That New Cardboard Smell

Atlanta weather in the winter is about as bipolar as it gets. Now, in the summer, it's very consistent -- between 85 and 95, a bit humid, sometimes some thunderstorms. But in the winter, well, it's all over the place. In December alone, it was 75 degrees on Christmas Day but then, on New Year's Eve, it was a high of 45 degrees. Today, it might not even break 32.

All of this has conspired to give me one heck of a cold. I could only wish that I could smell the cardboard of the cards that Tim from I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning. Tim sent me a packed mailer before Christmas, and it's taken me this long just to get it all scanned and sorted.  Let's break them down by player.

Ryan Braun

It's sort of funny that the Topps Ticket to Stardom set from 2009 called Braun a "Seasoned Veteran" considering that, in 2009, Braun had a grand total of 264 appearances in the major leagues. Of course, in those first two seasons, he hit 71 HRs, won the Rookie of the Year award, was named an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger Award, and led the NL in Slugging as a Rookie with a .634 SLG. 

Since then, of course, he's had his ups and downs but seems to have rebounded to the point where teams are considering trading for him -- I've heard everyone from the Dodgers, the Giants and the Phillies to the Orioles and Blue Jays being possible landing spots. 

While everyone in the national media seems to believe that Braun being traded is a fait accompli, there is a significant portion of the Brewers fanbase that believes that Braun has shown that he could still be a part of the next winning Brewers team. Now, that could be homerism, certainly. The team could be worse this year than last. We'll see.

Prince Fielder

Big Prince. Fielder had to retire after his second spinal fusion surgery. What was going on for him was that he had a herniated disk which led to pressure on his spinal cord. That pressure led to weakness in his left arm, causing him to be unable to swing a bat properly. Prince is lucky. As Kevin Mitchell detailed in his appearance on The Hall of Very Good Podcast, he was suffering from the same issue without it being diagnosed -- leading to him dropping down to 145 pounds and being paralyzed for a while. Seriously.

Prince is still owed about $104 million by the Tigers and Rangers through the 2020 season so money is not an issue. Aren't the guaranteed contracts in baseball great? I mean that seriously. The contracts are great for the players. Contrast that with the NFL, where far less money and far fewer years are ever guaranteed in what is a far more difficult, far less certain, far more violent sport in which to play. 

Ben Sheets

That Prime Patches Quad Relic Autograph 😍  😻  🙌  🙅

I just noticed that I can now add emojis to my blog. My life is now complete. 🎷 ⚾ ⚾ ⚾

Yovani Gallardo

Yovani just was traded to the Mariners by the Orioles. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto was quoted as saying that, "after examining the free agent and trade market, Yovani is the best fit for our club as we move forward this offseason." Was their analysis of the free agent market limited to the California Penal League?

Seriously, Gallardo had a bad, bad season last year in Baltimore, and it should not have been a surprised. His strikeout rate has declined every year since 2013 at the same time that the league's strikeout rate has increased. Gallardo also hit the DL last year for shoulder problems. It does beg the question of what analysis that Dipoto and his staff did. Wishcasting?

Carlos Gomez

Lots of Golden Gomez here, with the highlight being the 1983 wannabe Gomez from 2015 Topps Archives being a parallel serial numbered to 50.  

Talk about a guy with a good agent and all the promise in the world: Gomez was absolutely terrible in Houston -- a terribleness that it always appeared he had in him, seeing as his idea of patience at the plate is to wait to start eating until after his dinner companions take their first bite. He got released by Houston, which slashing at .221/.277/.342 over the course of 126 games pretty much deserves. He gets signed by Texas and his 33 games there convince the Rangers to sign him for one year at a raise of $2.5 million a year -- to $11.5 million.

