Night Owl Sent Me Cards

During my recent work-imposed blogging break, I've still been able to sneak on Twitter for a few minutes here and there. About the only thing I have had time for doing other than liking and retweeting some posts here and there has been to try to remember to post a song for the 30 Day Music Challenge, which came to my attention thanks to erstwhile baseball card blogger Marcus:

As you can see, these categories provide a way for us musicophiles to dig into the recesses of our brains for songs that we may have forgotten, or which may be in the front of our minds or, even for songs on Google that we have no idea came out during the year of our birth. As an aside, that last category provided a strange confluence for me in that I had no idea that The Doors "Riders on the Storm" came out the same year as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". The Doors seem so very 1960s, and Zeppelin is the epitome of 70s metal to me...for them to overlap in 1971 is interesting.

Every so often, Night Owl will reply to my post with a song of his own. Since I could use some good music today, let's look at the cards that Night Owl sent me around the beginning of February highlighted by his musical responses.

1.  A Song that is a cover by another artist: 
"Take Me to the River" by the Talking Heads

I have to admit that I did not realize that this was a cover song. In fact, until now, I did not have the opportunity to look for the original song that the Talking Heads were covering. Then, thanks to YouTube, I found it:

Thing is, both versions are just excellent in their own ways. Al Green's version is a horn-driven funk tune that I almost certainly would have enjoyed playing in jazz ensemble back in high school. 

The Talking Heads version is slower and is driven more by the bass line and keyboards. It is the same and yet entirely different. Add in David Byrne's completely different vocal interpretation, and you get a classic of an entirely different breed.

Speaking of classics of an entirely different breed, Night Owl sent me some great cards from the early and mid-1970s. Those days in Brewers history were pivotal in that the drafts from those years helped build the teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and some of the players on those teams started showing up in the big leagues -- such as the 21-year-old Jim Slaton on that high-number 1972 Topps card that is impossible to find at a reasonable price anywhere...unless, of course, Night Owl happens to have an extra and sends it to you.

All of these were cards that were significant upgrades on condition to the ones I had in my collection already. More importantly, these cards are an excellent reminder that porkchop sideburns rocked in the 1970s.

2. A song to play at one's wedding: 

"Groove is in the Heart" by Deee-Lite

This probably gives us more insight as to the date that Night Owl was married more than it tells us what music he'd prefer to hear. At least that is what I am guessing. This song was literally ubiquitous in 1990. You could not go to a dance club or turn on Top 40 radio without hearing this song and having every woman/girl in earshot digging in and dancing their hearts out.

For my song, I selected "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol because that was my wife and my first dance song at our wedding. We cut it off at the part where it got more upbeat than would otherwise support a slower dance, but it still is "our" song.

That Ben Sheets card took me a bit by surprise. Again, since I was not collecting at the time when it was issued, I did not realize that Topps's folks apparently decided to trade Sheets to the Padres without the Brewers or the Padres having any knowledge of such a trade taking place. As best I can tell, this also was not one of those situations where Topps was echoing an error that actually occurred in the original set being mimicked (here the 1958 Topps, which has tons of variations). Nope, just a straight up "small markets don't care" as best I can tell.

Boy, if I had been collecting in 2007, I'd have been as upset about that as I get about the Brewers having three cards in the Opening Day set.

3. Name a Favorite 70s song: 

"Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder

Night Owl is a few years older than me. Not many, mind you, but when it comes to memories of pop culture, those years get to be important. I'm a child of the 1980s for sure -- I turned 9 years old in 1980 and graduated high school in 1990. Night Owl is a child of the 1970s. No doubt about it. 

I say that because my favorite 1970s songs tend to be songs that I did not hear until much later after they were released. I don't have a ton of contemporary knowledge. Night Owl, on the other hand, replied to my choice of "Clash City Rockers" by saying he could pick a different 70s song for literally every day of the year but settled on this one. 

I hate to admit it, but this is the first time I have listed to this song. It's a solid, straight ahead Stevie Wonder song. My memories of Stevie revolve around the soft-rock pablum of "I Just Called To Say I Love You." That song got overplayed so badly that I just can't listen to it anymore. 

On the other hand, this melange of 2016 Archives Gary Carter (wrong logo, Topps...it was just the team name in 1991...), 1989 O-Pee-Chee of Dale Sveum (whose career was inexorably altered in 1989 by a collision on a popup which broke his leg), a 2008 Topps Update Salomon Torres (who finished his career in MIlwaukee with 80 decent innings in 2008), and two 2008 Topps Chrome cards. 

