Recent Brewers from Matt Prigge

Across the country, the changing seasons often have milestones peculiar to the area. For example, here in the South, spring does not begin in March, or February, or April, or when you might otherwise thing it does. Nope, it only lasts about 30 to 45 minutes after the pollen dies down from yellow hellfury to mere annoyance, as this video explains.

One of the most certain ways that Wisconsinites can tell it is summer is when all the Catholic churches bring in two or three beer trucks, attach taps to the outside, put up a stage, and have a festival in their parking lot. This happens literally only during the months of July and August, but it keeps tons of cover bands, polka bands, and random polka-rock fusion bands busy every weekend. 

Yes, polka-rock fusion. You'd be surprised how many of these exist. And, it seems, Matt Prigge of the Summer of '74 blog and, recently, a man who picked up his second master's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is apparently an aficionado of Wisconsin-famous band Happy Schnapps Combo. 

Matt sent me a bunch of Brewers cards mostly from 2018 and some from 2019. Rather than write all about those, I'll show some (with a little commentary) but focus here on the Happy Schnapps Combo. While you do, remember that people in Wisconsin follow bands like this around. No lie. 

Here's the stack I won't get to:

Like I said, he sent a bunch. To cover this bunch appropriately, let's go to the first Happy Schnapps Combo song I came across on YouTube. It's called "Fleet Farm (A Love Song)." 

Appropriately, this video appears to have been shot in a parking lot during a summer festival sponsored at least in part by the Port Washington Lions Club. Lions Clubs, in case you're not aware, are service organizations found in chapters around the world who apparently try to help with everything from childhood blindness to disaster relief.

Fleet Farm (not to be confused with Farm and Fleet, by the way) is store that would result if Walmart and Home Depot had a bastard child and, for good measure, they had a mutation that incorporated a Pet Smart. No kidding. Look at the website for it -- everything from guns and tree stands to lawn mowers to tires to Cookie Monster toys to dog beds. 

Of course, making things confusing is the fact that Farm and Fleet does basically the same thing on a slightly smaller scale. I never could tell those places apart. Guess that's why I had to leave Wisconsin.

Why am I highlighting a Neil Walker card? Because I'd completely forgotten that he spent 38 games with the team in 2017. He was a Yankee last year, and he's a Marlin this year. Which all makes sense, I think.

I can't imagine a more Wisconsin YouTube clip than this song. First, it's a polka. Second, you've got the random drunk guy in front of the band (is that you, Matt) in gas station sunglasses and a cut-off t-shirt and jeans dancing and singing the whole song along with the band. Third, it's a polka about Blatz beer and sauerkraut. Fourth, the guy says you can get your "Boone's Farm" by the "bubbler."

Y'all know what a bubbler is? It's a drinking fountain or a water fountain in pretty much the rest of the country, but not in southeastern Wisconsin.

Last year just after spring training ended, I noted that Yovani Gallardo was trying to make the Brewers, failed, and ended up as cannon fodder for the Rangers for a little while. I was hoping he'd make the team so I'd get more Brewers cards of him. Then I stopped paying attention and didn't realize that he did not need to make the team to get a Topps card in Series 2.

This Happy Schnapps song might be the official state song. Wisconsin is well known for its drinking, after all, and there have been a number of times when I'm there that I have wanted to yell this at someone.

It's also what Topps's set production people yell at Wisconsin fans when we complain about the questionable player selection for Brewers players -- like, for example, putting a guy who didn't even make the team in Series 2 instead of people who actually played. 

This may be one of the worst looking cards of 2018. Is Domingo Santana Thor? Look at the size of his hand next to the very small bat that appears over his shoulder. I mean, I get and understand perspective, but that bat is all wrong. It's terrible looking. And his head looks like it's the size of its own solar system.

I gotta stop looking at these new cards. They're getting me pissed off all over again!

An appropriately shitty song for a shitty card.

Okay, it's time for the MVP portion of the package. First off, we have a 2019 version of the 1984 Topps for Robin Yount. It's been said before but I'll say it again -- it's cool to see these old designs being reused, but I'd much prefer having the designs used for players who did not appear on the cards the first time around.

Of course, since Yount is about the only former Brewer that Topps has an agreement with at this point (he and Molitor, thanks to the Cooperstown agreements), I'll take what I can get.

You might be noticing a theme here from the Happy Schnapps Combo. I had never heard of them before Matt tweeted about them in passing a couple of days ago. Their whole catalog is either about the Packers or about smelling bad and toilets, it seems. 

Granted, with all the beer and brandy old-fashioneds and bratwurst and sauerkraut that get consumed in Wisconsin, it makes sense to sing about "what you know."

Another Brewer MVP in Ryan Braun. I guess this was an insert last year. 

I'm still trying to figure out where I go with my collecting at this point. I've decided once again to start over on Trading Card Database and catalog all my Brewers cards. I cleaned out what was there previously, though, so it appears right now that I have nothing. That's probably as good a place to start as any. I'm not sure what I'll try to collect going forward -- but Braun, Yount, and the next guy will be part of it.

Wisconsin football fans have long hated the Dallas Cowboys in a full-on, irrational way. There are good reasons for that, dating all the way back to the Ice Bowl in the 1960s, to Dallas's claims to be "America's Team" in the 1970s and 1980s, to the playoff battles between the teams in the 1990s, and then to the present with again meeting in the playoffs and the whining that came about with the Dez Bryant catch/no-catch controversy. 

