Perhaps This Year is The Year?

Before King Bud decided to relive his childhood by forcing the Milwaukee Brewers to switch to the National League back in late 1997, I actually cheered for the Chicago Cubs as my National League team thanks to my aunt, my uncle, and my cousin from Chicago loving the Cubs.  I even attended a game there in 1984 and cheered for the Cubs. 

In those days before interleague play, Brewers fans really didn't mind the Cubs, I don't think. In fact, if you'd have asked me in, say, 1989 to name the three teams I hated the most, my answers would have been easy.  Number three would have been the St. Louis Cardinals. 1982 took a long time to get over.  Number two would have been the New York Yankees. 1981 also took a long time to get over.  Number one, though, would have easily been the Chicago White Sox. 

Going to a White Sox/Brewers game at either stadium was akin to taking your life in your own hands. I've seen mosh pits at concerts that weren't as physically intimidating or as harrowing as sitting in the bleachers at County Stadium for a Friday night game between those two teams. You mix a day of tailgating with full stands and throw in, perhaps, some heat and humidity if the game was in July or early August, and it was like a tinderbox. Dozens to sometime hundreds of arrests would occur.  Seriously, it was dangerous at times.

I know that the 17 years of being in the National League in the same division as the Cubs and not often playing the White Sox has changed the dynamic in Milwaukee.  Cubs fans are viewed as obnoxious -- which they can be, but so can every single fan base of every single team on the planet in some way.  I still carry that soft spot in my heart for the Cubs, though.

That's a long way of introducing Eddie Vedder's paean to being a Cubs fan to honor the envelope of incredible items from Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year.

In that video -- an excellent HD-quality video from the Pearl Jam show at Wrigley in July of 2013 -- Eddie Vedder explains that he wrote the song "All the Way" because Ernie Banks asked him to do it.  Eddie thought that the idea of writing a song to try to capture the feeling of being a Cubs fan was impossible, but since it was Ernie Banks asking, Eddie has to do it.

I view trying to thank Tom for the excellent cards he sent as being impossible, but I have to try.  Let's start with a card that I'm still trying to identify with a bit more specificity other than simply them being "Brewers cards."

So, I think these are cards from a Brewers yearbook or program. I based that on the fact that they are slightly oversized in a size similar to the Brewers yearbook cards from 1989 and 1990, and they are perforated on the edges again in a manner similar to the yearbook cards from 1989 and 1990.  For the obvious reason of this being the '82 Anniversary Collection, the cards must be from either 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, or 2012.  But, I don't know which year.  

If I had to guess, I'd imagine it was 1992 for a couple of reasons -- card stock quality isn't great, the close proximity in time to the previous yearbook cards, and the fact that the Brewer name is both so huge across the card and reflects the new home jersey look for that year, which is circled below:

But, as the Violent Femmes said, "This is only a guess."

Okay, back to the Brewers now. Not only did Tom find those cards for me, he also helped fill in some more recent gaps -- such as 2015 Bowman:

So, that's a base card of Jason Rogers, who's Adam Lind's platoon partner currently, a Yellow parallel of top prospect Orlando Arcia, a "Farm's Finest Mini" of last year's #1 pick Kodi Medeiros, and Taylor Williams (who hasn't pitched this year due to arm problems) on the Prospects Chrome parallel.

Another item from 2015 also arrived with this envelope, but it's not a card:

Of course, it was slot right into the Lucroy collection in my binders, but this is a schedule.  I love schedules that show real Brewers player photos on them!

If Tom had stopped there, it would have been an incredibly generous package.  But he didn't stop there. But, nope, there's more. 

Super-vintage Kellogg's! That's Bill Parsons on a 1972 Kellogg's card!  Parsons was a true prospect -- well, as much of a prospect as a pitcher can be -- for the Pilots (drafted in the 1968 draft in the 7th round).  He was tall and thin -- 6 feet, 6 inches tall but just 195 pounds. He tore through the system quickly. The Brewers jumped him from the Single-A Midwest League in 1969 to Triple-A Portland in 1970, which they had to do to keep promoting him since none of the new 1969 teams (the Royals, the Expos, the Padres, or the Pilots/Brewers) had Double-A teams that year. 

