An Envelope from Cards on Cards

When last we spoke, I was saying that Just Commons made a couple of mistakes in putting my most recent order from them. Well, unlike the customer service from other card operations....

Unsurprisingly I've received no response from Topps. https://t.co/h8vALnPtYP

— Tony L. (@OffHiatusBBC) September 9, 2016

...Just Commons responded the very next business day, and they made things right. They sent the two cards I was missing in a well-protected PWE nearly immediately and made sure I was okay getting the parallel version of the cards they had missorted from 2001. Kudos to Just Commons for great customer service.

As for Topps....well.....

But I beat that drum like a dead horse, so perhaps, some day, I'll stop. Or Topps will listen.

I'm thinking that I'll stop first.

At any rate, there are more important things in the world than my raging against the machine that is Topps. For instance, Kerry from Cards on Cards sent me a mailer jam packed with Brewers cards. Most of the cards in the envelope came from the 1990s:

Like this gloriously ridiculous (or, depending on your point of view, ridiculously glorious) 1994 Score Rookie & Traded card of eventual Red Sox stalwart Troy O'Leary. O'Leary played 46 games for the Brewers and didn't look bad doing it. 

For whatever blisteringly stupid reason, Sal Bando cut O'Leary outright -- waived him -- at the end of spring training in 1995. O'Leary believed it was to protect a younger player, but from the transactions report it appears that the Brewers wanted David Hulse instead. Hulse lasted a total of 200 games in Milwaukee and in the majors after the Brewers got him, hitting .243/.281/.320 (OPS+ of 53). O'Leary spent another 9 seasons in the majors. Great job, Sal! 

The Red Sox employed Dan Duquette as its GM at the time. Duquette was the Brewers' Director of Scouting when O'Leary was drafted out of high school and was instrumental in the Brewers' decision to draft O'Leary. As the Boston Baseball History website noted, it took Duquette about ten minutes to claim O'Leary and promote him to the majors.

If you ever wondered why the Brewers were so damn bad in the early 2000s, look no further than decisions like this.

Thankfully, most of the cards that Kerry sent to me were either more recent cards or were from the 1980s. Let's see the recent cards:

That Matt Garza card is the first Topps Chrome card that I've added to my collection so far. Part of me thinks that this year's Topps design was meant more for the digital apps and the Chrome design than it was for the flagship set. That's not necessarily a bad thing. 

A lot of folks get themselves in a tizzy whenever people are successful in selling digital cards for a lot of money on eBay. The complaint is, "why the hell would anyone pay money -- any money -- to buy what is nothing more than a JPEG?" There are others, of course, who egg those people on and who view collecting actual cardboard as a dying hobby.

Both of them are correct and incorrect at the same time. Collecting cards in physical form will always be around. Someone will collect them. After all, people still collect stamps, postcards, Depression glass, perfume containers, lamp -- any number of items that make no sense whatsoever to collect and are far more difficult to store, showcase, and sell than cards are. As long as people like baseball, there will be card collectors.

At the same time, people collecting digital cards is probably more of a fad that will fade off into the sunset than collecting cardboard. Digital cards are more of a fad because of their ephemeral nature. Topps could cease to exist tomorrow, or its profit-loss analysis on running the apps could change from positive to negative and the app could be shut down tomorrow. The thing is, no one will ever go into an attic 30 years from now and find a secret stash of digital cards. It's more likely to be the introductory collecting drug for kids than it is to be the final end point for the addiction.

Speaking of addiction, let's look at the cards from the 1980s:

Cards and stickers like these are the addiction. There is something inherently cool about getting miniature cards that were printed 30 years ago by a card company that no longer exists. There's also something inherently cool about 1981's Gorman Thomas sticker featuring his fat sideburns, bushy mustache, two-day stubble, and the painted-on eyeblack that doesn't contain a Bible verse, an area code, a message to mom, or an advertisement for a shoe company. And, there's something inherently cool about getting kids to eat fat-filled snack cakes by throwing baseball cards inside the package.

Kerry, many thanks for the great cards that plugged some big holes in my collection.

A Blog Post 32 Years in the Making

The year is 1984. 12-year-old Tony L. is, at that time, pretty hardcore when it comes to trying to collect as many baseball cards as he can. Well, in between listening over and over and over to the tape version of Van Halen's 1984 that he found one day on the side of the road walking home from his Saturday morning bowling league.

The coolest people in the world to that 12-year-old kid were David Lee Roth and Paul Molitor. Of course, Molitor sat out most of 1984 -- his age 27 season -- after having Tommy John surgery. 

The 1984 Brewers pretty much sucked without Molitor. Two years after making the World Series, the team finished a pathetic 67-94 in Rene Lachemann's first season as Brewers manager. Staff ace Don Sutton -- at the age of 39 -- compiled a 14-12 record with a 3.77 ERA in 212-2/3 innings, striking out 143. Relief ace Rollie Fingers -- at the age of 37 -- saved 23 games in his first season back from a muscle tear in his right forearm suffered in September of 1982. When Jaime Cocanower is your third starter, you know you have some problems.

The great thing for me with all of that happening was that Brewers tickets were plentiful and easy to come by. Adding to that was that my mom was willing to spring for the $10 total for me and my younger brother (who turned 1 that year) to join the Brewers-Pepsi Fan Club. That $10 came with a subscription to What's Brewing? magazine -- the Pravda of the Brewers media outlets -- and general admission tickets to six different games throughout the year.

1984 was also a food-issue and oddball collector's paradise. For the Brewers, in addition to the usual dozens of different police department cards, there were Gardner's Bakery cards (printed by Topps and inserted in packages of hot dog and hamburger buns and loaves of bread). 

In addition, chocolatier Nestle had teamed with Topps to issue a complete 792-card parallel set to the Topps flagship. Supposedly, only about 4,000 sets were produced and, as industry maven Rich Klein noted on Net 54 Baseball a few years ago, two dealers bought up much of the stock of the sheets and had them professionally cut up to sell single cards.

If you have seen a photo of me lately, you know that I like to eat -- more than is probably good for me, to be honest. As a 12-year-old, I could get away with that a bit more, and I ate enough chocolate to be able to get one of the sheets that Nestle gave away through the mail-in offer.

I always wanted to frame it and hang it on the wall -- at least I did when I was a kid. Doing so at that time, though, was prohibitively expensive. Frankly, in those pre-internet days, I really didn't have the foggiest idea where to find a picture framer.

Last Thanksgiving, when my mom and younger brother came to visit, they brought my one sheet of Nestle cards -- still in its rolled up tube. And finally, now, after just 32 years, I could finally frame that sheet.

The flash made those cards in the middle not easy to see.  Here's another photo, this time without the flash but a little blurry.

Part of me now wants to find the other five sheets -- each sheet is 12 rows of 11 cards, meaning 132 cards a sheet, which is why Topps's sets were 660 cards for a long time and why there were double-prints when the sets were 726 cards. 

The other part of me notes that this thing is pretty damn big -- about 2-1/2 feet by a little more than 4 feet -- and I don't have the wall space for any more.

Still, the 12-year-old inside me is pretty excited to finally have that up on the wall.

Magnetic Personalities

When I was in college, I was worried that being a lawyer would be boring. Not for the obvious reason that, in reality, it is boring with regularity just like almost every other job in the world. 

No, I was concerned it would be boring because it seemed like all the important stuff had been litigated already, everything had been decided, and all that was left was to pick around the scraps. 

Now, I know that picking around the scraps is both fairly lucrative and a lot more interesting that I would have thought otherwise. The fun is in the areas of difference. As a lawyer focusing on construction matters, nearly every fact pattern is different. Each prior case gives context to the advice I give to clients going forward. Sometimes you have to trust your gut instincts, and other times you have to ignore those same gut instincts.

Weirdly enough, I think this love of variety fits my collecting well. My instincts tell me that I'll never be able to collect every Brewers oddball or even every Brewers card. It just isn't possible. But, I can't stop trying.

That is what drew me to a very different eBay listing -- one for the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers Micro Magnet set sponsored by Time Warner Cable.