It's a different hate than that reserved for the traditional NFC North rivals, but it's a hatred nonetheless. So, of course a truly emblematic Wisconsin band like the Happy Schnapps Combo had to write a song making fun of all the criminals on the Cowboys.

The final MVP to feature in the envelope Matt sent to me is, of course, Christian Yelich. I had a feeling he would take well to Miller Park last year, and it turned out beyond my wildest expectations. 

This year has been an odd start to the year for him, though. He hits at Miller Park at a home-field-advantage level not seen since the days of Dante Bichette at Coors Field pre-humidor. On the road, he looks like 2017 Christian Yelich -- a bit of pop, good average, decent slugging, but just a solid player. At home, though, he looks like peak steroid Barry Bonds or peak hotdog eating Babe Ruth -- crushing homer after homer. 

Like I said above, the vitriol reserved for the NFC North rivals -- the Vikings and the Bears -- is on a special and different level than that held for other teams. These two songs prove that some. Of course, that Vikings song needs to be updated since it still refers to the Metrodome as the Vikings home field, but I'm sure they can come up with something.

Matt, thanks greatly for the cards, and I hope you have enjoyed the musical stylings of what must be one of your favorite bands of all time.

Blog Bat Around, Part II: The Brewers

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to take part in the Torren' Up Cards Blog Bat Around in two parts. Yesterday, I put together my "non-Brewers" list. As I was thinking about my post last night after reading it and some others, I realized that I had some pretty glaring omissions from both my autograph team and my honorable mentions. 

First, I definitely messed up on my starting pitcher. It's not that Bert Blyleven is not worthy of being listed there. Neither, for that matter, would Don Sutton have been improper to list. But, I failed to recall one of the items that I got in the midst of my war with Wes back in 2015: a Warren Spahn autographed ball:

As good as Blyleven and Sutton are, they are not as good as Warren Spahn. That was a major omission on my part.

Second, while he would not supplant Tom Kelly for the managerial position, I neglected to mention my JSA-certified Eddie Mathews manager card from 1974 in the honorable mention section:

In addition, I should have added Ted Simmons to the catcher honorable mention since my autograph of him is on a St. Louis Cardinals card. Similarly, I have a couple of Rob Deer autographs of him on the San Francisco Giants, so he should have been an honorable mention in the outfield. Also, I know I have a Johnny Logan autograph here, so he should be a shortstop honorable mention.

Finally, in going through the various programs I have accumulated over the years, a few of them have autographs too. I don't remember them all, so I'm not going to say who I missed. But I missed those guys. I know I have Tommy John in a program next to Bowie Kuhn and Bud Selig, for instance.

Okay, enough errata. On to the Brewers Autograph team!

Catcher: B.J. Surhoff

Surhoff getting drafted overall in the 1985 draft was a big deal in Milwaukee, as you would expect. The Brewers were terrible in 1984 -- some of which can be blamed on Paul Molitor having Tommy John Surgery and the rest of which can be blamed on the core of the 1982 team all getting old and injured at the same time. For whatever reason, the Brewers drafted Surhoff as a catcher -- probably due to that being a position of need in the organization -- over Will Clark, Barry Larkin, Barry Bonds, and Rafael Palmeiro, among others. Also going in that first round were Bobby Witt, Pete Incaviglia, Chris Gwynn, Tommy Greene, Willie Fraser, Brian McRae, Gregg Jefferies, and Joey Cora. 

At least the Brewers weren't the White Sox. They drafted Kurt Brown, a high school catcher who never made it past Triple-A.

Surhoff edges out Jonathan Lucroy here because I got the Surhoff in person, and the Lucroy was just a Topps certified autograph. That matters to me. 

Honorable Mention: Dave Nilsson, Bill Schroeder, Ned Yost, Rick Dempsey, Johnny Estrada, Rick Cerone, Charlie Moore, Jonathan Lucroy

Guy I wish I had an Autograph for: Ted Simmons as a Brewer

First Base: Cecil Cooper

The Brewers and Red Sox made a fair number of trades with one another in the early 1970s. Perhaps the Red Sox thought that they could create a farm-club set up in the way that the Yankees of the early 1960s did with the Kansas City A's. In any event, the Red Sox had Yastrzemski at first base and put Cooper at DH. Then the Sox sent the soon to be 27-year-old Cooper to Milwaukee in exchange for 33-year-old George Scott after the 1976 season. Scott turned in a very good season in 1977 but then at age 34 fell off the table in 1978. Cooper was just getting started.

For a long time in the early 1980s, Cooper was a difficult autograph to get. He just wanted to get home after games and did not want to hang out signing autographs. Eventually, in the midst of his last year in Milwaukee in 1987 -- when the team kept him on the roster without ever playing him after mid-July -- he did a signing at Mayfair Mall. Nearly every Cooper autograph I have was from that day.

Honorable Mention: Greg Brock, Lyle Overbay, John Jaha, Billy Jo Robidoux, Antone Williamson, Kevin Barker, Matt Clark.

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Prince Fielder (tons of relics, no autos), George Scott, Johnny Briggs

Second Base: Jim Gantner

As the local boy on the team after the 1983 season finally saw Jerry Augustine's albatross-like contract come off the books, Gantner was the guy that a lot of kids related to. They didn't idolize him, certainly, since Gantner was just a good player and not a great like Robin Yount or Paul Molitor. Gantner took his role seriously, though, and signed autographs after practically every game I ever attended and tried to get autographs. 

