An eBay Seller Comes Through

A couple of weeks ago, I had a problem on eBay. I won a small auction for a Brewers lot containing a couple of decent autographs and a low serial numbered card, but I kept getting errors every time I tried to pay for the lot. Because I got the lot for literally the minimum bid, I was concerned that this problem resulted from an unsavory seller.

Thankfully, that concern was misplaced. After a couple of messages with the seller -- who also could not figure out what was going on -- I contacted eBay customer service. We got it all worked out without a problem.

So, a nice little story, right? Well, this seller did one better and gave me some extra stuff as well in the envelope to thank me for my patience with the issues. Fast forward a month and I'm finally getting around to posting these cards.

I just got back from a planning retreat in Park City, Utah for the American Bar Association group for which I am in leadership. On our last night there, a few of us met randomly together and just blew it out. I'm usually a pretty buttoned-down person to anyone who is observing from the outside and does not know me that well. The reality is that I draw lines like most people and tend not to show a lot of my crazier side to people with whom I interact in a business setting.

What did I do? I showed my attention-hog side and started showing off my lyrical knowledge of random songs...while all of us were in our hotel robes drinking wine on this large patio. Yup. So, it was everything from "U and Dat" by E-40 to "Pompeii" by Bastille and "Funky Cold Medina" by Tone Lōc. It inspired me to hit some old rap songs from my college days to accompany this post.

We didn't sing or even listen to "Pop Goes The Weasel," but we should have. In preparing for finding songs for this post, I looked at some old Billboard rap charts and saw this song had topped the Rap chart in 1991. 

If you have never heard the song, take a listen and watch the video as well. It features Henry Rollins dressed as Vanilla Ice (seriously) and 3rd Bass basically was ripping Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer (among others) for being weasels who "go pop." The base sample track should be familiar to many of you as well, as the band built the song on the horns and bass line from "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.

My purchase on eBay started with these three cards. Yeah, K-Rod is uninspiring to many including myself. But I am a sucker, after all, and when a Brewers cards serial numbered 2 of 25 is packaged with two autographs for $0.99 plus $3 shipping, I'm probably going to buy it. 

Jason Rogers, of course, was a part of the Great Pirate Robbery of December 2015. The Brewers received minor league pitcher Trey Supak and current starting centerfielder Keon Broxton for Rogers in a trade that probably seemed like a good idea at the time to the Pirates -- turning some outfield depth into a potentially useful first baseman. The problem was that Rogers was neither given a chance by Pittsburgh in the majors and, then, struggled when he did get 33 plate appearances (.080/.303/.160). The Pirates released Rogers on Friday from his minor league contract, and the report out of Pittsburgh was that Rogers will sign with the Hanshin Tigers in the Japanese Central League.

Monte Harrison has moved steadily down the list of top Brewers prospects as the Brewers have acquired more organizational depth and players closer to the majors in trades and the draft. Harrison was promoted to the High-A Carolina Mudcats the day after the Midwest League All-Star game. He was the star of that All-Star Game: he hit two homers in the game the night after finishing second in the home run derby(oops, no he didn't). He did all kinds of weird things in that game, including hitting a home run while batting out of order and swapping jerseys with his first-base coach during his home run trot. It's good to see him having fun and fulfilling some of his massive potential. Before his promotion, he was hitting .265/.359/.475 with 11 HR and 11 SB in 261 plate appearances (though he is still striking out too much).

What's that you say? You haven't heard of the song "U And Dat"? Let's rectify that. I only wish this was the uncensored version.

Before I met my wife, I lived in Midtown Atlanta. No suburbs for me. My next door neighbor was an African-American guy named Bob who is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. Bob and I bonded over college football and sports generally, but we also talked a lot about music too. He introduced this song to me, and I really liked it. I used to crack him up by knowing all the words to it and being able to sing along with it.

I would imagine it would be humorous to see a blond, white, 35-year-old guy singing this song. 

