One More Post from eBay

As many of you know, I decided to start a second blog to indulge myself in a bit of cataloging and, at the same time, in a bit of history and oddball love. My new blog, "Collecting the 1980s: Remembering the Oddballs from the Best Decade in Cards," focuses on the fun, offbeat, and forgotten cards from the 1980s. Of course I call it the best decade in cards because that is when I was a kid and cards are always best when you're a kid. I'd sure appreciate it if you would stop over there and read some of those posts and comment.

All that said, I'm trying not to neglect this blog more than I have already. I mean, my purchases are still focused on the Brewers as are my (dwindling) trades with other people. But y'all know how it is sometimes -- you need a little bit of extra spice in your life. That change or twist to keep things exciting and interesting. That's what the new blog is, really -- a new twist for me to keep writing about things I enjoy while paying little attention to new issues other than to note them for future checklists. 

So, I still surf on eBay looking for deals. Sometimes, it is just for a Topps Now card -- to pay $5.99 for a card that Topps would charge me $9.99 to get. I'm not super excited about that "deal" -- I mean, it's still one card for $6 -- but it's better than a $10 card. Other times, I can find the random lots that have cards I need. Today's post is one of those times. 

Powered by the prog-rock timeline at Strawberry Bricks, let's dig in.

Strawberry Bricks calls itself "a record guide to music of the progressive era of rock music." As is the case with a lot of genres of music, the timeline for prog rock starts with the Beatles -- here, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is incredible to think about all the different genres of rock music that the Beatles influenced. Everything from the prog rock of Pink Floyd and Yes to the grunge sound of Nirvana (Kurt Cobain was heavily influenced by the Beatles) to the blatant worshipfulness of 90s Britpop from Oasis is descended directly from the Beatles. And that is just a quick run.

This song, "A Day In The Life," has been called the 28th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone and, then, in a list of just Beatles songs, it was called the best song by Rolling Stone. I'm not sure how that is squared other than different writers at different times looking at different things. 

 

One of the impetuses for buying this lot were the Prince Fielder cards that I needed for my Fielder collection. Other than the one of him signing autographs -- which I think goes into my team set -- all of these were needed for the Prince book. As you might be able to see, the 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History parallels are both serial numbered -- the blue one is 184/299 and the gold one is 48/50 -- and so is the 2009 Upper Deck Icons Future Foundations, which is numbered 750/999. 

Last year, I posted some Braves cards accompanied by jazz. One of the songs I included was "Blue Rondo à la Turk" by Dave Brubeck. The Nice, a London band from 1967 formed by Keith Emerson (later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer), performed this prog-rock cover of the song and titled it simply "Rondo." 

Emerson is the keyboardist here -- as he always has been in his other bands prior to his death on March 11, 2016 -- but rather than using all kinds of different types of keyboards as he did later in ELP, he focused almost exclusively on using a Hammond organ. No less a music luminary than John Peel was an early champion of The Nice and infamously referred to ELP as "a waste of talent and electricity."

I'm hoping that these three guys don't end up as wastes of talent and electricity. There are troubling signs for each, however.

Gilbert Lara -- a die-cut card from the 2014 Elite Extra Edition set serial numbered to 200 -- does not turn 20 years old until October 20 of this year. He moved up to full-season Wisconsin this year and has struggled -- 7 BB and 73 Ks in 210 plate appearances, slash of .189/.219/.269 is not good even when you are 2 years younger than the average age in the league. Fangraphs has Lara rated as a 40 Future Value player and notes that "the quality of his at-bats is resoundingly poor, he looks tense and uncomfortable in the box, gets visibly frustrated when he struggles, and hasn't tapped into his considerable raw power in games, even in the hitter-friendly Pioneer League." Not good.

Nathan Kirby was drafted in the second round in 2015 out of the University of Virginia. Prior to that college season, he was seen as a potential top-10 talent. Injuries (strained lat) cost him much of that 2015 season, and he slid into the second round where the Brewers selected him #40 overall. He went to Single-A Wisconsin, threw 12-2/3 innings, and was promptly sidelined by a torn ulnar collateral ligament leading directly to Tommy John surgery. This year, he came back in spring training only to suffer from ulnar neuritis -- leading to ulnar nerve transposition surgery which will keep him out to at least the end of this month. He'll be 24 next year and really needs to do something as a pro pitcher next year.