That's Yovani Gallardo behind plastic there. I bought a complete 2009 set of these magnetic Brewers for a total of $20 -- $15 for the set and $5 for shipping (and shipping actually cost $7.75 for postage alone...). 

The Venerable Thorzul mentioned how these worked back in 2009. Basically, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper had coupons in them for people to take to their local Pick 'N' Save food store and hand over $3 with the coupon to get the little magnet. The cost of these was partially underwritten by Time Warner Cable. You can see the official sticker of Major League Baseball next to Yo's head there -- it's a fully licensed product.

Before tonight, I'd never heard of The Magnetic Fields. My loss.

Anyway, here are a few of the other magnets from the set:

In that group, we have Corey Hart, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, current manager Craig Counsell, then-manager/car crash Ken Macha, and Mark DiFelice.

As a side note, this may be the only time I ever get to mention Mark DiFelice. Other than this magnet, the only evidence that Mark DiFelice ever played in the major leagues is his 2009 Milwaukee Brewers Police card (which I may own already, oddly enough). DiFelice -- who does not appear to be related to former catcher Mike DiFelice as best I can tell -- was drafted out of Western Carolina in 1998 by the Colorado Rockies. He went to the Orioles system next for the 2004 season. 

The Orioles didn't kept him, so he signed with the Washington Nationals. In 14 appearances in New Orleans in 2005, he got annihilated -- 30 innings of 8.40 ERA (10 HR allowed in 30 innings!) -- and washed up in the Atlantic League. In 2006, it was the Mexican league and the Atlantic League. His work there led the Brewers to take a flyer on him in 2007. 

He pitched incredibly well in Double-A and Triple-A, and, in 2008, he made his major league debut in Milwaukee at the age of 31 on May 18. He stayed with the club for a month, got sent down, and then was recalled for September in the middle of a pennant race. He pitched well in 2009 -- making 59 appearances for the team and striking out 48 in 51-2/3 innings. 

Then, at the age of 33, he underwent shoulder surgery and missed the entire 2010 season. That would have stopped most pitchers, but he came back to make three forgettable appearances with Milwaukee in 2011.

These days, our pal Matt at Bob Walk the Plank should go hang out with him. Mark is the Pitching Coach for the West Virginia Black Bears. And, anyone who is a fan of baseball should read the little blurb Mark has written on his LinkedIn page -- he gets it.

So, that's more information on Mark DiFelice than I have ever heard or written before. Since it will be approximately 20 years before I get to him in the "Meet the Brewers" series, perhaps that will be all I ever write. But man, just reading that ride through the minors...you can feel the guy's determination coming through.

And that's why having oddballs and card sets that get all the players are really my favorite things to collect. It's the stories.

Rocked by the Suburbs

It's human nature to wonder from time to time what people think about you. Sure, psychologically speaking, you'll find more self-help websites preaching to you that you shouldn't care, but we all do it from time to time.

I'm lucky in the blogworld, though, that my reputation and personality is pretty clear: I'm the oddball guy. I love oddballs. Oddballs and the Brewers. I can say honestly that it has nearly always been in my nature to seek out things that are a bit different and to glom on to those things that I like while dispatching those I don't like. 

In card collecting, what that's meant is that I have a healthy appreciation for cards not issued by Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Upper Deck, Score, or Pacific as part of their regular sets. If a card came from police officers, as a giveaway at a stadium, in a regular-issue book/magazine, from a cereal box, with potato chips, dog food, or a fast-food meal, I will probably like it just a little bit more than if it's just another of the four inserts per pack or some stickergraph.  

That's my nature.

Thankfully, all y'all seem to know that about me.

For instance, I received a PWE this week from Tony Burbs of Wrigley Roster Jenga. 

Yeah, not all that original to go to Ben Folds, but it's a great song. I mean, I can relate to being male, middle class, and white, and the lyrics give me a built in theme post musically! So let's rock the suburbs and go through the great cards -- and oddballs -- that Tony sent to me.