This slot came down to Gantner and Rickie Weeks. My nostalgia won out.

Honorable Mention: Rickie Weeks, Ron Belliard, Juan Castillo, Fernando Viña, Hernan Iribarren

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Pedro Garcia, Willie Randolph, Scooter Gennett

Shortstop: Robin Yount

The only questions with Yount were (a) which autograph I'd use and (b) at what position he would appear in this team. I chose shortstop because he was better in 1982 as MVP than he was in 1989 as MVP in centerfield, and I felt like having Gorman Thomas on the team. 

This autograph is on one of the team-issued photo sets from the early 1980s. I got it at a signing that Yount and Molitor did together at a shoe store in 1983. I remember Molitor's first wife Linda hovering over both of them as they signed autographs. The line was incredibly long, so to increase the number of people who could get autographs, the store had Yount sign these to hand out instead.

As a position for the Brewers, shortstop has been a position of bright, short-lived stars. A lot of guys have been the next big star at short for Milwaukee, and most of those guys were pushed out the door or fell on their face, unfortunately.

Honorable Mention: Jean Segura, Ernest Riles, Orlando Arcia, Fred Stanley, Ed Romero, Rob Picciolo, Bill Spiers, Pat Listach

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: J.J. Hardy, Craig Counsell

Third Base: Jeff Cirillo

This is the first autograph on this team that I did not obtain myself in person. I got this Cirillo from Matt Prigge, a fellow Brewers collector and the purveyor of the Summer of '74 Blog. Cirillo was one of the few bright lights in the morass that was the late 1990s Sal Bando-assembled Brewers. Sal Bando lost a lot of my respect for him during that time. I've heard that he got therapy because he lost my respect, though that's just a rumor.

I put Cirillo in here rather than Paul Molitor because Molitor could literally have slotted in at half the positions on this team and reached his pinnacle at DH rather than playing a position.

Honorable Mention: Dale Sveum, Randy Ready, Roy Howell, Bill Hall, Kevin Seitzer, Don Money

Guys I Wish I had an Autograph for: Tommy Harper, Sal Bando, Aramis Ramirez

Left Field: Ryan Braun

Braun is reviled around the league thanks to his steroid use and, more terribly, his lying about it and halfway ruining a guy's life after the protocols for handling his test samples (that came out positive) were not followed. That said, Braun is a good player. He's into the point of his career where injuries are keeping him off the field for 20-30 games a season. Yet, he's reaching major milestones now, having just surpassed 1,000 RBI for his career.

He'll never make the Hall of Fame, nor do I think he should based on where his numbers project to finish. Yet he will be one of the best players in Brewers history for a long time to come.

Honorable Mention:  Ben Oglivie, Glenn Braggs, Mike Felder, Drew Anderson, Kevin Mench, Carlos Lee, Geoff Jenkins, Jim Paciorek, Greg Vaughn

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Johnny Briggs, Danny Walton

Center Field: Gorman Thomas

I never got Gorman Thomas's autograph in person. He was a baseball gym rat and loved being in the locker room around other baseball guys, according to Daniel Okrent's Nine Innings. For autograph hounds in the 1980s, that meant we never saw him. He arrived 4 or 5 hours before the game and then hung out in the locker room after the game drinking beer. So, he avoided all of us little kids. So, that means I end up having to get his signature through later cards like this Panini Hometown Heroes set.

Honorable Mention: Lewis Brinson, Logan Schafer, Rick Manning, Scott Podsednik, David Hulse, Michael Reed, Carlos Gomez

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Mike Cameron, Brady Clark, Marquis Grissom, Darryl Hamilton, Von Joshua, Davey May

Right Field: Corey Hart

Going by statistics, Hart is outshined by Jeromy Burnitz for the right field slot. To me, there is something that is attractive about the fact that Hart came up in the Brewers system and was a key cog in Milwaukee's winning in the late 2000s and early 2010s. That's as opposed to Burnitz, who piled up big stats in the steroid era on legitimately terrible teams. Winning matters.

Honorable Mention: Dion James, Mark Brouhard, Matt Mieske, Brett Phillips, Marshall Edwards, Rob Deer, Jeromy Burnitz

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Sixto Lezcano, Nori Aoki, Domingo Santana

Designated/Pinch Hitter: Paul Molitor

Molitor has to be included on this team, of course. Molitor was the guy I most liked as a player as a kid. During his fifteen years in Milwaukee, Molitor did not pitch or catch, but he played in games everywhere else: 131 games at first, 400 games at second, 792 games at third, 57 games at short, 4 games in left, 42 in center, and 4 games in right -- along with 418 games as a DH, 22 games as a pinch hitter, and 4 games as a pinch runner. After leaving Milwaukee, he only played DH and first. Of course, he left at the age of 36.

I'm just glad that he did not sign a pro baseball contract directly out of high school. I would have hated Paul Molitor as a St. Louis Cardinal.

Honorable Mention: Larry Hisle

Guys I wish I had an Autograph for: Dave Parker, Dick Davis, Julio Franco, Hank Aaron

Starting Pitching

While the team that Kenny called for had just one starter, I decided to include four starters. The Brewers do not have a history of strong starters, but I have a lot of autographs so four it is.

SP1: Ted Higuera

The biggest shame about Ted Higuera's career is that he did not get into US baseball early enough. He made his debut in Milwaukee in 1985 at the age of 27 despite pitching with his hometown Juarez team starting in 1979. If only the scouting system were a little better, perhaps Ted could have been in the bullpen for the 1982 team at the age of 24 to help out when Rollie Fingers went down.

Oh, who am I kidding, though? Harry Dalton would have flipped him to the Astros instead of Frank DiPino probably.

One thing I always liked about Higuera's autograph is the fact that he did not anglicize his autograph. His real name is Teodoro Valenzuela Higuera (yes, his mother's maiden name was Valenzuela) so his autograph was always "Teo Higuera" rather than "Ted".

SP2: Yovani Gallardo

I was disappointed when Gallardo did not pitch well enough this spring to make the Brewers. That disappointment was completely selfish, because I was hoping to add a few more new cards to my Gallardo collection. Instead, he ended up in the Reds bullpen as batting practice fodder for hitters wanting to improve their statistics before the Reds dropped him like he's hot. Shortly after, the Rangers signed him to a minor league deal.

The Brewers pretty much sucked the life out of Gallardo's arm toward the greater good of winning divisional championships and the wild card. His stats have been in decline for several years now. It's tough to believe that he is only 32 years old, having turned 32 in February. 

SP3: Mike Caldwell

Mr. F**king Warmth. So named sarcastically for his surly overall demeanor by his teammates, Mike Caldwell actually was usually pretty nice to me. Caldwell was the workhorse of those late 1970s and early 1980s Brewers teams. There was never an "ace" for those teams, but Caldwell was as close as it got. He owned the Yankees, and his 1978 was a masterpiece of pitching -- as he threw nearly 300 innings and completed twenty-three games of his 34 starts AND had 6 shutouts AND even added a save for good measure. 

His falling off the map ability-wise in 1983 and 1984, getting really old really fast, helped accelerate the team's decline into the abyss in 1984. 

SP4: Ben Sheets

Sheets had pinpoint control matched with great swing-and-miss stuff. He holds the Brewers team record for most strikeouts in a game with 18, racked up against the Atlanta Braves in 2004. His curve just dropped off the table and befuddled hitters. The ever obnoxious Chris Berman even compared the curve to Bert Blyleven's -- the gold standard of curveballs. So many of those strikeouts were on curves that bounced. So those balls looked tantalizing enough to hit but were nowhere near hittable. 

His pitching is just fun to watch, if you can find some YouTube videos to do it.

Honorable Mention: Ray Peters, Tim Leary, Chris Bosio, Mike Birkbeck, Bill Wegman, Juan Nieves, Jaime Cocanower, Pete Vuckovich, Chris Capuano, Ben Hendrickson, Nick Neugebauer, Johnny Hellweg, Chuck Porter, Steve Woodard, Mike Fiers, Ricky Bones, Jimmy Nelson, Taylor Jungmann, Danny Darwin, Jim Slaton, Moose Haas, Tom Candiotti

Guys I wish I had an autographs for: Lew Krausse, Marty Pattin, Jim Colborn, Bill Travers, Scott Karl, Cal Eldred, Jaime Navarro, Zack Greinke, Kyle Davies, Junior Guerra, Brent Suter, Hideo Nomo, Doug Davis, C.C. Sabathia, Gene Brabender

Right Handed Reliever: Mark Clear

Watching Mark Clear pitch during his time in Milwaukee was mesmerizing. He was so thin -- just look at him in that photo! -- and having his stirrups showing the way he did emphasized how tall he was too. And, when it comes to good curveballs, Clear is right up there. He couldn't always get it over the plate, but man did it break. 

Clear is nowhere near the best righty reliever in Brewers history. He just as easily could have been listed under closers here too. But he was one of the most enjoyable middle/late inning relievers to watch thanks to that curve.

Honorable Mention: Jorge Lopez, Pete Ladd, Carlos Villanueva, Jose Capellan, Bill Castro, Bob Gibson (the white one), Chris Demaria, Tom Tellmann

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Chuck Crim, Eduardo Rodriguez, Jeremy Jeffress, Todd Coffey, David Weathers, Danny Frisella

Left Handed Reliever: Dan Plesac

I'm cheating again here to get Plesac into this team. Plesac is still the Brewers all-time leader in saves with 133, and he is also the all-time pitching appearances leader for the team with 365. He finished 269 games and even started 14, so he pitched more in non-save situations than in save situations. That's my excuse -- he was never a pure closer.

After being drafted out of N.C. State in 1983, Plesac came up at the age of 24 in 1986, so he was 10 years older than me. He was another Midwest kid, which is probably why I gravitated toward him. He won 10 games and saved 14 in his first season in the major leagues before taking over as closer through 1990 and making the All-Star team three times. He lost the closer job in 1990 thanks to a spike in his walk rate from 2.5/9 innings up to 4.0/9 innings. He left Milwaukee after the 1992 season and became a LOOGY, finally retiring at the age of 41 in 2003.