As I mentioned, the eBay seller threw in some extra autographs for me. Man, did he come through. First up is that Wei-Chung Wang Panini card. I absolutely love the fact that he signed his autograph using the Chinese characters of his native Taiwan. I'm not sure why he wouldn't sign like that, but I like it nonetheless -- it looks sharp.

Wang, of course, was a Rule 5 pick after the 2013 season. The Brewers plucked him from Pittsburgh's rookie league roster, stashed him for a year in 2014 while using him sparingly, and then were able to sneak him through waivers. Wang has had great success this year in Colorado Springs working out of the bullpen, and I would not be surprised to see him up later this year in the Brewers pen. Also, I think that is probably where his future major league career will take him. He is only 25, so he has a little time.

Michael Reed, on the other hand, is struggling a bit this year. He has fallen behind the hot prospects in Colorado (Brett Phillips, Lewis Brinson, and Ryan Cordell) as well as the guys in Milwaukee already (Domingo Santana & Keon Broxton). To make matters worse for him, he's not making good contact in Double-A Biloxi -- .215/.352/.367 in 193 plate appearances. He's showing more power this year, but he probably needs a change in scenery soon. Maybe a minor deadline deal to shore up the bullpen?

Finally, there is the card about which I was more excited than any of the other cards I got in this deal -- the Ben Sheets autograph serial numbered 46 of 49. Too bad it is a Panini product and that Sheets apparently pitched before color photography was invented. In all seriousness, that Hometown Heroes product was (in my opinion) Panini's best product. It was ruined by the lack of licensing and discoloration issues resulting from that, but including the players they included in the set made it a winner.

Thanks for reading!

Just Tweet About It

I know I have mentioned before how there are quite a few good Cardinals fans in the blog world. And there are -- just look at my blogroll. Would a Brewers fan include a Cardinals blog in their blogroll otherwise? 

Twitter is much the same in many respects. We only get 140 characters there to make our point, so subtlety can get lost quickly. I view Twitter like being at a sports bar, and every user is a game on a TV. Some TVs you just ignore right away -- "no, I don't care about netball." Other TVs, you look in for a bit to try to figure out what is actually going on: "sure, I'll give Rugby Union a look." Then, there are the games on TV that you probably pay attention to: "It's 3:30 PM. Who is Alabama playing this week on CBS?" Finally, there are the games you circle; for me, that is Georgia football.

Similarly, there are a lot of users whom I pay attention to like I do Alabama football. You know what I mean -- you see what they are saying, see what they are talking about, and maybe even get into what is going on for a few minutes. There are a few folks that I seek out and try to see what is going on with them; there, it's folks like my pal Peter Steinberg (who still wants all your 1995 Fleer), like @AllTimeBrewers, and like the Cardinals fan I'm thanking tonight: Jmack a/k/a @RMcardsfan. 

J is a great guy -- a pleasant guy, even -- who is a Cards fan in Colorado Springs. Being in Colorado Springs, though, he is getting treated to watching the Brewers Triple-A farm club. That's led him to collecting certain Brewers players as player collections -- in particular Orlando Arcia and Josh Hader.

Recently, we worked out a trade by direct messaging on Twitter. Since he just told me he's on a 90s music bender recently and mentioned Hootie and the Blowfish (hashtag: noshame), it's time for the Dolphins to make Darius Rucker cry.

Just watch for the old-school SportsCenter intro with Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, and stay for the slightly out-of-tune singing! Or, stick around for the not-far-from-annoying close to the video with Chris Berman!

To be fair, I remember I got Cracked Rear View from a girl that I worked with who didn't like it because it was too country for her tastes. She obviously knew that Darius Rucker would go on to become a country music singer twenty years later. 

Obviously.

I liked the CD when I got it, but I really liked the other CD she gave me that was even more "country": Anodyne by Uncle Tupelo.

J sent me three autographed Brewers cards from his collection. The first is this Bowman Inception card of Monte Harrison. Harrison was a second round pick in 2014 from Missouri. The Brewers had to give him a good chunk of change to keep him from going to college at Nebraska to play wide receiver for the Huskers. 

