photo has to date from either 1978 or 1979. The Brewers first changed to the MB glove logo in 1978. And, in 1980, they installed their new scoreboard that featured prominently in the movie Major League:

What an awesome photo it is of Robin, too. He's either in his 5th or 6th major league season, and is either 22 or 23 years old. 

What could make that photo better?

How about an autographed version?

Indeed, that is better. Much better.

This photo apparently was one of the highlights of the previous owner's collection -- so much so that he/she kept it on his/her wall with thumbtacks -- as you can see the thumbtack holes in each corner.

The final item was not as vintage, but it's at least as exciting as this 1978/79 photo:

It's a late career Robin Yount photo from the same entity that issued a Paul Molitor photo I have (that, sadly, is not autographed). This one is definitely autographed, and it definitely looks genuine. 

I really believe that the $150 I paid for this yearbook/photo/newspaper clipping/scorecard lot was a steal when everything is unpacked. There were 4 or 5 scorecards from 1970, one from 1971, two from 1972, one or two from 1973, and a couple from 1974 too. 

With all that, how could go I wrong? I couldn't. The only way to go wrong was to let someone else buy it. 

Now that would be a mistake.

Other cards from the Card Show

I attended my first card show of the year on Sunday. I even got a box I thought about adding to the Super Traders group breaks (and probably will, eventually)...then I realized that 1992 Fleer Ultra will not have any cards for the Marlins (no loss there), the Rockies, the Diamondbacks, and the Rays. In other words, it wouldn't exactly be a great break because, well, I'd be leaving three people out from the get-go.

And, let's be honest. Bringing 1992 Fleer Ultra to the SuperTraders is sort of like bringing a Yugo to a car show. You can do it, and people might appreciate it for the oddity, but no one goes to a car show looking to see a sweet Yugo. Or AMC Gremlin. 

Still, I'll probably break that box and throw the results into the SuperTraders stuff I mail out. I'm thinking I'll buy a box or two online and throw all three together into one big break -- probably some time around Opening Day, so I can get a couple of good boxes.

Anyway, that digression aside, I want to emphasize that I'm still trading with whomever wants to trade with me. I'm sometimes slow to respond or reciprocate, and I apologize in advance for my inability at times to sit down and put packages together. 

I need a theme for the card show...let's see...let's put my iTunes "Top Rated" on random and see what happens.

"Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)" -- Three 6 Mafia ft. Project Pat, Young D, & Superpower

Yeah, how 'bout them apples. If you've read my blog before, you know that my musical tastes are all over the board. Sinatra to Anthrax, The Clash to The Cure, and sure, there's Three 6 Mafia too.  

What goes well with Lolli popping that body in the club?



My most surprising dime box find of the day. I really should have just grabbed all of the 1998 Pacific Crown Royale cards in that dime box. I could have used them for the SuperTraders! Damn. A missed opportunity. I think I equate these cards with rap music because of the trend in the 1990s -- and apparently still today -- to their use for storing assorted....ahem.... illegal paraphernalia.  

Or maybe that was just the use for Crown Royal bags that I saw on TV shows.

It's time to move on.

"Down Under" -- Men At Work

Like I said before, I'm all over the map. To be fair, I recall very distinctly that the first music I ever bought for myself was this very song on a 45-RPM single record. 

Surprisingly enough, this song has actual drug references in it. The first two lines of the song are: "Travelling in a fried-out Kombi / on a hippy trail, head full of zombie."  As this BBC article notes, that line refers to a Kombi -- an old VW camper van -- followed by "the hippy trail" of dropping out of the rat race in a very 60s fashion. And the "head full of zombie" is a reference to a very potent strain of marijuana, occasionally laced with angel dust.

I'm pretty sure that if my mom realized that that is what the song meant, I probably would not have been able to buy that 45 back in 1982.

What goes with that?



