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?

Shiny & Sharp: Monster #2 in the #WarWithJBF

Choosing a headline for a story or post can be one of the more difficult parts of writing for me. Most of the time, it's because I'm trying to be original when writing up a trade post using the name of the blog or person who has sent me cards.  But, sometimes, there is almost no work to do.  

Sometimes, the headlines are written for you:

Who am I to disagree?

Wes and I are trading barbs and envelopes and boxes across the Georgia/Alabama border. It's not quite a Border War along the lines of Missouri v. Kansas -- which, come on guys, quit being like Texas and Texas A&M and get your dadgum rivalry game back on your football schedules -- but this war is definitely heating up.  I mean, it's a none-too-veiled threat to receive this guy in your mailbox:

Monster #2 was a much smaller salvo in the war than the first monster box that showed up here at Hiatus Central, but...well, let's have JBF explain:

So, shiny and sharp.  I break them down into shiny and sharp PC guys and shiny and sharp non-PC guys for the team collection.  Let's start with the PC guys.  

Jeromy Burnitz
In the last few months, the Jeromy Burnitz collection stagnated as my sources for late 1990s cards dried up and as other collections -- Ryan Braun in particular -- flourished.  This Shiny & Sharp package pushed things forward, though:

Those Topps Gold Label cards in particular just feel high end in my hand, and those card corners are sharp! I almost got a paper cut.  Would that earn me a Baseball Card Purple Heart?  And, it would be difficult to be any shinier than that Pacific Revolution card.  

On the other hand, the Bowman's Best card is almost as creepy as Michael Myers (the guy in Halloween, not the sidearm-throwing former Brewers/Marlins/Tigers/Rockies/ Diamondbacks/Mariners/Red Sox/Yankees/White Sox lefty).  Why did card companies think that having two photos on the front of the card -- one of which looks like some sort of dissolving stalker composite photo you see on the TV news -- would be a good idea?  

Let's move on.

Ryan Braun
Speaking of my Ryan Braun collection, I think I've added something like 50 Brauns to my collection since the start of the 2015 baseball season.  I guess people are starting to realize that I actually collect him.  Now, to be fair , I decided to demote Braun and all the other active Brewers in my player collections to be "guys I'll collect as Brewers only" (though I did not remove the non-Brewer Carlos Gomez cards from my lists) because, as I thought about it, I almost certainly would not chase cards for any of those guys if they were traded away.  

So what shiny and sharp Brauns did JBF send my way? 

There were a few that were duplicative of cards in my PC already, but I am pretty sure that most of those will migrate into the Brewer team collection.  The obvious highlight is the Baseball Heroes Navy Blue Jersey card, serial numbered 47 out of 50.  The sharp card is that die-cut insert from 2014 Topps Chrome.  That thing is dangerous.

Prince Fielder

Starquests and Refractors for Prince Fielder.  It's really good to see that Prince appears to be healthy again and is taking advantage of the favorable hitting conditions in Texas.  As of this writing, Prince is leading the American League in hits (73), runs batted in (38), and batting average (.361).  I'm glad I loaded up on his cards last year, while he was hurt.

Jeff Cirillo

Just one Cirillo in this group, but it's an early Topps "peel and eat shrimp" finest card.  I'm about 95% sure that I'll peel off that protective plastic.

Warren Spahn

All that glitters is not gold, the old saying goes. This one, though, is no chalcopyrite -- it's the real McCoy as a gold Chasing History insert from the 2013 Topps set.  

As an aside, if Topps wants to go nuts with parallels, they should incorporate educational information into their parallels.  Rather than gold, silver, and platinum parallels, they should use the Mohs scale -- have 10 parallels ranging in commonness from Talc to Diamond to teach kids subliminally about the Mohs scale.  

Or, maybe, go completely off the charts and do parallels based on series on the Periodic table.  "Hey mom, could you buy me this pack of Topps Science Baseball cards? I'm trying to complete the inert gases parallels!"

Okay, I don't know where that came from.  I think I need more coffee.  Or maybe less.

Ben Sheets

One of the highlights of Monster #2 is this Ben Sheets Donruss 2002 Season Stat Line Parallel.  The stat line Donruss used was Sheets's win total -- 11 -- so this card is serial numbered out of 11.  Just awesome.  The Finest is a refractor too, so that's really shiny.

Cal Eldred

Eldred pitched barely into the shiny card era, so there's just one card for him:

It is one of those Cyberstats parallels, where Topps projected out the rest of the 1994 season to point out to everyone what a great season we missed out on when King Bud decided with his owner cronies to cancel the season after the beginning of August.  

Thanks, Topps!

