A #SuperTrader Package from San Jose Fuji

San Jose Fuji is a true stalwart in the blogging world. He has been blogging since 2010. He loves colorful posts featuring lots of colors. And he has very diverse collecting interests. He has player collections, memorabilia and autograph collections of teams, and then he collects odd things like hockey enforcers, surfers, Donruss puzzles (which Panini should bring back along with the "Donruss Champions" 4x6 cards), and even a Prime Numbers PC of cards numbered 1 or "last" (say, 50/50) or jersey numbers.

And, he has a new trading card out too!

Not that there was anything wrong with the old one based off the 2008 Topps, but this one just seems cooler. It also reflects that Fuji is the Oakland A's representative in the SuperTraders group that JayBarkerFan put together.

Fuji sent me a nice group of Brewers cards recently as part of the SuperTrader group. I'm going to share the highlights and go all random again -- whatever strikes me about the cards I pick is what I'm writing. I know that probably seems like every post here that's not music, but hey, it makes me happy. It can't be that bad.

Pat Listach was a frustrating player for Milwaukee. He was drafted by the Brewers in the 5th Round in 1988. That's not the Superstar round, obviously, so he had to work harder than some 1st round guy. But when he arrived, it was with a splash -- stealing 54 bases for a team that was a surprise contender in the AL East and, by Pythagorean W-L, actually should have beaten the Blue Jays for first place (96-66 Pythag for MKE versus 92-70 real record; 91-71 Pythag for TOR versus 96-66 real record...so I guess I can blame Phil Garner for that). 

Listach tore up his knee early 1994, but even in 1993 he was struggling and wasn't making adjustments that he needed to make. His major-league playing career ended with the Astros in 1997, but he soon became a coach. He started as a manager in the Cubs minor league system, then became the Nationals' third base coach in 2009. He moved to the Cubs as the bench coach for 2011 and then the third-base coach in 2012. He was an instructor with the Dodgers system in 2013, then became the Astros' first base coach for the 2014 season. He is now entering his second season as the manager of the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers.

Speaking of guys whose careers were derailed by injury, we have Tyrone Hill. On this very blog, I've compared Hill to H. H. Holmes -- America's first serial killer. Wow, I'm a jerk.

Hill was the Brewers' first round pick in 1991 out of high school, and he was the first Brewers first round pick to be younger than me (Hill was born about 2-1/2 months after me; he was born in March of 1972). He was the #20 prospect in baseball before the 1992 season according to Baseball America probably because of his very live arm and his 11.4 K/9 innings in Rookie ball in 1991 (they ignored his 5.2 walks per 9, of course). He moved up to #10 before the 1993 season -- after more eye-popping strikeout numbers of 10.5 K/9 in 113-2/3 innings in the Midwest League...and, again, pay no attention to the nearly 6 walks per 9. He dropped to #54 before the 1994 season because he hit 8.2 BB/9 in the California League that year.

Then, well, things went off the rails. He missed all of 1994 because he underwent reconstructive shoulder surgery. After that surgery, he threw a grand total of 47-2/3 innings over three major league seasons. I wish I could give you an update on where he is today, but there are too many Ty/Tyrone Hills, making it very difficult to get a bead on the guy.

Dave Nilsson looks like the Dufex effect is blinding him in his attempt to catch the pop-up above him. Or he's been smacked in the back.

The Greg Vaughn card is interesting for the sunglasses while hitting. Those wraparound Oakleys were on everyone's "must have" list in the mid-1990s along with having a goatee and taking steroids.

I need some music. Let's see...I need a tenuous tie to a song I have in my head. Either yesterday or today, Andy Staples on SI.com put up his list of the top power ballads of the 1980s. He did not include one of the greatest ones of the era on his list:

Man, I wore out my tape of Skid Row in 1989. This song, "18 And Life", and "Youth Gone Wild" got more play on my tape player than I really should admit. 1989 was a great year for me personally -- I had a great, busy summer. I met a ton of cool people that I still keep in touch with through a music camp I attended. I even attended a high school debate camp that summer that helped my partner and I win our state tournament the next January.

And this was part of the soundtrack to it.

Now I'm all wistful. Weird.

Not to go all musical here. But now that I'm in a bit of a 1980s mood, how about another reference back to that decade?

With the autographs, I had to pick this song. To be fair, I liked "Wishing Well" a lot better. Sitting here today, though, I'm at a bit of a loss about all that.

Maybe it's because Terence Trent D'Arby (birth name: Terence Trent Howard; actual name now: Sananda Maitreya) is just like 8000 times cooler than I ever was or could ever be. He won the Florida Golden Gloves title in 1980, enlisted in the army and went AWOL to join a band. Later in his career, he played with INXS to allow them to play the opening of the Sydney Olympic Stadium.