I think these two items qualify. On the left, we have the very weird looking manu-relic of Eddie Mathews in a Detroit Tigers uniform. Mathews had a grand total of 57 plate appearances for the 1968 Detroit Tigers (for which he was paid $75,000...about $525,000 today...which is near the league minimum but in 1968 that was an impressive salary). His final at bats -- and his final hit -- were in the 1968 World Series against the Cardinals, which the Tigers won.

On the right side, we have Larry Pardo. Larry was a minor league pitcher in the 1980s for the Rangers and, later, the Angels. My god were his stats atrocious. In 500-1/3 innings in the minors, he walked 375 guys while striking out 361. In 1987, in the California League at the age of 21, Larry pitched 71-2/3 innings. He gave up 75 hits, 110 walks, and 31 wild pitches while striking out 63. He hit 5 guys for good measure. Larry later became a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers, though. His most notable signings: Michael Brantley and Ryan Braun. So, it has a Brewers logo on it. I bought it.

I'm not proud.

"Your Love" -- The Outfield

This song has always been a big favorite of mine from the 1980s. It's so damn catchy. Then, just like "Down Under," you listen to the words and feel a little skeevy.

As Wikipedia puts it bluntly: 

"Your Love" is written from the point of view of a man who tries to convince a younger female acquaintance to have an intimate night with him while his older girlfriend, Josie, is away on vacation.

Yeah.

Since we're talking about youngsters...sorry, it's all I've got.



I loaded up on a bunch of minor league cards. A fair amount of them are recent, and some aren't -- like 2010 Eric Arnett Helena Brewers card from the Topps Pro Debut set. Eric was old for Helena in 2009, when he played there. The guy was a first round pick out of Indiana University, and well, he was a 100% 1st round bust. He never played about high-A ball in 2012 and 2013 for Brevard County in the Florida State League. He didn't exactly do superbly, either. 2013 was the end for him in the minors -- assuredly he's moved on to something else by now...and he's pocketed his $1.197 million bonus too.

Okay, a couple more songs for a few more songs.

"Soul Meets Body" -- Death Cab for Cutie




In the mid-2000s, I had XM Radio. In my condo, I'd listen to XM, play video games or read books, and drink wine. That was a nice, relaxing weekend night for me. I enjoyed my own company. I didn't mind being alone. Life was good -- not great, sometimes lonely -- but still good.

I found some vintage cards at the show that fit that feel. They are good -- not great -- but good. I paid more than I should have, probably, in light of their condition. But I needed the cards for my Milwaukee Braves collection.



Like I said, good. Not great. Good. The Mathews is the most disappointing, certainly, since someone felt the need to change his affiliation in 1967 for those 101 games he appeared in. I mean, kid in 1967, did you really have to do that to a card from 1963? 

That Lou [sic] Burdette card looks like someone spilled a drink on it too. It was something like $0.50, so it wasn't pricy, but...you know...it could be better.

Okay, last one:

"Famous Last Words" -- My Chemical Romance




Filming this video hurt the band badly. Literally. Gerard Way (lead singer) suffered torn ligaments in his ankle, and Bob Bryar (the drummer at the time) suffered burns on his leg that turned into a staph infection.

Funny thing about this band is that I like their music, but their entire persona was so overwrought and pretentious that I probably would have hated seeing them in concert. In fact, I probably would have hated them personally, even. In fact, I recall seeing them live on some show and thinking, "what a bunch of prats."

Because, pretentious as I was, I would have used some British slang instead of calling them more choice American slang like "C**ts" or "a**holes."

None of that has anything to do with this last assortment of cards, though.



The Fielder rookie was in a quarter box. The autographs were like $2 each. The Hall UD Game Materials was $3. The Braun bat -- which I didn't check to see if I had and, yup, already had it -- was $2. The Lucroy 2014 Update jersey card was $2 also. 

I'll spare you all the shiny Panini I got. After all, there is only so much logoless stuff anyone can take at any one time.

But, I'll leave you with one final song off my playlist.  It doesn't fit with anything else on this page either.




But I like this song by Georgia boy Zac Brown anyway.