1.  Rockin' the suburbs just like Michael Jackson did

Let's be clear: this song is irony, and it is intended to make light of things that are definitely first world problems. Being clever is a skill, and it seems a number of reviewers weren't clever enough to figure out that Ben Folds was, indeed, employing irony when writing this song (real irony, not 10,000 spoons when you need a knife irony).

So, Michael Jackson rocking the suburbs? Sure -- back in the early 80s, what self-respecting 10-year-old didn't try to moonwalk?

Not that I could, but everyone who tried dancing ever in the early and mid-1980s had to try to throw a moonwalk into their repertoire. Michael Jackson in 1983 was a 100% badass. 

What cards did Tony send me that go with this?



Police cards from the late 1990s from Prairie du Chien -- in the western part of the state on the Mississippi RIver -- of course. I've never been to Prairie du Chien, so I've never had the pleasure of visiting PDC's third-best place to go: Valley Fish & Cheese.

By 1997, the Brewers or their baseball card sponsors had given up on the preachy, long-winded advice from the early 1980s to pithier, terser statements more easily remembered by a five-year-old.

For instance, here's the 1982 back of Robin Yount's card extolling the virtues of the buddy system when swimming.

By the time 1997 rolled around, kids apparently couldn't be arsed to read five sentences or draw parallels between turning double plays and swimming in pairs. Instead, we get the truncated version of the same advice on the back of Eddy Diaz's card:

It seems off that a card from a guy from Venezuela would feature advice about ice skating in pairs. Then again, by this point, the card makers had given up on the charade of having a player giving advice, and, instead, have an anthropomorphic ball with odd, soulless eyes and matchstick arms and legs advising kids not to swim or ice skate alone. 

And Brewers fans wonder why the team sucked in the late 1990s? Clearly, everyone had given up and said, "aw, to hell with it. No one will notice anyway."

2.  Rockin' the Suburbs just like Quiet Riot Did

Damn, Ben Folds nailed it with this song. An angry band to allow us white, middle-class kids (and those of us like myself who grew up as far less well off than middle class but lived in middle class worlds) to express our anger by singing along with a song.

It's a weird video with the padded cells and all with the late Kevin DuBrow behind the metal mask. Just remember to Bang Your Head!

Cards? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We're talking about cards here.  Let's see...let's go with the four remaining weirder cards.

 

Darren Ford was drafted out of high school in the 18th round of the 2004 draft by the Brewers. He liked playing for the West Virginia Power, racking up a .299/.372/.424 line in 820 plate appearances there with 12 homers and 100 stolen bases in 176 games. Ford eventually was traded to the Giants with another minor leaguer for Ray Durham in 2008, and he made it to the majors for 16 total plate appearances (33 games) in 2010 and 2011. He is 30 now and he signed up to continue as organizational depth for the Giants on January 13, 2016.

Otherwise, we've got a 1990 Robin Yount Watertown Police Department card. I've been to Watertown in my life; when I was a little kid, my mom dated a guy who lived there. Strange place.

Then, we've got the King of Clubs, Cal Eldred. I'm not sure I'd want to be on the king of clubs playing card if I were a pitcher, but I'm guessing Cal didn't have much input into that decision.  

Finally, it's the weird one. The unnamed player -- clearly Robin Yount -- on a card with a half-empty beer stein as the team's logo with a fake interview on the back about how the team he's on is "flat and faceless, with no identity, no personality, and no pizazz." The "Confex Baseball Enquirer" tried hard to be funny, and that's probably why it is really not all that funny at all.

3.  Rockin' the Suburbs just like Jon Bon Jovi did

Jon Bon Jovi is okay. 





I liked Deadliest Catch for a while. What can I say.

I mean, Bon Jovi's songs are catchy -- whether solo or with the band that bears his revised last name -- but they are a lot like cotton candy...lots of sugar, sweet for a while, but in the end full of air and unsatisfying.  At least to me. Your mileage may vary. 

But, with that in mind, I'm grouping the last cards I scanned from the PWE together because, while they are cool and all, they are just "normal" cards from the big guys.