Honorable Mention: Jerry Augustine, Rick Waits, Josh Hader, Will Smith, Graeme Lloyd, Mike Potts, Wei Chung Wang, Ray Searage, John Morris

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Mitch Stetter, Bob McClure, Jesse Orosco, Valerio de Los Santos

Closer: Rollie Fingers

When life gives you a Hall of Famer, you do not look that gift horse in the mouth. You employ the Hall of Famer. I know Rollie gets a lot of love in Milwaukee and rightfully so. But, to me, he's not a Brewer. He's an Oakland A, having spent 9 years of his career there. Plus, I'm not sure I've forgiven him for screwing up his elbow in 1982 so that the team had to use Pete Ladd as the closer in the World Series.

Even so, Rollie was the Cy Young and MVP as a closer. It's tough to top that. 

Honorable Mention: Dan Plesac, Mike Fetters, Corey Knebel, Doug Jones

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Bob Wickman, Dan Kolb, Trevor Hoffman, Ken Sanders, Doug Henry, John Axford, Francisco Rodriguez, Francisco Cordero, Curt Leskanic

Front Office/Managers:

The Dalton Gang changed the franchise in the mid-1970s, and Harry Dalton and George Bamberger are inextricably linked as a result. Dalton is the only GM for which I have an autograph.

Honorable Mention: Managers: Buck Rodgers, Tom Trebelhorn

Coaches: Dave Garcia, Herm Starrette, Andy Etchebarren, Tony Muser

Guys I wish I had an autograph for: Doug Melvin, Frank Lane, Marvin Milkes, David Stearns, Davey Lopes, Phil Garner, Ron Roenicke, Ned Yost as Manager, Harvey Kuenn as Manager, Del Crandall, Dave Bristol, Joe Schultz, Alex Grammas, Jerry Royster, Jim Lefebvre, Cal McLish, Rod Carew, Rich Dauer, Robin Yount as a coach, Don Baylor, Frank Howard

All in all, this isn't a bad team. It's been just as fun for me to see who I would like to get some autographs from as well. 

A Lifelong Fascination: The 1982 Milwaukee Brewers

I don't remember a time in my life when I was not a baseball fan. With other sports for me, I can identify when I became a fan and why I stopped being a fan or stopped paying as much attention or started paying tons of attention. 

NBA? I loved watching the Bucks on TV as a kid during the days of Marques Johnson (before he was traded), Sidney Moncrief, Paul Pressey, and Terry Cummings. I grew up listening to Jon McGlocklin as the color guy on the 10-15 games a year that made it to TV. But, all those guys got old at around the same time in the late 1980s, and then the team was marked by draft decisions and ownership choices that made them easy to discard when I went to law school.

NFL? I was a Packers fan by 1980, watching every fall weekend with family. I still follow the Packers...but not as closely. I stopped paying as much attention to the Packers due to fantasy football, and I stopped paying much attention at all to the NFL in 2016 when I quit fantasy football. It's been freeing not to care.

College basketball? I liked Marquette as a kid. That changed when I went to college at Vanderbilt and I became a huge Vandy fan. Then Eddie Fogler left and Jan van breda Kolff ran the program down, and Kevin Stallings settled for good and mediocre. With VBK at Vandy in the mid-1990s and me studying a lot more thanks to law school, college basketball was not something I watched from that point on. And don't even get me started on college baseball -- Vanderbilt only got good well over a decade after I left.

College football? I had moments as a kid when I cared -- the 1981 Garden State Bowl between Wisconsin and Tennessee, for example. Between Wisconsin football under Dave McClain being awful and being a high school debater with debate competitions every Saturday, I really didn't care about college football until I got to college. Then, by the time I left Vanderbilt, I hated college football because Vanderbilt had about 12 fans who were serious fans and came to every game like the rest of the SEC. Then I went to Georgia for law school and I became a serious Georgia fan. But I am still not a big time "collector" when it comes to that part of my sports fandom -- despite some great items I have received.

Finally, professional soccer? I played a little pickup soccer in college, and I even watched highlight shows in 1994-1995 on cable. But I did not start to watch pro soccer until 2003, when I had Fox Soccer Channel show up on my cable system and my dog would wake me up early to go for a walk in the morning. That led to my Manchester United fandom, but, once again, it's not a major collection thing for me.

But baseball has been a constant. It's like the Thomas Mann soliloquy in Field of Dreams. Even as life moved inexorably forward, the one constant in life has been baseball. As a fan, I've attended NL and AL playoff games, a World Series, and an All-Star game. I've been to games in California, Illinois, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, Ohio, and Canada. I have come back to collecting baseball cards after nearly 25 years away.

And yet...current cards are...well, just okay. Perhaps it's my age and that baseball cards are a nostalgia game. What else explains the popularity of Topps Heritage and (to a lesser extent) Topps Archives and the inserts based off old card designs? It brings us collectors back to the days when we collected the original design.

Collecting baseball cards and other memorabilia is something I do as a hobby. It's my pastime. It's fun. Sometimes I start losing the fun, though, and I get cranky. Irritable. Pissed off at Topps for ignoring my favorite team. Unhappy that there are no other options except Topps for properly licensed cards. 

So, my focus here is shifting. Of course, I want to complete team sets. That's why I have tried to put together my Brewers want lists in such meticulous and exhaustive order. What I really want, though, are the players from my youth. 

I find myself inspired by blog commenter extraordinaire Mark Hoyle. His devotion to the 1967 Impossible Dream Boston Red Sox is legendary. While I am not going to say that getting everything for everyone on the 1982 Brewers is where I am going with my collection, I am saying that I really want everything related to the Milwaukee Brewers from the 1980s. 