Braden Webb was an oddball of sorts himself. He graduated high school in 2014 and had Tommy John surgery even before he graduated. Despite being old for his high school class -- he turned 19 prior to graduating high school -- he sat out and stayed out of college entirely in 2015 before enrolling for one season with the South Carolina Gamecocks. Due to his age, he was draft eligible after that season, and the Brewers picked him in the third round of the 2016 draft. As was the case for Webb in college, he is struggling with his control at Single-A Wisconsin this year -- walking 5 men every 9 innings. 

One thing you can count on from prog rock are super long, overly indulgent (at times) songs which seem to go on and on and on. Often, that is not a bad thing. This is especially true when the men (and in prog rock, it is almost entirely men) who are playing are virtuoso in their playing ability. 

This song, "Bare Wires Suite," is by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and comprised the entire first side of the album called Bare Wires. Embedded within this suite are seven individual songs: "Bare Wires," "Where Did I Belong," "I Started Walking," "Open Up A New Door," "Fire," "I Know Now," and "Look In The Mirror." Unlike some of the other prog rock here, there is a bluesy feel to this song. You can hear the blues chord changes flying by in each of the songs by listening to the bass line, the rhythm guitar, and, at times, the keyboards. Any jazz band member will tell you that the bass line is literally the most important sound within that jazz ensemble -- along with the drums -- because it sets tempo and key. Everything else from there is icing on the cake.

Before this season began, I expressed some concern that Arcia had the potential to turn into Rey Ordoñez 2.0 due to the significant questions about his ability to hit at the major league level. All indications from scouts were that Arcia would be a plus-plus fielder -- and that has definitely been the case. As it stands currently, he leads the NL in total zone runs, range factor per nine innings, double plays turned, assists, and putouts at short. Yes, he's committed 11 errors, but that happens when you get to a ton of balls.

The question was going to be his bat. This concern was highlighted after his .219/.273/.358 slash line last year (an OPS+ of just 66). Thankfully, he has improved significantly this year. He hit a low-water mark on May 17 with an 0-for-4 performance against the Padres that left his slash line at .208/.261/.352 (eerily similar to 2016). Since that game and over the past 7 weeks, Arcia has hit .356/.388/.494 with four homers and four steals. 

Sure, he's not walking a ton (10 walks in 170 plate appearances) and his contact hasn't been great (30 Ks) but he has been hitting 8th for much of that time, meaning that walks generally do not come into play with the pitcher hitting behind him. That burst has put him just about right at being an average NL hitter. With his glove, that makes him a very valuable player. 

And all of this has been done before he turns 23 years old on August 4. If he can stay at being a league average hitter for his whole career and fields as well as he has, he could quite literally end up being more Ozzie Smith 2.0 (career OPS+: 87) than Rey Ordoñez. I'm not making him a PC yet -- I'm still feeling a bit burned by Jean Segura's hacktastic ways -- but he will be soon enough if his development continues.

Before the band added Phil Collins and lost Peter Gabriel, Genesis was very much a prog rock band instead of singing pop songs like "Sussudio." The song "The Silent Sun" was Genesis's first-ever single from its first album, From Genesis to Revelation, and it was released in 1968. The album was not released until March of 1969 even though the single was released on February 22, 1968. 

If you listen to this short song -- it's only a little over 2 minutes long -- you will hear nothing that sounds either like anything Genesis or Peter Gabriel released in the 1980s. It's very much a piece of its time in the late 1960s.

And finally: lots of Ryan Braun. The fact that much of this lot is Braun-focused is appropriate since it seems nearly every set by every card issuer these days includes Braun and maybe Arcia and that's about it. Somehow, I'd missed that Topps issued Gold Label again last year -- it must have been an online exclusive or something -- so this lot helped me by getting me the parallel/variations of the "Class 2 and Class 3." There's also a 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes Silver parallel serial numbered to 399 in there as well along with one of what is Panini's best set every year -- Diamond Kings from 2017. I'd still prefer hatless players from Panini rather than no-logo, but at least there isn't a fake autograph on it.

All of these cards fit well into my collection either for team sets or for my player collections. The great thing about this purchase was that I got a total of 38 different Brewers cards, including a couple of relics, a few autographs, and several serial numbered cards, for just $7.12 total with shipping included. Basically, that's less than 50 cents a card. For what I got, that seems like a good deal to me.

Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you want to trade.

Wrestling with a Trade Box from Jaybarkerfan

In late November and early December, Josh Willingham Supercollector Jaybarkerfan 
opened up his sizeable trade vault for a tradeathon. People could claim up to five cards from the dozens that JBF posted. I saw one Warren Spahn card that struck my fancy and put a claim in on it.

JBF never leaves a trade package at just one card, though. Of course the envelope I got was packed to the top with incredible cards. Since JBF is a big wrestling fan, he'll agree when I say that these cards need their own entrance music.

I always loved the Macho Man's use of "Pomp and Circumstance" for his entry music. It made it much more enjoyable for me to play that song over and over and over again when we had to play it for graduation ceremonies at my high school. 

Speaking of a time long, long ago, let's start with a card that made the smile on my face grow larger and larger. My first year of law school in Athens was in 1995. It was Ray Goff's last year. That was Hines's sophomore year -- he stayed all four years at UGA.

Thanks to some injuries (Mike Bobo tore up his ACL, and Brian Smith got hurt for some games too) Hines ended up being our starting QB for several games. In a couple of other games, he was our starting RB. He was the slot receiver normally, though -- with WRs Juan Daniels and Brice Hunter getting most of the catches. Hines finished his career 82 passing yards shy of 1000 passing yards -- which would have been pretty cool to get since he gained 1,066 yards rushing and 1,965 yards receiving. 

I still don't know how that 1997 Georgia team did not do better than it did. That was Hines's senior year. Mike Bobo had a very good year. Robert Edwards did not do badly either (though he was hurt for the Tennessee game). And Champ Bailey was doing everything that Charles Woodson had done the year prior at Michigan, only better. Of course, the team leader in interceptions that season was none other than current Georgia head coach Kirby Smart -- who had 6. Those were, however, great days.

Okay, I have to move along more quickly than this if I am going to get this post done before midnight.

I've have a post in the past composed entirely of Ric Flair, so it should be no surprise to anyone that the 14-year-old Tony loved Ric Flair's ego, arrogance, and results. 

Going from a guy who might be the G.O.A.T. to a bunch of guys who may never even get a chance -- or who did get a chance and never did anything with it. The first six guys -- Carlos Corporan, Jose Mieses, Mike Kinkade, Dennis Sarfate, Ken Holmberg, and Nick Neugebauer -- never became stars of any kind. 

Corporan just signed on as a free agent with the Cubs after spending last year bounding from the Yankees to the Rays to the Marlins -- all in the minors or spring training. Holmberg and Mieses never made it to the majors. Neugebauer played for Milwaukee at the ages of 20 and 21 (14 total appearances) before his shoulder basically fell apart. Kinkade played 222 games in the majors -- none for Milwaukee -- and got 491 plate appearances as a utility guy (though he did bring Bill Pulsipher to Milwaukee in a trade). Finally, Sarfate appeared in 92 games for the Brewers, Astros, and mostly, for the 2008 Orioles.

The last four cards -- and yes, there were two Josh Hader autographs -- are all guys for whom there is still hope. Nathan Kirby was a first round compensation pick in 2015 out of UVA. He got into 5 games in the Midwest League in 2015, then did not pick in 2016 after Tommy John surgery. 

Hader, of course, is one of the Brewers top prospects who struggled some in his first exposure to the thin air in Colorado Springs. He may make his Brewers debut this coming year so long as things go okay for him. 

Trent Clark just turned 20 years old. He was the 15th pick overall in the first round of the 2015 draft for Milwaukee. He struggled last year with some injuries and the step up to the Midwest league. He'll repeat there this year in all likelihood.

The Ultimate Warrior was one of those guys in the 1980s who was a huge fan favorite. I tended to like the bad guys more than the fan favorites -- I was always something of a contrarian. He died in 2014 just after his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. 

Again, being something of a contrarian, I rather like Ryan Braun. Would I have preferred that he do what he did in baseball without taking steroids? Absolutely. But has he put his mark on the Brewers organization and franchise history? Again, absolutely. It's tough to say what he would have done without steroids, but if this past season is any indication, he still would have been great.

So, for all y'all that hate Braun for being a steroid guy, feel free to get rid of your Braun cards by sending them to me. I'll take them.

Speaking of steroids, don't we have to think that Vince McMahon took steroids during his life? I mean looking at photos on Google, I think he had a bigger physique in the 1980s than I recalled, but dude got huge.

That said, his entrance music is pretty good. I never liked him generally -- whether being the good-guy announcer in the 1980s as the foil to Bobby Heenan or being the heel commissioner from the 1990s onward.

Going a bit old school here -- or as old school as reprinted chrome cards and Paul Molitor Blue Jay cards might allow. Speaking of guys getting bigger, I recall a story about Robin Yount after the 1979 season buying a Nautilus machine and putting on 20 pounds of muscle -- thereby turning himself from the stringbean kid we saw from 1974 to about 1979 into the man that he became when the clock struck 1980. 

That, or perhaps it was because when the 1980 season started, he was 24 years old and finally had become a man bodywise. I mean, his MVP season in 1982 was his age 26 season (he deserved it too...10.5 WAR that year, 1.8 WAR defensively putting him 7th overall, 9.8 WAR on offense was #1 as well). Think about that. It's too bad that half his career was wasted with teams that flailed around trying to figure out how to compete.

I had to put Bill Goldberg in here. He played defensive tackle for the University of Georgia (and he also shares my birthday). According to his appearance on Jim Ross's podcast back in 2014, Goldberg chose UGA because he was standing on a bar on his recruiting trip and someone handled him a big bottle of Wild Turkey. He had such an incredible time that he was sold on Athens.

I have also stood on a bar in Athens while drunk. Nobody handed me a bottle of Wild Turkey, but I did get a t-shirt for my troubles that, except for being white, looked like this one:

I wore it until it fell apart. I loved that shirt.

Let me be clear -- there were many more cards than this. But these player collection additions -- all of which were serial numbered -- were a great capper to yet another fantastic package from JBF. 

Thanks go out to Wes for a fantastic giveaway. Now, I need to find some Willinghams to send to you!

P-Town Tom's Music

P-Town Tom is a blog world legend when it comes to sending out cards. He's so prolific in sending out cards that I literally had to go back through the posts of cards I've received from him (Here's 1 2 3 4 and 5) to make sure I hadn't used Tom's own profile to mine music for the cards I've gotten from him.

Thankfully, I had not. Also thankfully, I pretty much like the bands Tom feels comfortable enough to share. Indeed, one of those bands is actually a local Atlanta band. So, with no further ado, let's get to the cards and the music!

O.A.R.

O.A.R. is probably my least favorite band on Tom's list. I haven't heard much by one of the other bands, but I've just never been much of an O.A.R. fan. It's a bit too overly emotional -- and not in that emo-style like Bloc Party either. I should like them more, though -- I mean, the band has a saxophonist, after all. 

That said, I did pick the one song by O.A.R. that I distinctly recall hearing on whatever alternative music source that I was listening to back in 2006 -- probably XM Radio's Ethel, if I had to guess. It's all very yearning. I want the overly attractive couple in the video to stop fighting. Maybe that would stop all the weird mold from growing everywhere. I could hope. It just hurts to watch that happen.



Yes, I was kidding about all that earnestness I was feeling. Fleer, though, was not kidding about its emotion-laden set called, appropriately enough, Emotion-XL in 1996. 