The thing is, Parsons only pitched in 4 games that year before missing the rest of the season.  Despite that, as a 22-year-old rookie in 1971, the Brewers put him on the mound for 36 games (35 starts) and 12 complete games over 244-2/3 innings.  He finished 13-17 with a 3.20 ERA, which was good enough to have him finish second behind Chris Chambliss for Rookie of the Year honors (and Parsons deserved to win it according to WAR).  And yet, two years later, the Brewers traded him to Oakland for Deron Johnson, and after the 1974 season -- at just 26 years old -- Parsons was done in the majors.

And yet, even a 1972 Kellogg's card is not the topper.  You see, a few months ago, I sent Tom a Ryne Sandberg Topps Tribute Blank Bank 1/1 that I bought last year on eBay for a price far below what I thought it should have sold for. Tom's a Ryno collector, so that card belongs in his collection.

In return, Tom asked me what he could possibly send me to repay me for that card in light of the fact that he would be going to a card show in Milwaukee in May.  I told him, well, if you really feel like you need to look for something there for me, look for non-Milwaukee-Police Police cards.  

When this package showed up from Tom, the first thing to pop out was a note apologizing -- saying that the card show was a huge bust.   But how could the show be a bust when you found these, Tom?

From the Wauwatosa Police Department and the Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral Service, it's your 2007 Milwaukee Brewers!  Even though the full set came in a shrink wrapped package, I had to rip that package open immediately to flip through them.  These are excellent!

And yet, there is still one more item.  In his note, Tom said he went to a Brewers game and played Plinko at the stadium on one of the concourses and won something for me.  I didn't realize that the Brewers now feature parts of the set from the Price is Right, but I am not questioning this win:

It's a Ben Oglivie bobblehead from 2007 2014 (oops!)!  That is awesome!  

Tom, thank you so much for the incredible cards, the bobblehead, and all the thought that went into this box!

Tomorrow, it's back to war...hopefully, I will continue to play better against JBF than this former Auburn quarterback ever could:

In the season in which Gross played the most -- 1998 -- the Auburn Tigers went 3-8 and Coach Terry Bowden a/k/a Tater Tot was fired before Halloween.  Gross is lucky he was a far better baseball player than he was a quarterback.

Let's hope I don't get sacked.

Mailbag Catchup: Commish Bob, Reader Angus, Mark Hoyle, Bob Walk the Plank,...and a Mystery

With Monster 1 of 6 Monsters looming on the horizon, I need to get caught up on some cards that have come in to the card room over the past couple of weeks.  So, let's walk through some of those.

The Mystery

First things first -- an apology. The reason for the apology is that I should know who sent me these two awesome Braves:

I should know because I remember corresponding by email with the mystery sender from Oklahoma who sent me these. I remember it well, in fact.  But I'll be damned if I can find those e-mails, and I certainly want to thank the man/woman who sent me my first 1963 Fleer card and a 1956 Topps card.

I just couldn't find any notes inside the envelope to identify the sender.  Compounding matters was the fact that it was trash day, so the bubble mailer went straight into the recycle bin and to the curb -- and it was gone before I had the chance to pull any information off the envelope.

So, to borrow from quickly-forgotten alt-rock band Geggy Tah:

eBay

The next item I received recently that I want to highlight was a bit of an impulse buy on eBay. Perhaps the worst thing that I could have ever done in my life was install the eBay app on my iPad.  I say that because I wake up during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep with some regularity.  The iPad can help my brain shut off or at least wear me out enough to get back to sleep, so that's often what I do -- pick it up and waste time.  One night, though, I spotted this card:

Then, I saw the serial numbering:

With the hope that the Brewers hold on to Lucroy as they are suggesting they will, I slapped a bid on the card.  Then I forgot about it until I got that "your auction is ending soon" email from eBay.  No one bid after me on it, so I got a card numbered 3 out of 5 for the starting NL All-Star catcher last year for a total of $6.25 including shipping. Yeah, it's Bowman-parallel hell and all, but it's nice to have a low serial-numbered card for a reasonable price.

As it stands, this card is also my only Bowman card to date.