As was the case with the Warren Spahn card yesterday, I always appreciate it when someone sends me a Gary Carter card. Carter was my first real player collection in the 1980s, and I still enjoy getting his cards for my collection.

4. A Song from Night Owl's Preteen Years

"Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band

I selected "Blue Bayou" by Linda Ronstadt, but this one was right up there for me too. The song was released in April 1976, and it was still getting airplay well into 1977 in Wisconsin. That, or its catchy chorus got stuck in my head as a 4-year-old. That's possible too.

It took many years after that for me to realize what this song is really about. One commenter on YouTube wrapped it up well, though: as Melo Fran said, "At the time we thought this song was soooo racy lol!!!!! Now it looks like a bunch of nerds ..."

These cards are kind of nerdy too. But I like them anyway. 

Someday soon, after I get done putting my Topps parallels, inserts, and oddballs binders together (I've made it to 2004...only 13 more years to go!), I'll get started with the cataloguing and bindering of the Brewers minor league sets. 

Before that, though, I can tell you that Mike Grayson, unfortunately, passed away in May of 2016 in Tampa at the age of just 48 years old. His obituary said his passions were baseball and music -- playing in 1988 and 1989 in the Brewers system and being a wedding DJ. He died from a brain aneurysm, so that allowed his organs to be removed to help others get a second chance at life. The outpouring of love on his Legacy.com page really touched me too. Guys like him are common throughout the minor leagues, yet each has a life that goes beyond baseball.

Maybe we should crowd source a "30-day baseball card challenge"...

Give a Hoot #SuperTraders!

So, today I was just about to post about an envelope I received from Canada's best blog about cards from the dollar store. Then, I saw that Night Owl did exactly that. As a result, I felt compelled to change up and see what other envelope I had available to blog about.

In a twist of irony only Canadian Alanis Morissette could find ironic, the only other cards I received recently came from...Night Owl. 

Isn't that ironic, don't you think? 

Recognizing that everyone is probably tired of hearing about how not ironic Alanis's lyrics really were and also recognizing that I need some music to pick myself up, let's go with songs and stories from and relating to the band that Rolling Stone called the "Best New Band of 1985." Of course, it's The Hooters.

1. "Who the F*ck are The Hooters?"

For those of you who don't know, the Hooters were/are a Philadelphia band who achieved some mainstream success in the 1980s. Notably, the Hooters opened the U.S. side of the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia in 1985. 

Main Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof famously responded to being required to put The Hooters on the bill by asking, "Who the f*ck are The Hooters?" At that point, Geldof could be forgiven for not knowing, seeing as their first major album did not come out until 1985.

Guess what? I've got a card for that.

Chris Demaria was drafted by the Pirates in the 17th round of the 2002 draft. The Kansas City Royals then picked Demaria up in the minor league portion of the Rule V draft in 2004, kept him for a year, and shipped him to the Milwaukee Brewers for the 2006 season. Weirdly, I have this card with Demaria in both this Royals uniform and in a painted-on Brewers uniform. I don't think I've seen that variation identified online, but it's not like anyone notices or cares other than Brewers and Royals collectors.

I don't think even Demaria noticed.

2. The Who "Behind Blue Eyes" 

In 1982, The Who went on the first of their ten farewell tours -- the current one is the tenth and possibly final one. The Hooters were the local band chosen to open for one of the farewell shows at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia on September 25, 1982. 

To go with this?

I bet Zack Greinke thinks he knows what it's like to be the bad man, behind blue eyes.

3.  Cyndi Lauper: "Time After Time"

Speaking of "and I blame you," one of the co-founders of The Hooters was Rob Hyman. Rob was brought in by Cyndi Lauper's producer, Rick Chertoff, to help write "one more song" for Lauper's debut album She's So Unusual. According to Wikipedia, Hyman and Lauper sat at a piano and started working on it by drawing on their own particular relationship issues. Hyman is the male backup singer on the song.

It ended up being one of the most critically acclaimed songs in Lauper's entire catalog and regularly rates in those "Greatest Love Songs" or "Best Ballads of All-Time" countdowns that VH1 used to issue with a vengeance to fill weekend time.

I have to admit -- I've never really liked this song. I don't know if it is Lauper, the syrupy ballad not appealing to the then 11-year-old me, or what. Well, it can't be that 11-year-old thing, though, because I still don't like it.

I also still have problems with Bud Selig. In addition to my much discussed antipathy toward the club's player recruitment policies in the early 1990s, Selig made himself a laughing stock by declaring the 2002 All-Star Game -- held at Miller Park in Milwaukee -- to be a 7-7 tie when the teams ran out of pitchers after 11 innings. 