Considering that he would have been playing against the University of Wisconsin regularly, there are hopes it will work out well for two Wisconsin teams.

Harrison has had all kinds of health issues. He was healthy near the end of last year and in the instructional league he really showed off his abilities, according to Baseball America. He'll probably end up back with the Timber Rattlers this season. Depending how things shake out, I would not be surprised to see him traded in the next couple of years for pitching. The Brewers are deep in the outfield, after all.

Here's Hootie reuniting in 2015 during the run toward David Letterman's retirement. I swear -- the rhythm guitarist does not look all that much different 21 years later than he does in that older video. 

The drummer, on the other hand...wow. He has not aged well.

So, it probably was well known back when they hit it big, but I recall hearing that Hootie & the Blowfish actually started off life in Columbia, South Carolina as an REM cover band as freshmen at the University of South Carolina (that's USC(e) to college football fans, as in USC east). This would be consistent with the story of nearly every band from a southern college town from the late 1980s. There were a lot of guys in bands who used being sort of alternative sounding and playing REM songs to try to get laid.

I could make a joke about USC(e) generally being a University of Georgia cover act, but that would be unfair. They are not a UGA cover act. They are a pale imitation of the University of Florida. I keep waiting for them to hire Ron Zook.

The Brewers First round pick in 2014 was high school pitcher Kodi Medeiros from Hawaii. Medeiros struggled last year -- badly -- at High-A Brevard County. I would not be surprised to hear that Medeiros ends up in the Carolina League this year to repeat the level (the Brewers changed affiliates at that level). Here's hoping he fixes what was wrong.

Finally, we have "Time." This song hit #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 1995, though it hit number one in Canada. See -- not everything Canada does is worth imitating!

It may be difficult to recall how huge Hootie really was. Cracked Rear View hit number 1 on the album charts in the US, Canada, and New Zealand and was certified Diamond -- which means that the album has sold over 10 million copies in the United States. It has been certified as Platinum 16 times, which means it has sold over 16 million copies in the US. Wikipedia says it is the 16th-best-selling album of all time in the United States. That is massive.

I personally lost the band off my radar after this album. It is just so soft rock in so many respects. That's not to say it isn't melodic, and listenable, and something that when I hear it I wouldn't hum along with it. It is to say that it's just nothing I'd go out of my way to hear too often. I just heard it too much in 1994. 

Jorge Lopez was the token Brewer rookie in just about every single Topps/Bowman release last year -- the way Orlando Arcia is this year. The Brewers are not generally allocated more than one rookie slot, so it can be discouraging when the one who does show up is as terrible as Lopez was last year in Colorado Springs -- where I'm sure J got this card signed in person. Lopez had a 6.81 ERA in 79-1/3 innings at altitude. 

There's still hope, though -- after all, Lopez was born only 16 months before Cracked Rear View came out and he had a really good winter league showing. 

My thanks go out to J for the three great cards, the trade, and for being a good Twitterati. He's no Twitter egg!

Depressed Twins Fans and Brewers Fans Have to Stick Together

For people who have never spent any significant time in the Midwest, there are several truths about the good people in our nation's upper midsection -- particularly people from Minnesota and Wisconsin -- that most people do not know. 

First, people from Wisconsin are super nice people -- nicer even than Southerners. Thing is, they are also incredibly blunt and have a little less tact than most folks do, so they'll tell you to your face what a moron you are for doing something stupid, but then they'll laugh about it with you and buy you a beer, a shot of Jager, and a brandy old-fashioned sweet. 

Similarly, Minnesota people are incredibly nice people. They are so preternaturally nice that they even mock themselves for it -- calling it "Minnesota Nice." Minnesota Nice means something close to this: let's say it's 10 below zero outside in Minnesota -- you know, October. If they see your freezing butt walking around without gloves, they'll hand you their gloves, tell you it's no big deal, and continue to tell you that they are good even as you watch their hands turn purple and fall off from frostbite. It's Minnesota Nice -- niceness to the point of craziness.