It is very telling that his most similar comparable player for his career (and #3 through age 30) is Corey Patterson. Patterson struggled to identify pitches he could hit, he did not walk much, he had good speed on the bases and was a good defensive player. Patterson also crashed out of the major leagues after the 2011 season at the age of 31 (though he spent 2012 essentially serving as Gomez's backup by being the starting CF for the Nashville Sounds in the Brewers organization). 

It should be an interesting year for Gomez.

For the rest of this post, I'm going to show off a few parallels and inserts that Tim sent:

Look at all the pretty colors! That Wes Helms Gold Refractor is actually a damn good looking card in hand, as is the sepia refractor for Aramis Ramirez. 

On the other hand, that "bubbles" thing going on for Nick Ramirez...not so much. Speaking of Nick Ramirez, it appears that his career is stalling out in Double-A. He's spent three seasons there, and he has not exactly lit the world on fire -- .229/.323/.402 in nearly 1400 Double-A at bats is an established level of play. I have my doubts that anything will come of his career at this point, but we will see. I mean, he turns 28 this year on August 1. 

There is one last card that I do need to show off:

I still like Luc, and this card being numbered out of ten floored me. I'd forgotten about that parallel for A&G in 2015 -- probably lost amidst the mist of parallels that Topps has put out generally. It happens.

Many thanks to Tim for the great cards -- and I hope that he enjoyed my Secret Santa envelope to him.

Back to the Card Show: The Brewers Cards

Last weekend, I spent a few hours at my usual monthly card show.  The cheap items in dime boxes were fewer in number this time than even the last time I went, but I still came home with a lot of great cards for less money than I would have otherwise expected to pay. Today's post is going to highlight the Brewers cards.  I have two more posts from the show yet to come -- one to cover the Milwaukee Braves cards from after 1965 combined with the Gary Carter cards and another to cover the truly vintage Milwaukee cards.

But today, let's celebrate the newer cards.  As always, some of these finished off team sets while others go directly into the player collections.

The first table I stopped at was manned by a guy from South Carolina.  I have talked to this gentleman at two past shows -- both the one in Roswell/North Fulton and the one in McDonough -- and each time I was able to pull some great cards from his dime boxes.  This time was no different, so let's go to the cheap seats first!

How about a dime for a Topps Chrome Refractor, to start?

And a couple of Opening Day PC Parallel types too:

I finished off my Topps Chrome Brewers team set too.  I didn't scan them, but they were all dimeboxers as well.  

He also had a great $0.25 box that turned into 6 for $1.  From that box, I snagged a couple of Brewers from Bowman Chrome:

Refractor, SN500

Refractor, SN500

Regular chrome...I think this was a dime card

My memory gets a little fuzzy here, but I think that these other three cards were in the dollar bin or were sold for $1 to me:  

SN8/150 -- an eBay 1/1 for being
his uniform number!

Purple Paper Parallel

The Garza is also an eBay 1/1 for being serial numbered 72/75 -- the same as his ERA!

My next stop were the quarter-boxes of another seller whose table I stop at frequently.  The box yielded a few Brewers I needed and some that I'm not sure if I needed or not...I guessed that for a quarter I wouldn't mind having a double:

Yes, Molitor is a Blue Jay looking skyward to a Twin on that Pinnacle Card, but I needed it for his player collection.

My last stop at which I purchased Brewers was Frank Moiger's table.  Frank is the guy who organizes and promotes the two shows on the north side of Atlanta near where I live -- the North Fulton Sports Collectibles Show and the East Cobb Sports Collectibles Show.  I have been meaning to get to the other show in Marietta, but this month that was not going to happen.  

Despite the fact that Frank is a big-time Tennessee Volunteer fan, I like him anyway.  He always has vintage boxes with commons and some stars set up for set builders, and this time he had a binder with some random relics in them.  In addition to a bunch of older Braves cards, this time I got a few Brewers cards from him:

The most expensive of the Brewers I got

And, for $3 (or, rather, as part of the transaction with a represented cost of $3) I picked up this fashionable swatch.

This is just the appetizer, though.  

Thanks for reading!