Matchbooks, schedules, pins, programs, pennants, stickers, oddball cards, police sets, photos inserted from pizza packages -- you name it, I want it. 

And yes, I want the stuff that the Brewers keep putting out to celebrate that wonderful season that is now 36 years ago. Stuff like these cards inserted into the middle of the 1992 Brewers yearbook to celebrate the 10th anniversary, which I just bought this past week on eBay for a few dollars:

It's easy to see how much I really enjoyed the 1982 Brewers -- just look at those cards next to my player collection list. 14 of the 18 cards are of guys that are player collections. Only Rollie Fingers, Don Sutton, Pete Ladd, and Pete Vuckovich are not.

It is difficult to put into context how well that team hit compared to the league and historically. For example, 2017 was a hitter-happy environment; the highest scoring team was the Houston Astros, who averaged 5.53 runs per game. Joining the Astros in scoring over 5 runs per game in 2017 were the Yankees (5.30), the Indians (5.05), the Twins (5.03), the Rockies (5.09), the Cubs (5.07), the Nationals (5.06), and the Diamondbacks (5.01). 

The Brewers averaged 5.47 runs a game in 1982. The only other team in the major leagues to join Milwaukee at over 5.0 runs per game were their ALCS opponents, the California Angels, who averaged 5.02 runs per game. The MLB average runs scored per game per team in 2017 was 4.65; in 1982: 4.30.

That's just one average. In terms of individual performances: Robin Yount had a 10.5 WAR in 1982. That led the majors by 1.9 wins over 2nd place Gary Carter. Looking only at the AL now, the Brewers had 4 of the top 9 players in offensive WAR -- Yount, Molitor, Cooper, and Thomas. Three players -- Molitor, Yount, and Cooper -- scored over 100 runs, with Molitor first at 136 and Yount second at 129. Those three teammates each had over 200 hits that season; no one else in the AL had over 194.

Robin Yount's season was truly unbelievable. He was second in AVG behind Willie Wilson but was 10th in OBP, 1st in SLG, 1st in OPS, 2nd in runs scored, 1st in hits, 1st in Total bases, tied for 1st in doubles, 3rd in triples, 11th in HR at 29 (his teammates Thomas, Oglivie, and Cooper all had over 30 in a league where only 10 players hit 30 or more), and 4th in RBI. Even in advanced stats his season was excellent -- 5.5 Adjusted batting wins, .731 Offensive win percentage, 5th in power/speed number, 1st in base-out runs added (RE24, whatever the hell that means), 5th in win probability added, 1st in situational wins added, 1st in base-out wins added and first in OPS+. He was truly a dominant player that year.

I could go on and on and on. That 1982 team should have won a Championship. There were no missed calls to blame, though -- no Don Denkinger moments on which to rest our complaints. No, the Brewers just couldn't win the four games they needed to win against the Cardinals. It's a shame as a Brewers fan of that era that this team was not a Series winner so as to get the level of respect that such a win would have provided. 

All of this is to say that I don't mind duplicates from the 1980s. This may lead to a "project" and maybe eventually I will have as many projects as Night Owl does. At this point, though, it's just a recognition that I am more focused on the past for my collecting because it makes me happy. Just like Oddballs make me happy, and like knocking cards off my want lists makes me happy, and just like my Warren Spahn and Harvey Kuenn collections make me happy.

Just as I wish current cards could make me happy. But those are just different. Not bad. Just different.

Taking Stock for 2018

Men of philosophy often contemplate important questions of life: What is the optimum governmental system for humans to organize themselves? If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, why does he allow human suffering? What is the natural state for human economics? 

Some of us are nearly equally philosophical about questions that to outside observers seem less important: should there be more than one official MLB licensee for baseball cards? Is Topps evil or simply horribly incompetent? What card sets should be issued every year? Or even this one:

Noted philosopher W. Axl Rose's oft-repeated question is what is on my mind at this point: where do I go now with my collection? 

My answer to that question is not as easy as it was in the past. When I first got back into collecting about four years ago, I was incredibly naive and thought I would try to build a Brewers collection that would be as complete as possible. 

In those early days, much of my time was spent tracking down checklists, figuring out want lists, chasing stuff on eBay, and ripping open pack after pack. Even then, frustration was beginning to seep in as I catalogued stupid parallel after stupid parallel in dozens of Topps-issued products. 

In the past two years, my time for collecting fell as I became much more involved with work-related efforts with the American Bar Association and, particularly during 2017, as Georgia football took more of my in-person time going to games and my mental time seeking out information about upcoming opponents and the like. This is why I have blogged much less in the past two years than I did in my first two years blogging too.

At the same time, my frustration with Topps grew and grew. Topps Now became an excuse to issue as many cards for the "major market" teams at the expense of teams like the Twins, the Brewers, and the Blue Jays. Even in 2017 as Milwaukee was the final team eliminated from playoff contention in the final week of the season, Topps Now nearly ignored Milwaukee. 

The Brewers had thirteen Topps Now cards issued last season. In contrast, including multiple relic and autograph cards, Aaron Judge by himself had 65 Topps Now cards. Add in the 43 postseason and offseason cards and autographs and relics for him, and Judge had 108 Topps Now cards of the 220 Yankees Topps Now cards this past season. Heck, including autographs and relics, Team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic had 22 cards issued. 