Don't misunderstand -- I like these cards. For the most part, our only option these days comes from Topps, and they put out some pretty good cards. Upper Deck may return to baseball some day, and that would be cool too because they had some nice designs in their time as well.

That said, 9 times out of 10, I'll take the weird.




And that, folks, is number 10.  To make the song better, I recommend playing the video at double speed and watching the badass dance moves that dude throws down.

Tony, thank you very much for the great PWE!

A Few Random Items from Milwaukee

It's been a busy week. On top of being busy, my mental capacities with respect to sports have been focused more on the selection of the first new football coach for the Georgia Bulldogs in fifteen years than anywhere else. Granted, it didn't take much more than a third-grade education to figure out who would be the Georgia head coach (so long as Kirby Smart wanted the job, it would be his). Still, with Georgia, there's always an element of thinking that they could still screw this up somehow -- and that nagging suspicion will continue until Kirby signs on the dotted line.

At any rate, my mother and younger brother came to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. They brought with them a few things that I didn't know I had remaining at my mom's house -- in large part because, well, the stuff mostly wasn't mine to begin with but really belonged to my younger brother.  

Such as, for example, a complete set of 1999 Milwaukee Brewers police cards issued by the Village of Jackson Police and Volunteer Fire Department.

And, hey, thanks, Blogger for the update that allows me to drag and drop scans into my blog posts over the three-step system of having to click the little photo icon, select the cards I want to use, wait for them to upload, then rearrange them in the post! Now, perhaps they will work out a way next to embed videos by using a URL rather than having to find them on YouTube. Then again, why would they do that, since Google owns YouTube and Blogger?

But, I digress.  I like these 1999 cards for their backgrounds. Using photos from old Milwaukee County Stadium as the background in what was supposed to be the old Stadium's final year (before the Big Blue Crane fell and killed people and damaged the work in place) was a nice touch. 

Also found in the box from Wisconsin were some of those Dover Reprints. For my interests specifically, I got a couple of great perforated oddballs from the early 1980s books on which Bert Sugar put his name:





Reprints of Warren Spahn's 1950 Bowman card and of Lew Burdette's 1952 Bowman card. I'm disappointed that the book didn't include a 1952 Topps Eddie Mathews.  With the cost of that card being what it is, a reprint may be as close as I'll ever come to owning it barring some sort of lottery-like windfall in my future.

My next find came in the form of a 1989 Milwaukee Brewers yearbook. In 1988, 1989, and 1992 (I think this is true for 1992), the Brewers inserted pages of perforated cards that are slightly larger than the regulation size cards we are all used to. I decided "to hell with it" and pulled all the cards from this yearbook apart.  Here are the pages in their unperforated glory:

I like how there are only 18 cards that they issued. Imagine being one of the eight guys on the 25-man roster (since one of these cards is manager Tom Trebelhorn) from the year prior who was still on the roster who didn't get a card issued. "Yes, we love your skills. You've got a spot on this roster. It's just that, well, none of our fans really like you or care about you or know who you are. No, we're not planning on cutting you for that non-roster invite guy! Not right now, anyway..."

One last Brewers item, and then one last oddball.  First the Brewers item.  Back in 1984, the major-league minimum salary was $30,000 a year. According to this inflation calculator, that salary today would be just shy of $70,000. For comparison purposes, the minimum salary in 2015 was $507,500 -- the equivalent of $218,940 in 1984.  Baseball players are doing a lot better these days financially than they did in the 1980s for sure.

But, does it excuse dressing like you shopped with Macklemore at the thrift shop?

Former Brewers reliever Tom Tellmann is captured in this night photo in action, signing a card for me or some other kid. You can tell it's from the mid-1980s because he still thought a bubble perm and massive mustache was a good fashion idea. Then again, the way he looks in this photo, perhaps he was a hipster before his time with the track pants and tavern t-shirt.

Even more humorous is the fact that, at some point in my life, I thought it was a great idea to have him autograph this photo.