Commishbob

Commish Bob of the always excellent Five Tool Collector also hooked me up recently without even a note of warning.  Bob did sent me a note, saying that he believed the cards he sent hit my want lists and, then, this...

...with the note saying, "The Burdette Exhibit card is cool, no?"

Oh, yes.  Yes it is! But I do have a question for you: it looks like the stat-back Exhibit version, but the back is blank.  Perhaps I'm not looking at the right websites/resources, but was there a blank-bank and stat-back variation with the same photo on it?
Bob also fed the Burdette PC a little bit more -- and the Adcock one too -- with these completely incredible 1954 Bowman cards:

And he threw in Wisconsin boy Andy Pafko to boot:

Add in some 1961 Topps, and you continue to make me wonder how I can ever repay you, Bob!

THANK YOU BOB!

Reader Angus

I don't know how to thank Angus enough for his largesse. This was the third time he sent me cards (here's the first and here is the second) in the space of about a month or so.  The other envelopes were excellent -- don't get me wrong -- but I feel like this envelope was by far the best.

Why?

It's not these cards, though they are great and go into player collections:

No, that's not the reason.

The reason is O-Pee-Chee!

Sorry, Hall of Fame O-Pee-Chee.  36-Year-Old O-Pee-Chee.  Just incredible.  

And, then, just when it doesn't seem like it could get any better, he goes and out oddballs me:

I mean, seriously, an oddly sized popup of Paul Molitor from the 1991 All-Star game at SkyDome n/k/a Rogers Centre?  And, Angus was cognizant of my PCs enough to send me two of these -- one for the team collection too!  Just awesome.  THANK YOU, ANGUS!

Mark Hoyle
Mark is the original reader-trader, at least for me. I feel 100% sure that he is the first non-blogger who sent me cards.  And, usually, when Mark is the one sending cards it means that you are in for a vintage treat.  

Not this time, though!

This is nearly as close to vintage as it got this time around -- a 1983 Donruss Action All-Star of Robin Yount, a 1986 Donruss Action All-Star of Paul Molitor, a 1988 Fleer card of Mark Kiefer, and a 1993 Pinnacle Dave Nilsson. Otherwise, it was new new new!

But then, something popped out of the envelope that looked to be vintage...but it's not really...

This made me do a double take.  I didn't think Stormin' Gorman had a 1973 Topps card...and indeed he does not!  I flipped the card over, and it was a blank white back.  I know what it is now, though -- a Bob's Lemke custom card without the back on it. printed on photo paper.  Seeing how gorgeous this photo and color looks in hand, I may just breakdown and buy a couple Brewers customs from Bob yet!

THANK YOU MARK!

Matt from Bob Walk the Plank
Finally, a package from Matt at Bob Walk the Plank arrived.  Matt is still trying to dig out from the war that he had with Jaybarkerfan -- and trust me, I have fear in my heart already with the onslaught that is on its way.  I viewed Matt's war with JBF in the same way I viewed all the snow in the Northeast -- it was great to watch from afar, but I wasn't sure how I would react in the same situation.  

Matt handled himself well and valiantly tried to survive the avalanche.  He did it, but just barely.  Thankfully, he immediately started thinking about others -- as he always does, it seems -- and lo and behold, a package showed up from him.

Let's start with the two cards for my PCs -- one for Rickie Weeks and the other for Ryan Braun:

The Weeks is a Donruss Diamond Kings Materials Bronze Parallel serial numbered to 100, and the Braun is the Gold Refractor Parallel from 2011 Topps Chrome serial numbered to 50.  An odd thing to me is that I don't own the base Chrome card from 2011, but now I have a card of which only 50 were made!

The remainder of the cards are excellent as always -- Matt seems to bust more wax and have more inserts, serial numbered cards, jersey/bat cards, and autographs than nearly anyone else I've encountered.

What more can be said about Matt and his generosity?  He's just a great person to deal with.  Thankfully, by the time I had received this package from him, there was already another one on its way to him.  

THANKS MATT!

And thank you all for reading.  With the monsters on the way, I have one post of Brewers from the card show from almost two weeks ago now and then....it's all Barker all the Time!

He's coming....and he's got his (second) wife with him: