Recent Purchases

I was going to go to a card show today, but I'm fighting a cold and don't want to subject everyone at the show to that. Instead, here I am organizing and writing a blog post. 

Over the past few months, I've started buying a LOT of Brewers cards. Part of that has just been backfilling the many holes in my collection through Sportlots, eBay, and COMC. 

For example, one hole in my collection came with buying Nelson Cruz cards. In 2006, Doug Melvin decided that he wanted a "Proven Closer" and traded away 30-year-old Carlos Lee and 24-year-old Nelson Cruz for Francisco Cordero, Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, and a minor leader (Julian Cordero). The Brewers got two years of good relief pitching from F-Cordero, 30 total games from Laynce Nix, and 141 games of a 0.1 WAR from Kevin Mench. Lee still had 8.4 WAR and 137 HRs left in his bat, and Cruz--who'd been marooned in the minors by the Brewers for reasons that escape me--had 18 seasons and 42.1 WAR yet to come. 

I guess that career is why this card was nearly $20. 

I've also loaded up on a lot of Christian Yelich cards. I think I have added at least 350 Yelich cards since the end of the season--and probably more. His back surgery this past season probably helped lead to the sell off by others, and it probably also did not help the Brewers not having him at the top of the order in the playoffs. Here are just a few:

I hope your Sunday is going well. 

$30 A Week? If I Could Keep to *that* Budget...

I love getting mail from Robért from $30 A Week Habit. Mailers from him often are small but pack quite the punch.

I mean, usually, it's enough of a punch to make LL Cool J jealous. This most recent one was no different.

I'm in a musical mood today too -- I think it was playing an 80s lyrics game on Sporcle during my 20 minute lunch break (it was a busy day...) that got me there. It got that horrible Aerosmith song "Angel" -- horrible because it's an earworm that reminds me of high school -- stuck in my head until I passed it along to my paralegal by telling her about it. For some reason, that worked.

To introduce each card, let's look at some songs that Robért has posted on his blog!

Payola$ -- Eyes of The Stranger

That's a very 80s sound coming off that vinyl. One of the coolest things I noted about that record is that it was produced by the legendary Mick Ronson. Mick was one of David Bowie's backing band members that became The Spiders from Mars, but he worked with Bowie on The Man Who Sold The World and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, among other albums. Then, as a producer, he worked on and arranged John Cougar Mellancamp's first massive hit -- "Jack & Diane."

And, let's also not forget that Ronson also worked with the legendary Morrissey as a musician, songwriter, and record producer. 

Basically, music in the 1980s is nothing without Mick Ronson...

...just like the Brewers of the 1980s were nowhere without Paul Molitor. The worst season that Milwaukee had in the 1980s was 1984. The team finished 67-94, dead last and 36-1/2 games out of first place. Molitor missed most of 1984 thanks to Tommy John surgery. The team only won 71 games the next year, but that year was the year that Robin Yount missed forty games due to back surgery that forced his move to the outfield. The next time the team won fewer than 70 games? 1993, when Molitor left for Toronto.

By the way, a good trivia question is to name the first Tommy John survivor to make baseball's Hall of Fame. You're looking at him (and the only other one as of 2016 is John Smoltz).

Hall & Oates: "Out of Touch"

I don't remember that weird introduction, for some reason. I watched the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for the band. In retrospect, it's easy to see them as "blue-eyed soul," but at the time, I just thought of them as, well, music. 

Parallels are sometimes like "blue-eyed soul." They purport to be something special -- different, even. In reality, they are just, well, cards.

Golden Earring: Radar Love

In the 1980s, Golden Earring had a pretty big hit with "Twilight Zone." I liked that song a lot. But, when I heard "Radar Love," it really hit me in a more visceral way. "Radar Love" seemed more original -- almost dangerous, at times, with its driving bass line and minimal guitars. Yes, there are plenty of guitars, but the song is really the bass line, along with the drums.

However, the lead singer's attire in this video is positively embarrassing for future generations to see. And, the crowd here looks bored to death. Some even look pissed off. What's all that about?

Because I barely pay attention these days to any checklists -- especially checklists for retail exclusives -- I sometimes miss out on things like parallels of retail exclusives. Like those "First Home Run" cards last year, for example -- I don't think I could tell you what the parallels were or who had them or whether I have any parallels or not. So, when I saw this card, I thought, "dang, I just got that card from The Card Chop!"

Then I looked at them side by side and realized that the one from Idaho is either a gold or bronze parallel (don't know which, to be honest) and this one is the silver version. So, there we go.

The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again

A few weeks ago, I saw that The Who's concert from Hyde Park from last summer was on some random TV station that appears on my cable listings.  The Who played -- okay, definitely Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend played. Townshend still windmilled a bit, and Daltrey swayed around some on stage. 

I suppose I'd like to see them in concert, if only to say that I have. The show was decent, but it was a little sad to see the now 70-year-old Pete Townshend giving little hops on stage as a sort of homage to his more acrobatic past.

A straight-forward homage to the past from Topps here. The great thing about baseball cards is that though they get older, the faces of the men on the front are almost always between the ages of 18 to 43. In other words, these are guys in their prime, for the most part, and our mind's eye remembers their prime as opposed to what happens as they age.

Though it might be fun to revive the Senior Baseball League and allow everyone to take as many drugs as they want.

Billy Joel: New York State of Mind

I have times when I really like Billy Joel, and other times when he just gets on my nerves. Getting a video of Joel with Tony Bennett playing "New York State of Mind" at Shea Stadium, though, is never a bad thing.

Just like getting a new Ryan Braun card is never a bad thing for me either.

And, finally:

Triumph: Magic Power

Robért mentioned this song in a text-only post in 2011. The blogosphere must have changed in the past five years; these days, the only way you get away with a text-only post is either when you are quitting as a blogger or when you are pimping someone's contest.

My best segue here is to say simply that it is always a triumph for me to get a card package from Robért. To get a nice blue swatch of Prince Fielder from Allen & Ginter is especially cool.

Thank you very much, Robért -- your generosity is greatly appreciated, and I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for 1959 cards for your set at my next card show that I attend!

Card Chopping Broccoli

Nearly all of my memories of Saturday Night Live sketches come from the period between 1985 and 1990. Once I was old enough to stay up on a Saturday to watch SNL -- or at least old enough to tape the show on our fancy Curtis Mathes VCR...

...which looked a lot like that, as best I can recall -- I watched the show until I graduated high school or at least until it still was funny to me. As a result, I tend to remember guys like Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Dana Carvey and women like Nora Dunn and Victoria Jackson as "SNL." 

In that way, I feel like SNL is kind of like baseball in some respects. We remember our first exposure to the game -- the first superstars that we cheered for, or the our favorite team's best season -- as being better than that which followed. I haven't watched SNL pretty much at all since about 1996 or so, when sometimes after a night out in law school when I lived in walking distance of downtown Athens, I'd come home to SNL on TV (when I came home early).

My mind works in ways sometimes that are weird, in that it will attach a certain song/TV show/movie line to a certain word. I hear the word "smile" and Pearl Jam's "Smile" starts going in my head. I hear the word "profits" and Franz Ferdinand's song "The Dark of the Matinee" (specifically, the line "Who gives a damn about the profits at Tesco?") gets in my head. And, when I hear the word "chop," Dana Carvey gets in my head:



So, yeah, it's funny how memory works. That seemed a lot funnier back in the 1980s. Or, maybe, it wasn't but it was catchy enough to stick anyway.

All that is a long, long, long way of explaining that Steve, the Chop Keeper at The Card Chop sent me a great envelope of cards. Steve is always good for a few great Brewers cards, and I'm always sure to get some awesome Milwaukee Braves from him also. This package was no different.

There were a couple of Brewers that I needed:



I mentioned in my post about the case break I was in that I did not get any Gold parallels and only a couple of other parallels, so Steve was kind enough to send me a Gold Matt Garza parallel. If only the Brewers could find a place to send Matt Garza, but I don't think anyone wants to take on his salary for the next two years based off how done he looked last year. It's tough to pitch when you have to fight off your infielders trying to stick forks in you.

The other card is an MLB Debut retail insert of Nelson Cruz. Cruz was originally a Mets signee as an 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 1998. The Mets sent him to Oakland for Jorge Velandia (I haven't heard of him either). He spent four years in Oakland's system and showed real hitting ability in 2004 in Modesto (at age 23 in high-A, about right for the league) and at Midland in the Texas league.