Finally, the box from Wisconsin yielded one more Baseball Cards Magazine complete with the baseball cards inserted:

Other than the Cardinals Rookies card complete with Brian Jordan and Dmitri Young, this was clearly from the Closers Edition. What great early 1990s names we have here -- Lee Smith, John Franco, Brian Harvey, Tom Henke, Bobby Thigpen, Dennis Eckersley, and Jeff Reardon.  It's a Who's Who of the early 1990s fascination with Jerome Holtzman's pet statistic, the save.

I feel assured that these oddballs will find their way into a few trade packages soon. I just know it.

I haven't the foggiest idea what the hell anyone is saying in this video other than "Oddball Song." But hey, I couldn't figure out what Barenaked Ladies said in "One Week" either.

Mathews in an Oddball Wonderland

In my post about the Harvey Kuenn cards I added to my collection from COMC, I mentioned that I had loaded up on both Ryan Braun and Eddie Mathews cards on COMC.  

I didn't scan all the Braun cards that I added -- I'm now at 513 Ryan Braun cards/items.  Braun has ascended rapidly up the numbers chart and is now my second largest collection behind Yount, and I think rightfully so.  Even if the team were able to trade him at this point, his mark on the franchise is indelible at this point -- especially considering he's now #1 in franchise history for home runs with the team.  

Still, if he were traded, I would not collect his non-Brewer cards. I guess it's the Brewers fan part of me. Really, I cringe when I add cards of Paul Molitor as a Blue Jay or a Twin to my Molitor collection. He should never have been allowed to leave Milwaukee -- Selig should have ponied up -- but, at the same time, perhaps in that counterfactual world he decides to quit playing 3 or 4 years and 500-800 hits earlier, thereby making his Hall of Fame candidacy less of a no-brainer.  Who knows?  

On the other hand, because I didn't grow up thinking of Eddie Mathews as one of "my" favorites, I'm more easily able to move my own biases aside and say, "hey, that card of Mathews with Detroit is pretty cool!"

Speaking of pretty cool, in the time that I have been back in the hobby -- just over 18 months now -- I have started a Mathews collection.  Thanks to recent COMC purchases -- they're coming below -- I'm now up to 163 Eddie Mathews cards/items after starting with about 1 or 2 when I got back into collecting.  

I promised an oddball wonderland, so here goes:

Not an oddball, but Mathews as the Atlanta Braves manager when former teammate Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run was pretty cool.  Mathews angered some folks when he sat Hank one game in 1975 in Cincinnati to try to let Hank hit 715 in Atlanta. In fact, Mathews wanted to sit him for two games.  Hank took an O-fer in the game he played, then teed off on Al Downing in Atlanta.

A 1980 SSPC Baseball Immortals card is next. I had it already but called it an SSPC HOF card on my list thanks to Trading Card Database. Oops. Guess the other one can go into the Milwaukee Braves team collection.

Another SSPC card.  This one is from 1985, has no numbering, and has two sides that are perforated.  Anyone have the story behind that?

A 1984 Sports Design Products "The Doug West Set Box Set" card is next.  At least that is how COMC described this card. A quick Google search shows that Doug West did the artwork for this set, and that Sports Design Products was owned by a Mr. Charlie Mandel -- who may still be alive at the age of 98 in Miami.  Or, perhaps he's not.

A tip of the hat to Wrigley Wax for providing the best back story for this 1986 Sports Design Products J.D. McCarthy set. McCarthy was a Detroit-area photographer who supplied the photos for the set.  

More TCMA. I wish I'd paid closer attention to TCMA in the 1980s. I would have loved those cards.  This one is from the 1987 set called TCMA Baseball's Greatest Teams 1957 Braves.

If it's an indistinguishable blob with a lenticular coating, then it must be Sportflics -- the 1986 "Decade Greats" card of Mathews, to be exact.  You can see an "A" on his hat.

Let's close tonight's festivities with this Renata Galasso from 1984. As a kid, my mom ordered my sets each year from 1983 through 1988 from Renata Galasso. She did this because, frankly, Galasso had the best prices even with shipping costs of anyone.  

I miss the days when dealers would issue sets on their own and no one would sue them and people would buy them.  Those were great days.

Thanks for stopping by.