I'm not going to turn this into a "Topps sucks" rant, though, because whether I like Topps or not is irrelevant. If I am going to collect baseball cards, my only choice is Topps for licensed, current cards of major league baseball players. One can agitate for change, but when the agitator is ignored by the powers that be, continuing to rage into the ether is a fruitless exercise -- particularly when one is talking about a hobby and not something very important in life like things going on with one's national government.

So, I'm done with beating my head into a wall where it comes to complaining about too many parallels, or too many Yankees, or too many high-end releases, or simply ugly cards. It's just not worth my limited time. Instead, I'm ignoring that stuff. Going forward, I'm collecting player collections -- which, yes, will include parallels -- and I'm collecting team sets of the base cards for the products that I choose to collect. 

For example, I got this card from Dennis from Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams just before the end of 2017:

I will still try to collect these cards because Ryan Braun is a player collection. Another card I'll seek out:

Again, any Younts that I can add to my collection will be added when I can find them.

But, it means that I will change other things. It means no more tracking and chasing every damn parallel for every card release. It means no more buying Topps Now cards unless it is a player collection for me. It means no more involvement with case breaks, because I don't need 11 copies of Topps Flagship's Will Middlebrooks.

Instead, I'm going to spend more time going into the archives, so to speak, and I don't mean Topps Archives. I mean finding cool oddballs, interesting schedules, magazines, programs, autographed photos, and other memorabilia that I like. Two more examples from Dennis of things I really like and will chase:

I will always collect magazines that have Brewers on the cover. 

I will still try to blog this coming year as well. I still enjoy the Meet the Brewers posts, and I should be doing more of them. I will probably try to mix in more posts about what is in my collection already. And, I will thank people for their kindness when they send me cards. 

Also, I will still try to keep putting music into my blogs. I love music. 

In other words, I will stop trying to do everything and collect everything. I'll stop being my own worst collecting enemy.

Thanks go out to Dennis for the cards and magazines in this post. And thanks go out to all of you who read this.

A Big Stack of Arbitrary Brewers

I've traded in the past with Brian from the Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary blog in the past. I was recently pleased and surprised to get a package in the mail from him that contained a ton of Brewers cards. I've been neglecting my Brewers cards lately, opting instead for actually watching the team's performance -- which has continued to impress -- and spending more time binge-watching shows on Hulu and Netflix.

But that's really just excuses being made. Nothing in current cards is grabbing me today. I'm burned out on hearing about the latest stratospheric price that Aaron Judge cards have reached. To top things off, I tried to go out a couple of weekends ago to buy some packs of cards. I could not even find a single pack of cards in my local Walmart. Hell, they may not even carry them any more. And the Target wasn't much better either -- all the cards they stocked were ones I have all the Brewers for already thanks to case breaks. 

I guess I'll just stick to my classic, tried and true way of getting cards on eBay, COMC, and Just Commons. 

Speaking of classics, maybe some classic rock will help me dig out of this funk.

When I think classic rock, I think the rock of the 1970s and 1960s and maybe some early 1980s. Anything later than that is part of my "normal" rock and therefore isn't "classic." And speaking of classics, does it get any more classic than The Who and "Baba O'Riley"? This song is still used at UGA to fire up the crowd just before kickoff. That's pretty classic to still be in the rotation at least as of 2016.



Let's go really classic here. This 1977 Bill Travers is actual a 1977 cloth sticker from the original set that was deemed so classic by Topps that it was resurrected for use with Archives in 2012. Travers was a 6th round pick of the Brewers out of Norwood High School in Norwood, Massachusetts. He worked his way up through the minors -- making it to Triple A by the age of 20 in 1973 and to the Majors in 1974 despite only 61 decent innings in Triple-A in 1974. He stayed in the majors from 1976 on, and 1976 was his best season -- 2.81 ERA, 15-16 record, 240 innings, 120 strikeouts versus 95 walks and over 1000 batters faced at the age of 23.

He really didn't make it very far after that. He got injured and went through two ulnar transfer operations (transferring a nerve in his elbow). He rebounded in 1979 and 1980 to win 26 games in 52 starts over 341-2/3 innings. He played out his option after the 1980 season at the age of 27. He went on to sign what was recognized immediately as one of the worst free agent contracts in the early free agency era: a 4-year, $1.5 million contract that was seen in the same regard as that Pablo Sandoval contract with the Red Sox. For their money, the California Angels received 52-1/3 innings of 6.36 ERA pitching (4.54 FIP) with 72 hits allowed and 11 games started over those four years. 

Bill Parsons was even more unique -- so unique that Steve Berthiaume wrote up a story about him on ESPN identifying his career as completely unique. Parsons is the only pitcher since 1883 to win at least 13 games and start at least 30 games in each of his first two seasons, only to win 5 or fewer games the rest of his career. He was the rookie pitcher of the year in the AL in 1971. 

His career went into the tank because of coaching. No kidding. As the ESPN story discusses, manager Del Crandall hired former Milwaukee Braves teammate Bob Shaw as the pitching coach. Shaw was an analyst, breaking down mechanics into endless detail. But he messed with Parsons and his delivery and screwed him up. Parsons was a "grip-it-and-rip-it" kind of pitcher with a fastball and a change up. Shaw made him work from a full windup and learn a curveball. All of this had disastrous results, and Parsons never found his mechanics again. By the age of 26, he was out of baseball.