The other thing, though, is that there is truly a major divide at the Mississippi River, the St. Croix River, and that straight line north to Lake Superior when it comes to sports. Sure, there are a fair number of Packers/Brewers fans that live west of that line and there are a few Vikings/Twins fans that live east of that line, but it is a lot fewer than you would expect. Within that divide is a major, hateful rivalry that makes the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry appear tame. It is certainly more on the NFL side and many folks will tell you that the Vikings fans hate the Packers fans much, much more than the other way around (like this ESPN article that claims that Packers fans pay more attention and save more bile for the Bears than for the Vikings).

That's partially because Chicago is closer to the major metropolitan areas in Wisconsin (Milwaukee) and partially because the Vikings haven't won a Super Bowl. Ever. Despite 4 tries.

I will add that the Twin Cities have plenty of gorgeous, tall blond women like these two. It's all that Nordic ancestry. In fact, Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the Twin Cities in the Top 10 for attractive, athletic, likable people -- at number 6, ahead of #7 Nashville, #8 Atlanta, #9 Honolulu, and #10 Tampa. By the way, Detroit had the least attractive people in the country. So, the two women above should not be seen as outliers.

It's to the point that there are plenty of Minnesota Twins fans -- many from the upper Midwest outside of Minnesota in particular -- who eschew cheering for the Vikings and choose, instead, to cheer for other NFL teams. My Twitter pal @Brud4merica -- a/k/a Depressed Twins Fan -- is one of those. Even though he got sucked into being a Twins fan by Kirby Puckett, Brad Radke, and Jacque Jones, among others, he declares himself to be a Patriots fan. Of course, he's an Iowan (there's no other reason on God's green earth to be an Iowa Hawkeyes fan other than being from Iowa, so that's my logical deduction there).

He's also served our country as a soldier and now finds himself stuck outside of Augusta, Georgia. As good looking as Atlanta people are, that's how ugly Augusta is. I dislike Augusta with a fire of a 1000 suns. The best week of the year in Augusta is Masters week, and that's because all the people who normally populate Augusta leave town and allow outsiders to take over. 

That's a long introduction to get to the fact that Brud sent me a nice little PWE of some great cards for my Brewers collection. 

With the focus in Milwaukee on the future, I've been spending a lot of time getting my Bowman cards organized. I'm starting to put all the parallels and inserts into binders -- anything serial numbered to 100 or more goes into the binders, with anything else that I have being a bonus. I'm into 2007, so it's been slow going, but I'm getting there. Hopefully soon I'll have caught up entirely so I'll know how many of these Monte Harrison cards I have. I think it's more than one, but I don't know for sure.

A little unlogoed love here. I needed the Lucroy for my Donruss-Lite collection from this year. I'm not sure about the Yount yet -- getting the Panini parallels and inserts into binders is low on the priority list; finishing off the oddballs is after Bowman, followed by all the Topps parallels and inserts. So, when I finish that sometime in the middle of 2018, I'll get around to the Panini parallels.

These Panini cards helped protect the card that was the focus of the PWE:

I miss Upper Deck. Sure, they did all the crazy parallels that Topps now feels obligated to try to recreate. But Upper Deck cards just were (shhhhh....don't say it too loudly) BETTER than Topps's efforts for the same years. Seriously. Upper Deck Masterpieces did the whole "artsy card" that Topps started with Gallery a lot better, frankly, than Gallery did it. This 2008 UD Masterpieces "Captured on Canvas" is excellent -- the texture of the card, in particular, feels like it is actual canvas that artists use for oil painting. I know it's probably not, but it feels like it.

My thanks go out to Brud both for the service to our country and for the cards. I'm putting together a responsive envelope for you soon. 