Fuji, thank you so much for these great cards and all the others you sent as well. Maybe some day, you can come over to Atlanta and we can go to the Flea Market in Montgomery!

Fuji Sends Brewers Autographs & Relics

I went to one of my local card shows today. As usual, I found some good deals -- some of which will be spread around the blogosphere, and others of which will be finding their way into my collection.  Part of my reasoning for going to the show was to try to find cards to pay off on my contests from earlier this month.

One of the winners of the contest was old reliable blogger San Jose Fuji. I hope he likes what I got for him at the show today with the $10 I spent on him.

I call him "old reliable" because he seems to have more material to blog about -- including some great flea markets that I envy greatly -- than I do. Perhaps it's because I'm not as much of a collector. I mean, Fuji collects a lot of different things and, further, he also buys to sell sometimes.  

Still, he also has accumulated a lot of great cards over the years. I recently received a bubble mailer from him unexpectedly with some great Brewers autographs, relics, and serial numbered cards.  Let's get to them!

This Leaf 2013 "Memories Buyback" is serial numbered 1 of 5. Leaf does something right here that I wish Topps's buybacks did -- they tell us how many of this card there are available in buyback form.  On the other hand, I find this buyback weird for a couple of reasons. 

First, this card is from the height of the junk wax era -- 1991. Why are there only 5 of these? Second, what is so memorable about a card that is twenty-two years old? Not 50, or 40, or 30, or 25, or 10, or even 5 -- but 22?  That's just kind of weird. 

Maybe they just wanted to dump 5 sets they found in a storage bin in their offices.

Still, this is not to disparage the fact that I have one of the five gold-foiled Jim Gantner cards stamped in 2013. That fact is pretty awesome.

This card is great. No, actually, it's better than great -- it's Magnifico!

Enough with the puns, though. With the Brewers in full rebuild mode and having hired a GM who was born when I was in middle school and who was just starting kindergarten when I graduated from college, I am going to have to turn a little bit into Zippy Zappy and get excited about the Brewers farm system and prospects. 

One of the guys who emerged some this year was Damien Magnifico. Magnifico was a 5th round draft pick in 2012 out of the University of Oklahoma. He was a starter through 2014 with varying levels of success. He transitioned to relief at Biloxi this past season and looked impressive -- 4-1, 20 saves, 1.17 ERA. He impressed enough as a bullpen arm throwing BBs to pitch in the Arizona Fall League this fall -- probably based on his 100 MPH fastball. And, he impressed enough to be added to the Brewers 40-man roster last week to protect him from the Rule 5 draft.

From a guy who may never make it to a guy who's made it, missed a year, and was named the AL Comeback Player of the Year.  I'm happy for Fielder that he's healthy again. Missing a year might be detrimental to his career numbers, but here's hoping he stays healthy for many years to come.

On to a guy who was great when healthy but whose health failed him. It would be nice for the Brewers to develop a pitcher out of the minor league system like Sheets or Yovani Gallardo -- if only to avoid mistakes like 4 years of Jeff Suppan or Matt Garza.

With recent trades and roster moves, it's pretty likely that Jean Segura will become an ex-Brewer sooner rather than later.  It's possible, though, that Scooter Gennett will be jettisoned before Segura. At that point, Segura might switch to second base. Or, Segura may be on the way out with the addition last week of Jonathan Villar from the Astros.

In any case, we're just waiting for Orlando Arcia to be ready -- which is pretty likely to come at some point next year after his .307/.347/.453 slash at the age of 20 (he turned 21 on August 4) in the Double-A Southern League.

Robin Yount wants to know what is taking Arcia so long. Yount turned 21 in September of 1976 -- his third year in the majors.

Will Ryan Braun be traded this offseason? If the Brewers can find a taker and get a decent return, the answer is yes. That "return" part is the issue. I mean, Braun is older than his general manager and is rehabbing after back surgery. This is after Braun has had to undergo regular cryotherapy sessions on his right thumb to address a nerve problem.  Also, another major issue is whether Milwaukee will pay some of his remaining contract. I'm okay if he stays, and I'm okay if he goes.

The last cards in the package from Fuji are a part of baseball card history. The 1996 Leaf Signature Series was the first set to offer an autographed card in every pack of the cards.  I bet there were some unhappy collectors when their autograph was Ricky Bones rather than Jim Thome, Carlos Delgado, Alex Rodriguez, Greg Maddux, or Mariano Rivera.

Still, I'd love to find a box of this to open today...though at $400 for 48 cards (12 autographs), it's a bit pricy.

Fuji, thank you very much for this package. I hope you enjoy the rewards from the $10 I spent today at my card show...that package should go out tomorrow!

