Binders for Brewers, Part II

Back in February, Dave the Card Junkie and I made a trade where I gave Dave binders and pages from the massive Christmas Horde in exchange for my getting cards. We did the same thing last weekend.

With Roger's one-man show in town on Dave's side of town, I convinced him to drive the twenty minutes to meet me at the hotel where Roger sets up and take more binders and pages off my hands. He then handed me a massive stack of Brewers in a paper bag. It wasn't exactly clandestine or furtive, but it was still exciting for me to get those cards!

So, to thank Dave, I scoured his Twitter feed for songs that he had posted there. After all, doesn't 44 minutes of prog rock featuring a flautist deserve as much publicity as possible?

Of course it does.

I can think of no player better suited with an introduction of a self-indulgently long prog rock song than Jeromy Burnitz. I'm not sure why that seems appropriate, but it does. Burnitz reminds me of an outfielder version of Dan Uggla -- very much a bro -- who would apparently empty out bottles of shampoo in the showers on road trips after the last game of the series and pee in them. 

Oh, you're such a funny guy, Jeromy!

Burnitz was still a very good homerun hitter in his travels around the major leagues playing with seven different teams (four in Flushing, bits of two seasons with Cleveland, a year each with Colorado, Pittsburgh, the Dodgers, and the Cubs, and six in Milwaukee). He was an All-Star once in Milwaukee and actually started the 1999 game in place of the injured Tony Gwynn. He even finished second in the Home Run Contest to Ken Griffey Jr.

A little morning Black Sabbath is a great way to wake up. Geezer Butler on bass really runs every Sabbath song. Yeah, Tony Iommi's lead guitar is really distinctive, but when you hear that underside of each song -- the thumping bass -- you know who is really in charge.

These three guys tended to be the understudies for the Brewers' stars of the time during which they played with the team. Of the three, the only one who ever led any Brewers team in WAR was, perhaps surprisingly, Corey Hart in 2007. Augustine really had only two decent seasons -- his first two in the major leagues -- while Nilsson was always behind Jeff Cirillo, or John Jaha, or Ricky Bones, or Greg Vaughn, or B.J. Surhoff, or all of the above in his years in Milwaukee.

Watching the MLB Draft's first couple of rounds on Thursday night was like watching NBA Draft coverage from about 15 years ago or so. I say that because the random assortment of "experts" that MLB Network compiled engaged in the most obvious of lazy comparisons when talking about players. The tall, African-American centerfielder from Atlanta had to be a Jason Heyward comparison. The good-hitting catcher with questions about his fielding was, of course, Kyle Schwarber's younger twin. If a player was white, he would only be compared to white players. If the player was black, then only black players would be comparable.

If MLB is going to be that way, then I will post Rickie Weeks cards with Robert Johnson's music. To be fair, posting old blues songs and then putting up cards of Ryan Braun just doesn't feel right.

Here's a new one on me. Well, okay, to be fair, I'd never listened to that Jethro Tull song before, but at least I'd heard of the band. I've never heard of the The Avalanches before. This video is just incredibly weird. Perhaps, to appreciate the song, it might be better to read something else and not pay attention to the video at all. 



Sort of like how I pay no attention any more to any of the Ryan Braun haters out there. I could get all worked up and point to the fact that Braun just took steroids rather than beating up his girlfriend or wife, or being a swimmer-rapist with a Stanford scholarship, or being a racist presidential candidate or a lying dissembling presidential candidate, or being any number of far scarier, more morally reprehensible people. 

I'm really excited for when Mets fans have to hold their nose and cheer for him when the Brewers trade Braun and Lucroy to New York for Zack Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud, Dominic Smith, and a lottery ticket like Jhoan Urena or Andres Gimenez (who are both so far away from the majors at this point that they can be nothing more than a lottery ticket)...or, when the Yankees trade Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, Domingo Acevedo, and Gary Sanchez for the two and turn Lucroy into a first-baseman to replace Teixeira.

Hahahahahahahaha!

WARNING: 

If you have epilepsy, you shouldn't watch this next video. It consists of 3:39 of the photo above repeatedly illuminated by strobe lights.

Les Claypool is another notable bass player, having come to prominence in the 1990s with the band Primus. This song is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, as it features a lot of overdubbed vocals, a fair amount of repetition, lots of self-sampling, and it isn't exactly melodic.

Not exactly melodic describes Milwaukee Brewers baseball perfectly in the time that Ben Sheets was in his pomp. The team did well in 2008 with him -- and that was his last season of making a regular rotation turn. Indeed, that season almost certainly was the death knell of Sheets's career. He threw 198-1/3 innings and got the team to the playoffs, yet he did not get to enjoy pitching in the playoffs due to a torn elbow muscle. After that injury, he threw just 168-2/3 innings over the rest of his career in 29 starts -- 20 in Oakland in 2010 and 9 in Atlanta in 2011.