The Brewers stole him from Oakland with pitcher Justin Lehr in exchange for Keith Ginter. He went to Huntsville and hit at age 24 in 2005 (.306/.388/.577) in Double A for half the season, and then hit .269/.382/.490 in Triple-A before getting a 7-plate-appearance cup of coffee in 2005. 

He hit again in 2006 in Nashville -- .302/.378/.528 -- before the Brewers thought, "wow, this guy might really be a hitter...let's trade him with Carlos Lee for Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, Francisco Cordero, and a minor leaguer." In 2008, he was designated for assignment by the Rangers, cleared waivers at the end of spring training, and went to Triple-A and mashed. In 2009, the lights went on for Cruz. He was an all-star and, in the seven seasons since then, he has hit 219 HRs and slashed at a .277/.338/.522 pace. 

So, who knows -- maybe he doesn't become the player he's become if he's in Milwaukee. Cruz is certainly a natural DH, and the Brewers didn't exactly have a plethora of positions at which to hide him in that 2006-2012 timeframe with Fielder anchoring first, Braun in left, and Hart in right.

Okay, time for more chopping!




After that relaxing musical interlude, it's time to show some Milwaukee Braves!


I appreciate these Upper Deck cards more than I originally did. I did not realize that they were inspired by the T-202 Hassan Triple Folder cards until I saw a Dover reprint of one or two of the originals. Probably because my collecting never has focused on what I view as sort of prehistoric cards -- history began when Bowman did in 1948 to me...what can I say? -- these 1993 take-offs didn't make sense.  Now they do, and I like them a ton more.

And finally:



I tend to be pretty agnostic about the manu-relics. They would be about 8000 times cooler if they were real patches from real uniforms, but I recognize that those might be difficult both to find and to authenticate at this point. Plus, if they could be found in reasonably large numbers, I'm sure that Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Fleer would have used literally all of them up in the 2001 to 2005 timeframe.

Still, that Red Schoendienst patch is pretty awesome. Growing up, I used to think that Red played a lot more for Milwaukee than he did (only 4 years and 1140 plate appearances) or that he was a Milwaukee native of some sort (nope -- he grew up about 40 miles from St. Louis in Germantown, Illinois). My grandpa loved Red Schoendienst. It was probably because Red had one of his best seasons in the major leagues in 1957 (a year split between the Giants and Braves), tallying 200 hits and hitting .309/.344/.451 overall (.310/.348/.434 for Milwaukee). No matter -- whenever I see one of his cards, I think of my grandpa.

The other three cards fit quite nicely into my Spahn and Mathews player collections. I'm up to 115 in the Spahn collection and a fantastic 172 in the Mathews collection.

Let's chop something up one more time:



Holy crap. I'm tired just listening to that dude rapping!

Steve, thank you once again for an excellent cards from The Card Chop!

A Cardboard Clubhouse Christmas/Birthday?

I have a Christmastime birthday. As anyone else who is similarly situated can tell you, those of us born at the "most wonderful time of the year" often feel a little short-changed when it comes to our birthdays. One of my law partners was born on Christmas Day and turned 50 this year; he said he could count on one hand the number of birthday-only parties he had had in his life. 

I'd have to agree with that from my perspective. My birthday is tomorrow. Growing up, I had a ninth birthday party in third grade when we went bowling. After that, I had a thirtieth birthday party thrown by the woman I was dating at that time and a fortieth birthday party thrown by my wife.

I'm not crying about it, to be fair. As much as I dislike this old saw, well, it is what it is. 

Note: I am not a Liverpool fan. In fact, I really wish that Manchester United had Jurgen Klopp instead of the Scousers. If you've ever met a Scouser, you'd know -- their version of "English" might as well be Dutch -- it's damn near incomprehensible. I went to a match at White Hart Lane (Tottenham Hotspur, if you're not up on your English stadiums) against Liverpool, and the Londoners around me were taking the piss out of the Liverpudlians -- saying things like, "you've got no education" and "you shag your mum" and other such ditties. But Klopp singing happy birthday is still class.

Anyway, someone else in the card blogging world who can understand this conundrum is Adam from Cardboard Clubhouse. Adam's birthday is 8 days before mine, and he posted his birthday meal as a post last week to celebrate. My wife and I are celebrating my birthday tonight with dinner at one of our favorite hangouts in Dunwoody, so maybe I'll have dinner posted later tonight as well. 