Monster Package #6: Winnings from Fuji

Back in April, the incredible San Jose Fuji had a 1000-hour contest in honor of his 1000th post. Considering I have yet to reach 200, I'm in awe of getting to 1000 posts.  Heck, I'll be lucky to last 1000 days as a blogger. Well, actually, I'd better last that long considering I still have another 697 cards to go in the 1982 Topps set that I started blogging about back in March.

I was lucky enough to fall as the number 2 person on Fuji's winning list for his giveaway for my post about how the doldrums of summer had become the doldrums for bloggers, which I made on May 31. Thank God that the comment wasn't some banal "Great card Fuji [read as: blatantly ensuring that I comment on each post to enter the contest!]".  I fear that I go in spurts sometimes with commenting -- a lot of comments at some points, barely any at other times.  I mean nothing by it other than I don't have anything to add to the discussion most of the time if I don't comment!

Back to the mail from Fuji -- my prize was to get a lot of Brewers cards (and a few Gary Carters) from Fuji. I think I'll present these by player because I'm still shaky on sorting by year, and I scanned and sorted these into my collection already!

Gary Carter
For those of you who don't know or are new here, Gary Carter was my favorite non-Brewer player as a kid. I was a catcher from age 8 until age 15, so catchers always are represented disproportionately among my favorites. This is the reason that guys like Charlie Moore, Ted Simmons, B.J. Surhoff, Dave Nilsson, and Jonathan Lucroy end up as player collections for me -- at least in part; the other part is that they were either good players or Brewers for a long time.  Heck, I had to edit myself so as not to include Buck Martinez, Charlie O'Brien, and Ray Fosse in my collections.  

But, Carter was my favorite catcher in the league. He seemed like the nicest guy, the most friendly, and the best overall player as a catcher of all of the guys in the league at that time. In other words, to me, he was the Anti-Fisk. I really disliked Carlton Fisk -- who seemed obnoxious, mean, and played for the White Sox which made him obnoxious and mean.

Anyway, here are the Carters from Fuji:

That Kaybee Kings card is just a fine looking card. I miss the days of walking into a toy store and finding a set of cards made especially for the store.

Okay, I can't write nearly as much about everyone else as I did just there -- I scanned nearly 100 cards in individually.  It will take a while to get through them, so they are presented without comment.

Corey Hart

Paul Molitor

Robin Yount

Charlie Moore

Ted Simmons

Yovani Gallardo

Rickie Weeks

Jonathan Lucroy

Ben Sheets

Carlos Gomez

Yeah, the team card is technically Braun, Gomez, and Hart, but you can see Gomez's face. I suppose I should chase three more of this card though -- one for each PC and one for the Brewers collection.

Bill Wegman

Ryan Braun

Once again, it's a two PC card, meaning I need two more of this card -- one for the Prince PC and one for my Brewers collection. And, is Topps foreshadowing Braun's steroid conviction by calling him a "bash brother"?  HA!

Greg Vaughn

Chuck Crim

Dan Plesac

Gorman Thomas

This card is a good reason why I just have a problem with the unlicensed cards. That uniform looks like no uniform the Brewers ever wore.  Not road, not home, not 70s, not 80s, not even in the off-season softball league. I have the same issue with the Ted Higuera jersey below on his Hometown Heroes card -- it's one thing to airbrush the logos out, but these uniforms are unrecognizable. 

Would MLB Properties sue them if the jersey looked remotely like a real Brewers jersey? If so, perhaps Panini should go with either current photos (to make all of us feel old) or they should find and use headshots -- no caps, but full color, sharp photos that are head shots. I think that is what bugs me about the unlicensed cards -- the retouching is so extensive that the photo quality is affected.  Since MLBPA licenses those cards and their players benefit, then those players should pose for the photographers hatless.

-- end unsolicited advice --

Ted Higuera

Geoff Jenkins

Jim Gantner

Jim Slaton

Bob McClure

Moose Haas

Cal Eldred

Dave Nilsson

Jeromy Burnitz

Like I said, Fuji sent me a haul.  And I haven't even played "Boulevard of Broken Prospects."

Today's version features a guy that, in my opinion, was never a prospect and a guy who was the 13th overall pick in the draft in 1998 and played fewer games in the majors than the non-prospect.

First, the non-prospect: Willie Lozado.

Lozado got to play in the big leagues in 1984 because Paul Molitor had his right elbow reconstructed.  

Then, there's the kid whose injuries prevented him from ever developing as anyone hoped. After all, TINSTAAPP (There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect).  J.M. Gold:

The final card I'll feature is the true superstar of the package -- Fuji himself:

While I know this was a "prize" package, you outdid yourself Mr. Fuji! Thank you for the contest, and thank you for the always entertaining blog!