A little Radiohead to close things out here. This is from Radiohead's newest album, "A Moon Shaped Pool." In typical Radiohead-fashion, it's a bit abstract. The video looks like the old Rudolph shows with stop-motion animation going on, though this is probably done with computers, if I had to guess. 

When Dave handed me the bag of Brewers, he said, "I hope that you like Geoff Jenkins." Now having 170 Geoff Jenkins cards in my PC for him, that answer is "yes, I do indeed." I have to admit, though, that my favorite card amongst these Jenkins cards is that minor league card of Jenkins with the Tucson Toros. 

For whatever reason, I'm starting to get drawn more and more to the minor league cards. It's probably the rebuild that's ongoing in Milwaukee currently that has me scouring the minor leagues. But, even as a kid, I loved reading the old Baseball Digest prospect wrap-ups each year. I'm not a rookie-card chaser, to be fair, but I love reading about and finding out about prospects.

Thanks, Dave, for the great cards. I hope you enjoy those binders.

Gavin Breaks Up the No-Hitter

This season has been something of a lost year for the Brewers.  The team sucked immediately out of the gate. Despite this, the team rallied some and, despite being 19 games under .500 as of August 24 with a 53-72 record, they are unlikely to get the first overall pick in the draft.  

In fact, even though the Brewers are worse than every American League team (the closest one to them is Oakland, who are a game ahead of the Brewers at 54-71, despite having scored 11 more runs than they have allowed), they are better than four other National League teams: the Rockies (49-73), the Phillies (50-74), the Marlins (50-74) and the Reds (51-71).  Just a half game better than the Brewers are the Atlanta Braves at 53-71.

It's been a depressing season in that regard. Little attention is paid to wins and losses at this point. I rarely pay that much attention to whether they win or lose. It's made collecting cards a little tough too -- with little interest in the current team, I find it difficult to get enthused about going out and buying cards of Houston Astro Carlos Gomez, or St. Louis Cardinal Jonathan Broxton, or Minnesota Twin Neal Cotts.  Thankfully, that's where the Brewers being fairly ignored by Topps comes in handy. 

Another unfortunate side effect for me with the Brewers being so bad is that I really haven't paid that much attention to trading. I owe cards to a number of people -- again...just like last fall. Just like last fall, I went through a period of uncertainty in June and July, as I was trying to scrounge up business half the day and trying to bill a little bit of time so that I could pay my bills.  It was extremely stressful, and it taught me several lessons for whenever I might think about doing the solo practice thing again in the future.

Now, though, it's the other way in life.  I'm now buried in work, I'm getting home later, and I'm much more tired than before. It's a good thing to have a steady income, and it's a good firm for me to build a future -- but man it's a lot of work.

That's a long way toward saying that I've been on a bit of a cold streak in terms of trading. I sent out a bunch of packages about 6 weeks ago, but many of those were returns.  Recently, though, I stuffed an envelope full of toploaders and shipped them to Portland. Gavin was kind enough to send me a bunch of great cards back that he picked up at a card show. 

Like, lots of Bowman, for example:

Thanks to the year 1999 being spent for me working and drinking rather than working and collecting, all of these were new to me.  Oh, and the Kiefer? I was in college then. It was an experimental time for me.  

Not that Radiohead counts as being too experimental...

Anyway, Gavin also sent me three Ryan Brauns that I needed for my player collection:

Oddly, I had the Prizm parallel but not the base Prizm card for that 2013 Braun on the Milwaukee Baseball Club and dressed in black like he listens to the Cure.

Yes, I liked Better Than Ezra.  They were definitely better than that guy Ezra. Actually, I saw them play in 1996 at the 40 Watt in Athens, and they put on a fantastic show.

Sort of like how Prince Fielder always put on a big show in batting practice -- even as a kid like that one card from 2010 said:

Those Princes...there's more than two there, but that tie is what comes to mind.

I could have seen the Spin Doctors for free when I was in college, but I couldn't be bothered to walk across campus to see them. Then, the next summer, that "Two Princes" song got huge.  Oops.

Gavin found a two relics and an autograph that I needed in my collection as well.  One is a Sheets, and the other two are guys who never made it...

 

In Ball Four, Jim Bouton referred to guys getting sent down to the minors as guys "dying."  Well, this one's for Chad Green and Jeff Deardorff then.

Saving the best for last, Gavin sent me three Milwaukee Braves cards!

The great thing about that Mound Magicians card is that it goes into my Burdette collection. Now, I only need one more for my Braves team collection.  

The Chairman of the Board said he did it his way.  But, I can't close it out there. Gavin didn't send a note with these cards, but he e-mailed me to say what he would have said in the note.  His P.S. is especially poignant.  "P.S. The Clash Rules!"

Yes.  Yes they do.

Gavin, many thanks for the great cards! I still owe you some Reggies....

Headin' for a Heartbreak

A few weeks back, Matt F. from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius was the recipient of one of my attempts to reduce my staggering number of baseball cards that are not Milwaukee Brewers.  I sent him a bunch of those 1972 minis from the 2013 Topps effort which were essentially collecting dust in a box in a cabinet in my house.  

Matt was kind enough to send me some cards and other items recently in return for those. Even in the midst of war with Hazel Green -- and trust me when I say that JBF has sunk to monstrous levels in the war -- these cards from Matt are far too good to wait.

In the spirit of another theme post, how about we use Matt's "Heartbreaking Originals" for the theme here?  Matt hasn't added to them in a while, though they are excellent and with the perfect sense of dry/gallows humor that Midwesterners are known for.  

Let's start with #12: an Allen & Ginter original 2008 "World's Greatest Victories" featuring Skrillex at the 54th Grammy Awards.  Skrillex is Sonny Moore, a 27-year-old from Highland Park, California, who has said he is influenced greatly by the Warp label, whose artist stable includes Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.  

Here's a little Skrillex for you:

That is music that may not be familiar to a lot of you. To be fair, I don't listen to much Skrillex myself, but there is a lot worse out there.  

Speaking of the unfamiliar, this card was in the envelope from Matt:

This Sports Kings Gum card from Series E is a card from a set that I have never even heard of before. It does not appear that Sports Kings Gum got very far, seeing that their website has not been updated for quite some time.  It's too bad -- who wouldn't want to have a dual memorabilia card featuring Joe Sakic and Sasha Baron Cohen on the same card? Or Terry Sawchuk and Paula Creamer? Or, more saliently, Maurice "The Rocket" Richard and Paul Molitor?

The next Heartbreaking Original is a 1975 Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card of Brett Favre's Lil Brett (NSFW, perhaps) that he texted to Jenn Sterger, the former Florida State "cowgirl" who, of course, was discovered and became famous in the time-honored tradition that made a name for Katherine Webb -- Brent Musburger perving over her in the stands while a national TV audience watched.

How about a real Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card instead, of Davey May (Derrick May's dad):

While Brett Favre will always have a place in my football fandom for bringing my Green Bay Packers back to the Super Bowl and winning it, Lil Brett should have stayed under covers.

What's next?

How about the 2009 Topps Heritage of Thom Yorke from Radiohead?  This one may be my favorite Heartbreaking Original.  It's an iconic set design from 1960 that works perfectly for Yorke.

Yes, we need Radiohead here:

In the mid-1990s, I really liked 'Fake Plastic Trees" a lot. Speaking of plastic...

Two plastic-protected Topps Coins from 1971 -- one of former Brewers announcer (and later Indians announcer), the late Mike Hegan and one of former bonus baby Lew Krausse, who made his debut in 1961 with the Kansas City Athletics and, in his first appearance fresh out of high school at the age of 18, threw a 3-hit (and 5-walk) shutout of the Los Angeles Angels (then not of Anaheim) and went 2-for-3 at bat to boot.

One of the sardonic cards in the Originals is the 2009 Allen & Ginter Hoaxes card called "Book Value."  Believing in book value and then bidding on eBay is a dangerous game.  You will outbid almost everyone on every auction.  I mean, think of how dangerous believing book value would be with these two cards?

I made the decision to subscribe for a little while to the Beckett price guide online when I first got back into collecting.  I wanted it as a reality check of sorts, and because the first thing people always ask when they hear that you collect cards is, "oh, yeah, I have a couple of cards.  What's this one worth?"  

One of my first experiences with that was trying to help a neighbor who has a bunch of cards from the early 1960s in really great shape to determine how much his cards might be worth.  I looked at Beckett, and then for a sanity check I looked at eBay.  Beckett was always high by at least 10% and sometimes 25% or more.  As I looked further, it got worse for the so-called high-end cards like Triple Threads -- even the non-relic base cards -- and the serial numbered cards.  These Molitors would be amazingly overvalued -- or at least they were then.  

After all, it is one of the world's greatest hoaxes.

I'm left now with two cards that do not have decent analogs on the Heartbreaking Originals. So, let's play one more Radiohead song in honor of the second Thom Yorke card -- this time, a 2008 Allen & Ginter.

This is what you get when you mess with Jean Segura or Dave May.

Matt, I thank you very much for the great cards. I assume that the Heartbreaking Originals may make a comeback when you have the time and the inspiration to undertake a few more cards. I hope that you do that.

Thanks again.