Sure, The Doors might not be a "classic rock" rock band, but their music is excellent. I know it's cliché to play this song, but it's a damn good one. In fact, I tried for a long time not to like The Doors due to all the reverence that the generations older than me have for them. 

That worked until I listened to their music. The keyboard solos are excellent and well-played, the chords are melodically interesting, and the music overall provides an atmosphere. Anything that has that much going for it will get into my playlists.



These cards strive for an atmosphere. They strive to give a sense of modernity, excitement, and action. Maybe I've become that "get off my lawn guy" but these cards really fall short in that regard. I like them for being cards I need, but the new card designs leave me wanting more. 

I like variety. I like a mix of photos. I like a sense of place or of being or at least some sort of differentiation. And, I think that is the problem I've gotten myself into with modern cards. Everything is either an action shot or it's from Heritage and its affected attempts to copy card designs and photographic flaws from 50 years ago. It's like Topps has become its own cover band.

I'll be honest about this song: I did not have a proper appreciation for it before I played Guitar Hero on PlayStation. It's an ass-kicking guitar riff around which the whole song is built -- that roaring sound that comes from the rhythm guitar while the lead noodles around -- that really grabs me. It's guttural, raw, even dirty, and it makes you feel like you're on a riverboat in the dirty Mississippi River somewhere south of Memphis.

Or maybe that's just me.

Brian sent some awesome oddballs, including a nearly complete set of the 1984 Waunakee Police Department Brewers set (he kept the Molitor for his own PC of the St. Paul native) and this Pinnacle/Denny's card from 1996 of Kevin Seitzer. With my new Oddballs blog up and running and focusing on the 1980s, I see this Pinnacle card and think that I've made a mistake by limiting myself to the 1980s.

However, there are so many oddball issues in the 1980s that I probably should not have wandering eyes for the 1990s.

When it comes to classic rock of my youth, nothing quite embodies that term better than two things. I'll get to the other in a minute, but this one is the first one. Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" -- and its opening guitar riff -- was the first song every aspiring metalhead in the 1980s seemed to learn. And the local rock station was more than happy to oblige those learning the song by playing it as if it were the new hot release. 

Don't get me wrong -- it's a great guitar riff -- but damn it got tiresome after about the 500th time that it got played in the high school weight room while someone screamed at me to "PUSH IT" when I was trying to max out my bench weight at something around 150 or 160 pounds (while I weighed 175). I haven't seen either of those weights -- either on bench or on the scale -- in quite some time.

In all, Brian probably sent me nearly 100 cards. These four cards were the some of the best. A Geoff Jenkins relic from the early 2000s? Yes, please! A Jeromy Burnitz Topps HD? Certainly. A Doug Jones "Minted in Cooperstown" parallel? I hardly ever see these!

The top card here, though, is that Prince Fielder. Topps's "Moment & Milestones" set maybe the one of the most diabolical sets ever issued -- along with Topps Tek. Moments & Milestones had a card number for each player -- let's say Fielder is 59 -- and then had a different card 59 for each of the 81 RBI that Fielder had in his rookie season. So, let's call this card "59-70." To top off the obnoxiousness, each card is serial numbered out of 150.
UGH.

The other guarantee from classic rock stations in the 1980s -- and maybe today for all I know -- is that at an appointed time, usually 9 PM, it's time to "Get the Led Out." Led Zeppelin is a great band and did a lot to push metal forward with Robert Plant's vocals and Jimmy Page's grinding guitar lines. But every damn night? Really?

"Black Dog" always got a lot of airplay during those 30 minutes where the DJ could line up three songs, hit the head, smoke a cigarette, and line up his evening after leaving the station at 10 PM.

Let's close with youngsters -- two that really didn't make it, and one that is still working on it. You know who Orlando Arcia is already, so let's look at the other two guys.

Erik Komatsu is still only 29 years old, but it has been 5 years since he appeared in the big leagues for the Cardinals and the Twins. The Brewers drafted him in 2008 in the 8th round, then traded him to the Nationals in a rental trade for Jerry Hairston. The Nationals left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft, so the Cardinals signed him. They tried to waive him, so the Twins took a shot on him in May of 2012. A little over 3 weeks later, they returned him to the Nationals. The Nationals released him in 2014, and he signed as a free agent with the Angels for a month. They released him, so the Brewers picked him up for the rest of 2014. After the 2014 season, the Brewers let him go, so he played in the Atlantic League for Long Island in 2015 before hanging up the spikes. He's now a music producer in Orange County, California. 

Chad Green was the Brewers 1st round draft pick in 1996 (eighth overall) out of the University of Kentucky. He made it to Triple-A with the Brewers at the age of 25 in 2000, but his hitting was poor, to be charitable. He struck out three times for every walk he took, and his overall OBP in the minor leagues was .310 (.282 at Triple A). As of 2014, Green -- who was just 5'9" tall and relied on speed over power...indeed, this article says he beat Bo Jackson's 60-yard-dash time -- was living and working in Lexington, Kentucky, running a day care company called "Wee Care." 

Orlando Arcia has already seen more action in the majors than either of these other two gentlemen. Arcia has a real chance to be something special in the end -- if he avoids injuries and keeps hitting.

Thank you to Brian for the great cards -- and the classic rock that has picked up my spirits a bit!