Geoff Jenkins

I think the star of this three-card show is the Fleer E-X card.  The almost rubbery feel of those cards gives it more substance and weight.  If I were ever lost in the woods with only my Geoff Jenkins collection available to me, I'd sacrifice this card to use it as a hatchet to gather firewood.

Don't get me wrong -- I actually like that E-X card a lot -- but I think it would last the longest being used as a tool.

Corey Hart

To be fair, I think that there were four or five of these Corey Hart golden parallels.  I'd say it was a Golden Harting, perhaps.  But not a golden shower.  That's just weird.

Rickie Weeks

Shiny and sharp? Certainly.  Especially that Artifacts Apparel serial numbered 22 of 130. The Bowman Chrome Refractor actually kept my cat Gus entertained as he chased the reflection off the lights in the room around for a while until he got bored with it.

Other Highlights of Shininess and Sharpness
To keep this from extending into another post, here are the highlights from the cards that went into my team collection.  I have to keep it from extending into another post for a good reason...that will be disclosed at the bottom of this post.

That Keith Ginter card probably should have been left on the drawing board -- thanks for the Astro-dressed Brewer "prospect", Select!  And didn't Gene Altman direct M*A*S*H?  Oh, wait, that was Robert Altman.  For Select's information, I don't believe that Gene Altman was ever a prospect unless you think a closer in the Midwest League who splits time between two organizations while putting together a 6-0 season with 17 saves is a prospect (hint: minor league closers are almost never prospects).  In 7 minor league seasons, Gene had an ERA of 5.67 and a WHIP of 1.637.  

And yes, that's yet ANOTHER printing plate.  I think that is now 6 printing plates that have come over from Hazel Green.

But I might be wrong about that.  After all, this is what showed up on my front doorstep yesterday afternoon:

In fact, THREE monsters from Hazel Green showed up yesterday.  An envelope labeled as Monster #3, a single box in the four above was identified as Monster #4, and then three of those boxes above were labeled as Monster #5. 

Will we be able to defeat the monsters? We'll see.  The Shiny & Sharp monster will be tough to top!

#WarWithJBF: Here Come the PWEs

In my first post about Jaybarkerfan's assault on the postal workers in North Atlanta, I noted that I thought I would win the first battle.  But, as I also said, "the first shots never determine the final outcome."  After all, no one is exactly sure who fired the first shot of the American Revolution at the Battle of Lexington, and the Confederates, under the leadership of General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, first the first shot at Fort Sumter.

Is that a plain white envelope I see on the horizon, sir?

If General Beauregard asked that question, his view west to Alabama from the outskirts of Atlanta would have been filled with mail trucks.  You see, the onslaught of PWEs has begun. The first one I received carried some notes to warn me of what is coming:

As best I can tell, I think I am around day four of the PWEs.  On the first day, just one PWE showed up.  It contained these notes accompanied by four cards:

I already have the top three cards, which is why they are small, but I did not have the Upper Deck Game Jersey of Ryan Braun.  That's a great new edition.

The next day (Thursday), nothing arrived from the Hazel Green Roll Tide Church. On Friday, two envelopes arrived.  One of them, unfortunately, had been slashed open by some intrepid felon within the United States Postal Service.  The other one, though, had another great relic card:

Corey Hart's contribution to the 2012 Topps Golden Moments Game-Used Memorabilia Insert set arrived -- and it too was a new addition to a player collection.  

Then yesterday arrived.  Before yesterday, I was under the impression that JBF had sent out a PWE a day. Now, I know that is not the case.  

My wife has been following these proceedings closely -- after the warnings from Bob Walk the Plank were passed along to me, I thought it wise to give my wife a heads up to avoid moving any heavy boxes.  I filled her in when those notes above came. When she brought in the mail yesterday, all she said to me was, "I guess that guy wasn't kidding."

Yes, yesterday, SEVEN PWEs showed up.  It's starting to add up now...and my thoughts are that I may see another 11 PWEs before this is over -- and before the 6 "Monsters" arrive.  I am not afraid of monsters, though.  Not yet, at least!

So what did these PWEs have?

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

Yes, that's a relic in every envelope.  Every. Single. One.  

The cool thing is that about half of the "filler" cards are ones I needed for my player collections and/or for the Brewers team binders.  

You might be able to tell from my write up here that my trepidation is increasing.  I mean, as much as you can see from the photos that Bob Walk the Plank posted -- and as many of you have found out personally -- one cannot appreciate the sheer volume of cards that Wes sends out.

Now, I have some great stuff for him already -- some of which has arrived in Alabama but most of which is yet to come.  Don't get me wrong.  

But this war...is this where we are heading?

We'll see.