Enough birthday talk. Adam sent me a nice handful of cards that I'd like to highlight today:



Odd -- the Stadium Club insert photo would not have been out of place on the logoless Donruss. And, if you don't start humming crappy Cyndi Lauper songs when you see that insert, well, you're clearly not a child of the 1980s.

God I hated that song. Kind of like how some trades were easily hated for me as a Brewers fan both at the time the trade was made and in retrospect.  Such as trading Dante Bichette for Kevin Reimer:

Or Nelson Cruz AND Carlos Lee for Francisco Cordero, Kevin Mench, and Laynce Nix and a minor leaguer.  Basically, trading two twenty-dollar bills for a five and four quarters.

Happier times were enjoyed by John Jaha. In 1996, he hit 34 home runs for the Brewers. At the time, that was tied with Larry Hisle as being the sixth-most homers in a season for the club. Since that time, the Brewers have added nine seasons in which players hit more than 34 home runs -- no surprise there, to be fair.  Still, injuries and weight problems led to Jaha's downfall as a major leaguer.

One of the players to add a couple of those seasons with more than 34 homers was Richie Sexson. He never really got attached to Milwaukee, and, as a result, the Brewers didn't get too attached to him and traded him away too.

Let's close with three cards from 2015. One of these guys was traded away to bring tons of quality to the minor league system, one guy is likely to be traded in the next 8 months in a similar-type trade, and the final one is likely to be one of the building blocks going forward.

Being all up to date means needing to get a song here that is all up to date.  Here's a recent favorite of mine:

Many thanks to Adam for all of these great cards -- the return envelope is being put together nearly contemporaneously herewith, to put it in lawyer-speak.

Almost Heaven, West Virginia: Another Bob Walk Production

Some time since the beginning of August, Matt at Bob Walk the Plank sent me a package of Brewer cards -- some serial numbered, others with fabric swatches, and others with autographs. Since Matt's a big WVU guy and in honor of their kickoff game here in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome when the Mountaineers play against Alabama (and yes, their fans really do wear hats made of Tide detergent boxes with rolls of toilet paper attached), here's the WVU fight song:

And to prove I'm not making that up about Alabama fans, here's a real photo of that phenomenon:

Nothing is more manly than a pom-pom, body paint, and toilet paper above your ears. Right, bro? My wife went to Auburn, and I went to Georgia and Vanderbilt -- so "round the bowl down the hole roll tide roll".

Anyway, to the cards! Here's a 2014 insert I needed for my Robin Yount collection:

It's the same photo as has appeared on a few other cards that Topps has issued. In other news, the sun rose in the east this morning.

Now, for the serial-numbered varietals.

This Nelson Cruz is both autographed and serial numbered (45/250).  I remember when the Brewers traded him away. They had stolen him from the Oakland Athletics for Keith Ginter. Then, when they decided to try to get something in exchange for Carlos Lee other than a draft pick, they had to add Cruz to the deal -- I suppose to make sure they got Laynce Nix.  The whole trade was Cruz and Lee for Nix, Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero, and a minor league pitcher. Not the Brewers best trade, to be honest.

This big Prince is a parallel to another card I have already. But, I didn't have this parallel as it is serial numbered 40 out of 99.

Trevor Hoffman racked up his 600th save as a Brewer. This red parallel from 2011 is serial numbered 126 of 245.

Finally, Matt also sent me some relics:

Big Ben Sheets with a swatch of white fabric. I like the photo of Sheets, and I can see why game-worn jersey relics are so passe these days. 

Rickie Weeks with short hair and a white piece of fabric.  I'm not sure why the stadium behind Weeks couldn't have been personalized to be Miller Park, though.   

Bat and jersey relics are great additions to my player collections. Otherwise, they tend to be less than inspiring.  This bat relic, though, is pretty cool. I appreciate that SP/Upper Deck took the time to add the Milwaukee logo to the relic. It actually makes the relic feel a bit more special.

Matt, I like these cards a lot. My snarkiness is in overdrive today, but these cards are awesome and are much appreciated.  Thank you very much, and hopefully I can send you more Buccos soon.  

Could you beat the Cardinals a couple of times, though?