Selig put the All-Star Game in Milwaukee as an ego-feeding piece, aggrandizing the openly rapacious sales tax imposed on a five-county area (including the county in which I grew up) in order to buy Milwaukee a new stadium to increase his franchise's value. After that game, the ridiculous "solution" of giving the winning league home-field advantage came into effect. As if that made a difference. 

And yet, there is now a "Bud Selig Experience" in Miller Park to pay tribute to the man. I get that he brought baseball back to Milwaukee. It's just that he spent so much time making sure that baseball in Milwaukee would always feature a terrible team that pisses me off.

4. The Hooters "All You Zombies"

This song is almost as much about biblical stories as it is anything else. It does rip on people being "zombies" and not paying attention to those who are trying to lead them away from bad things -- like Noah and Moses. This song may name check Moses more than any other song in history.

Apropos of nothing, here are four cards from the 1980s and 1990s. Let's talk about Don August. From everything I've heard and seen, he is a pretty decent dude who still participates in Brewer fantasy camps, as he mentioned on April 24 on Twitter. He was traded from the Houston Astros to the Brewers with Mark Knudsen in exchange for the skeletal remnants of Danny Darwin's career in August of 1986. August is a trivia answer as well -- he was the winning pitcher in the first game played at SkyDome (Rogers Centre) in Toronto back on June 5, 1989.

5. The Hooters "And We Danced"

The song I most remember from The Hooters is "And We Danced." It only reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, though it hit #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart. This article compares the song unfavorably to one of the universally most disliked pop songs of all time, "We Built This City." The article concludes that the video -- watch it yourself! -- "may be pop culture's worst musical moment ever."

Ever? Really? I mean, it's pretty cheesy, what with the breaking into a drive-in theater being featured in a mid-1980s song as if drive-ins still existed at that point. They did, but they were dying fast, of course.

UK music magazine NME calls the following song only the fifth-worst video ever. It's a song called "Call on Me" by Eric Prydz. 

I'm legitimately scared for my life after watching that video. Is it the simulated sex with a towel? Women working out in thongs? The legwarmers? The sketchy Italian guy just hanging out in the class with a dirtbag smile? The fact that one of the women actually walks up to sketchy dude and is interested?

Yes. Yes it is.

To go with this, well, nothing Night Owl sent deserves this. 

But, let's go with some Finest and a little bit of Oddball. Something needs to redeem this post. 

Only an oddball can. It's certainly not The Hooters.

Night Owl, thank you once again for sending these cards my way -- they are greatly appreciated...far more than The Hooters ever could be. 

Cogitation and #SuperTrader Bob Walk the Plank

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had a post I was cogitating about prior to posting it. I had to reuse the word "cogitate" several times here because desire to engage in deep thought and reflection regarding the subject at hand caught P-Town Tom's eye as a new word. Ha!

At any rate, I was getting ready to talk about the Newsday article in which Derek Jeter collector and Topps employee/spokesperson Susan Lulgjuraj -- @yanxchick on Twitter -- is quoted noting that Topps tries to make products for everyone. By that, she means that the Opening Day product sells for 99 cents to try to entice kids to collect, and then Topps Dynasty retails at $400 a pack/per card for those people who are looking for lottery tickets and, instead, end up with an autograph/relic of Yasmany Tomas.

That's a real 1/1, and the eBay seller took less than $320 for the card from a $400 pack.

Then, as seems to happen with many things in our hobby, Night Owl said in 140 characters what I would have taken five paragraphs to conclude:

MORE your junk wax isn't worth anything anymore stories?? How bout story on delusional '80s collectors still existing despite these stories.

— NightOwlCards (@nightowlcards) March 5, 2016

So, instead, I'll post a card that came in the mail yesterday instead. I think three-fourths of the known world has received excellent baseball cards from Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank. I wasn't expecting anything from him, so I was surprised when I got an envelope.  It was one card, but it packed a punch.

What was it?

A 2015 Panini Cooperstown autograph of Rollie Fingers! And, indeed, on the back, it says "Milwaukee" above Rollie's name, so this indeed belongs in my collection. 

It goes well with a new page that I started working on yesterday. If you have ever been so bored or suffering from insomnia such that you started looking through my player collections, you may have noticed that for the players from the 1980s, I have a ton of in-person autographs of those players. Knowing that those are not the only autographs I have from that era, I decided to catalog all those in-person autographs. I got through the cards and the photos yesterday with only a few yearbooks and programs to go. That list is located here.

Okay, back to the envelope from yesterday. I feel like a little context helps see what a madman Matt really is:

Apparently, cards like this just appear on Matt's Morgantown desk like dust appears on mine.

Matt, thank you once again for the fantastic generosity!