Okay, Fine, Here's "Get Outta My Dreams (And Into My Car)"

A few months ago, I received a PWE from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. That is nothing out of the ordinary -- Gavin is great at sending out PWEs to people in the blog world, and his generosity is awesome. Knowing my predilection for blogging with music, though, Gavin became the first blogger -- and perhaps, to date, only blogger (note: Zippy Zappy wondering what he did wrong to get Nickelback does not count) -- to make a musical request for the cards he sent.

Gavin specifically requested Billy Ocean and Tears for Fears. I obliged, embedding "Caribbean Queen," "Shout," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," "Loverboy," "Sowing the Seeds of Love," and "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" into that post. In the comments, he said, "Next tradepost, we need to work in "Get Out of My Dreams (And Into My Car)" somewhere."

Well, I forgot to do that the next time Gavin sent something. He even tried to set me up, giving me a little Chuck Carr sketch card to work it in. 

Yeah, not so much.

This time around, his hint was less subtle than Chuck Carr:

Thanks, Gavin -- sometimes, I need that obvious help to wake up and remember. I figured I'd lead off with the song so that he wouldn't miss it. So, here it is:

Wait, that's not Billy Ocean. That's Gwar!

Crap. Now I have to find Billy Ocean again.

As always, though, Gavin sent this PWE wrapped in his junk mail -- this time, for Proactiv. He personalized it, though, in a way that really made sense:

Of course, the girl with clear skin always roots for the Brewers. 

To thank Gavin for the cards he sent to me, I thought -- hey, how about I expand Gavin's collections around his hometown and his old schools even more by pointing out some potentially obvious additions that should be made?

Let start with a supercollection that he should start -- the Girl from Granite Hills collection.

Indeed, Gavin's been holding out or, else, he doesn't check Wikipedia as religiously as I do when I'm looking for ideas on themes for a post. Because when I read the entry for Granite Hills High School, I learned that "model" and "actress" Julia Schultz was a member of the class of 1997 from GHHS. 

Julia Schultz?

Julia Schultz. Well, she is Mrs. Brett Tomko (so there's your baseball angle), and she went to Gavin's high school. That card can be yours for just $2.99 plus $0.99 shipping! Act now!

In terms of her acting career, she appeared in the movie Tomcats, where she simulates fellatio on Jerry O'Connell (you can find it yourself if you Google her name and click on Videos....I'm going to stay away from linking to it, though). She was also in Rush Hour 2 as "Tex's Girlfriend". She appeared as herself in a few Playboy videos and on the Howard Stern show.

So, what can match up with the beauty of Julia Schultz?

Nothing, really. Maybe Stadium Club?

Gavin was kind enough to send me the three Brewers he got in his Stadium Club box that he opened from this year along with two from last year.

I am appreciative to Susan Lulgjuraj a/k/a Yanxchick a/k/a Sooz for picking a Ryan Braun photo that did not feature bulging eyes Braunie -- it is a nice change. 

As a few of us dissected on Twitter, that Yount photo came from the same photoshoot that spawned his 1992 Pinnacle "Sidelines" card of him riding his motocross bike.

Reed gets on cards this year thanks to making 6 trips to the plate last year in September at the age of 22. He's in Colorado Springs right now, and he appears to be whatever a three-true-outcomes guy is when that guy doesn't hit home runs. He's hit a total of 470 times in Triple-A over last year and this year, and he's slashing at .246/.366/.348. In other words, pitchers will just give him something to hit in the majors knowing he can't hurt them -- he's not going to hit for power.  He just won't -- he's hit a total of 15 homers in 2217 plate appearances. 

Okay, let's move on.

Next up on the list is a New York Times Best Selling Author K. Bromberg a/k/a Kristy Schilling Bromberg, who appears to have graduated from Granite Hills in 1994. 

Ms. Bromberg's books are described on Amazon as "novels that contain a mixture of sweet, emotional, a whole lot of sexy and a little bit of real." In other words, her books fall into that "50 Shades of Grey" genre without being fanfiction for Twilight. Oddly, her books are published both in English and German. 