I have to argue with this premise, however, in that neither Attack nor Studying nor Towering is actually an emotion. Attack is an action or a noun, but I have never felt "Attack".  Under attack, maybe...but never just "Attack." 

I mean, when is the last time you asked someone, "How do you feel today?" and they responded, "Oh, I'm Attack." Or, even, "I'm Towering today. How about you?" Same goes for studying -- it's something you do, not feel.

Grammarman, to the rescue!

Night Terrors of 1927

Here's the other band I've really never listened to on Tom's list. Now, I've heard of the band's guitarist's previous band (Rilo Kiley), and I've heard of their collaborators Tegan and Sara, but not too much from this band. The collaboration with Tegan and Sara, called "When You Were Mine," is pretty good, though the lead singer sounds a bit like Brandon Flowers of the Killers to me.

I didn't expect to get certified autographs of a Texas Ranger from Tom. He sent these two cards to me in the wake of the Brewers claiming Ramirez off waivers from the Cubs on May 31, 2016. I got this package from Tom the next week. Then, the day after I scanned the cards in and got them into my scan folder, Ramirez was claimed off waivers from the Brewers by the Twins. 

I guess I should pass these along to a Twins collector.

In his Brewer career -- and unless he comes back at some point in the future -- Ramirez threw 1-2/3 innings, allowing 2 hits -- both home runs -- while striking out three. In other words, I have more Neil Ramirez certified autographs than he had innings with Milwaukee. Cool!

Manchester Orchestra

Here's that local Atlanta band that is in Tom's favorite band list. The once-powerful alternative radio station in Atlanta, 99X, played this band all the time back in 2008 and 2009. 99X broke Collective Soul and Butch Walker (and his band, Marvelous 3) back in the 1990s, but with alternative music and radio generally waning in the past decade, 99X fell on hard times.

Thankfully, Manchester Orchestra has found a fairly decent audience worldwide. But, they are about as Mancunian as I am -- both of us like a lot of Manchester's music (and I like Manchester United, though that fact could be a fight-starter amongst Mancunians split between the Red of United and the Blue of Citeh er, City).

Speaking of Red, here's current lefty setup pitcher Will Smith -- who is also, mind you, a Georgian (originally from Newnan). Will came over to the Brewers in exchange for Nori Aoki in the 2013 off-season. Considering the work that Smith has put in since (3.10 ERA in 139-1/3 innings with 58 walks and 184 strikeouts), just imagine how good the Royals bullpen would have been last year having added that arm to the mix. Yikes.

For what it's worth, Smith is in red here because he was drafted by the Angels in 2008 out of community college before being traded with Sean O'Sullivan for Alberto Callaspo.

Imagine Dragons

I might have mentioned before here, and maybe I haven't. But, Imagine Dragons consistently puts out very catchy, lyrically interesting songs. This one, "Radioactive", "Demons," "I Bet My Life" -- all of them get stuck in my head with frightening regularity. This particular video having been "inspired" but an artist is particularly intriguing as well. Clearly a surrealist painter.  

Clearly.

Strangely, the lead singer, Dan Reynolds, looks like Blake Shelton to me.

Nathan Kirby does not look like Blake Shelton, but I'd guess that the Midlothian, Virginia, native sounds a lot more like Blake Shelton than Nevada native Reynolds does. 

Of course, Reynolds didn't have to go through Tommy John Surgery to be able to sing for Imagine Dragons. Kirby, however, blew out his elbow after just five appearances with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. His rehab is going well. 

I have mixed feelings about him at this point, since he gave his ulnar collateral ligament to his college baseball team's cause.  That baseball team was the Virginia Cavaliers, and Kirby helped beat my Vanderbilt Commodores in the 2015 College World Series by throwing the final two innings of the third and final game of that World Series.

Still, I hope he ends up healthy and helping the Brewers soon. It's the least he could do in my selfish little world. 

Thankfully, Tom isn't nearly as selfish as I am and sent me this great package of cards. Rest assured, Tom, that I have many, many Conlon cards that will be coming your way.