Which reminds me of this:



Which reminds me of these:

Panini Prizm just never seem to look right, and it's not just the lack of logos. Well, that helps a great deal toward these cards not looking "right," but it is not the only reason. The other reason is the way they are presented -- guys floating in a silver space of nothingness. 

I envision the card designers at Panini saying to their computers, "just one background. Or one Logo. Either one. But, please, just one!"

Oh well. Sorry Gavin.

Two more here. These last two are Girls of Grossmont College rather than Granite Hills, but I think, for both of them, an exception can be made.

First, let's start with Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace. Y'all know her better by another name.

That's right -- Nikki Bella is a Girl of Grossmont College. She walked on to the soccer team at Grossmont, and later claimed that she was being recruited by a professional league in Italy. Instead, she and her sister acted some, modeled some, and then tried out for the WWE, signing with Florida Championship Wrestling back in June of 2007. More to the point and as that link above the photo shows, Nikki has 209 cards in the Trading Card Database currently. 

It's a natural collection to start, Gavin!

Perhaps it would be natural for me to start up a PC of one of the Brewers many prospects, such as Monte Harrison. I hate to say it, but I'm pretty risk averse in that regard -- I want these guys to make the majors and then do something before I commit. The last time I fell for that "hot young player" schtick, I got a Jean Segura right upside my head (although thanks must go out to the Diamondbacks for giving the Brewers 20-year-old Isan Diaz, who is playing very well in the Midwest League this year). 

And, finally...

There is one final "Girl of Grossmont College" that Gavin should consider collecting. 

That would be the lovely and talented Rachel Bilson. Yes, she only has two cards available currently according to Trading Card Database (both from the 2008 PopCardz set), but she is a fairly well-known TV and movie actress. I'd argue that more people know who she is than anyone else on this page. 

Only one card that Gavin sent could go with this:

It's the amber parallel of the 2013 Topps Triple Threads card of Robin Yount, serial numbered 70 out of 125. There's no other way to end this great PWE from Gavin than with this card.

Gavin, you win. Here's the real version for you.

Thank you for the great cards, and maybe I've inspired you to start a Nikki Bella collection!

Gavin, Here's Your Long-Distance Dedication

Everyone knows Gavin. If you don't know Gavin -- the owner/operator/magician in charge of Baseball Card Breakdown -- well, you should start reading his blog before mine. Gavin is inventive, imaginative, and excellent with using his computer's Photoshop abilities to create some of the best, most desired custom cards around. Sure, Bob Lemke has his, and he does a great job. But, he also charges like $15 a card to get them. Gavin is such a good dude that he just gives them away.

Like this one:

Gavin wrote on the back of this card-that-never-was of the late Lyman Bostock -- shot dead in Gary, Indiana, in 1978 in September of his age 27 season. Bostock might not have been a future Hall of Famer, but he was a very good player. The 6-year-old me didn't understand how a baseball player could be killed, though I knew what that meant by that point in my life. So, it was really weird to see a Bostock 1981 Topps cards. Very weird.

But, on the back, Gavin said he hoped that I needed some cards he sent. And, honestly for the first time, I've gotten a suggestion as to the artists I should use for these cards. 

Well, Gavin, here's your long-distance dedication:

You might not want to listen to that at work. Casey gets a little bit frosty on that dedication.

So, let's take a look at what Gavin sent, with a few songs per Gavin's requests thrown in!

Caribbean Queen

There's a lot of unsettling stuff in that video. First, Billy Ocean looks like way too much like Darryl Jenks, Eddie Murphy's foil and competition for love in the movie Coming to America.

Second, that girl Billy's singing about in the video looks 14 years old at the beginning. Finally, what is with all the crappy sound effects in that song? The lasers, the breaking glass, a laugh at the beginning that sounds like Vincent Price -- I mean, all it's missing is one of those little "bomb" sound key chains that were fun for about 12 minutes in 1988.

What fits this song? Please don't throw things at me...

K-Rod's from Venezuela (Caracas), and I'm very happy he's no longer a Brewer. K-Rod should learn from this song and learn to treat the women in his life like queens rather than hitting and kicking the 23-year-old mother of his child (as he did in 2012, which he got out of by shipping her back to their native Venezuela).

Let's move on to something happier.

Shout

I am an admitted Anglophile. This song was a huge favorite of mine in 1985. I was a huge Chris Adams fan back then, and this song got used for a montage on World Class Championship Wrestling for WCCW:

Wow, now that brings back some weird memories.  My guy Adams is shown completely whiffing -- but getting the benefit of a great sell -- on a superkick at the 1:12 mark. I think he hit the guy's mullet, maybe. Adams shows up again at 1:32 against the Great Kabuki. The fact that I remember the Great Kabuki scares me.  Let's look at cards...



Jeromy Burnitz isn't exactly Chris Adams, and Nori Aoki isn't the Great Kabuki, either. But the two Gold Label are pretty awesome, and I'm instinctively drawn to red cards, I think...even Panini Prizm.

Everybody Wants to Rule The World

One thing I've noticed from these first three videos is how oddly...normal Billy Ocean and Tears for Fears dressed for their videos. I mean, it's just a salmon-colored polo shirt there. Sure, he's got a wicked rat-tail driving in that little convertible in that weird black and white jacket, but otherwise, it's just normal.

In the interest of normal, I present Bowman. Sure, any group of cards that includes a guy named Callix Crabbe can't be all normal, but these cards are pretty straight forward.

Loverboy

Yeah, damned if I know what some post-apocalyptic Star Wars rip off has to do with either Billy Ocean or the song "Lover Boy." I mean, I found this ridiculousness by Googling "Weirdest Billy Ocean Song." A person called Olivia Collette named this "The most weird-ass music video of the '80s." As she says on that blog, "I'm still not sure why George Lucas didn't sue."

Cards to go with this?

So, there's an Eddie Mathews Diamond King, which could easily be claimed to show him playing softball in Milwaukee with that black hat. Next, there's a 4x6 photo of Robin Yount. But, it's not just any photo of Robin Yount.  Thanks to Google Images, I can confirm that:

It is the photo of Robin's 3000th hit complete with a facsimile autograph. Jumping to the bottom, we have the first two ever cards found of the secret 1990 Donruss Confidential set. Sorry, gents, this set is rarer than those "Aqueous Test" set. As best we can tell, Brock and Spiers -- who went by Billy for about as long as it took him to hit puberty -- are the only two cards in the set.  Going back to the middle, now, there is an awesome Monte Harrison Bowman Mini serial numbered to 250.

And, one of the highlights of the package is the awesome Hank Aaron Jacksonville Braves custom -- which is also based on a real photo of the Hammer:

Sowing the Seeds of Love

I sort of stopped listening to Tears for Fears around this time. It came out in 1989, and by that time I had cast my lot for a while with a weird melange of metal, some dance stuff, and rap. When I was in high school, that all made sense. Sure, Tone Loc followed by Guns N Roses into Soul II Soul. Why not?

To be fair, this is a pretty good song -- even with the rare sighting of a trumpet/bugle solo in a pop song. And, there's only so much Billy Ocean that I can handle before I turn back to that Lover Boy video and scream in dismay and misunderstanding.

So, there are two more cards that Gavin sent:

The Sexson 2003 Bowman confuses me. Did it come in this casing originally? If so, why? It's serial numbered to 250, which is still reasonably plentiful to be cased in Topps-provided plastic. Any help there?

Finally, there's a Stadium Club Gold Parallel of Jonathan Lucroy. Luc is quickly becoming the player whose cards I'm chasing most these days -- I guess because he's still with the team, he's a catcher, he's a good player, and he's one of about three guys on the team whose name I recognize. 

Gavin, thank you very much for the great cards! And, since you asked for songs from both artists, here's one last Billy Ocean song to keep you going.