Hello, 2017 Bowman

It's going to be a lazy Sunday. I can feel it already. I was half awake, as usual, from about 4:30 AM until about 6:45 AM. I started drifting back to sleep, and then *boom* a huge clap of thunder rattled around outside.

I'm awake! I'm awake!

So I got up and heard the rain just pouring down on the roof. The way my brain works, this sequence of events immediately put a song into my head.

I don't even care that I've posted this video before here, even if I try not to duplicate songs. At one point, I thought about going back and cataloging all the songs I'd posted here. Then I realized I had more important things to do with my time, like pretty much everything else I could possibly do.

So, what's on tap today? It's another one of Chris's charity case breaks from Crackin' Wax:

If you're inclined, you can watch all 3+ hours of the case break right there. 

The 2017 Bowman case break excited me. The Brewers farm system is one of the best, and (for a change) the Brewers were reasonably well represented in the prospect set. Sure, they didn't have the most cards in the prospect range -- that honor went to the Yankees, of course, with Topps's usual over-abundant love for all things Yankees...I mean, it's still Topps, after all -- but the Brewers did get six players in the set: 3B Lucas Erceg (#7 MIL prospect), P Freddy Peralta (#19), SS/2B Mauricio Dubon (#9) P Phil Bickford (#12), P Josh Hader (#3) and P Luis Ortiz (#4). 

In addition, the Brewers have 7 players in the Bowman Scouts' Top 100: Hader, Ortiz, Bickford, Corey Ray, Lewis Brinson, Trent Clark, and Isan Diaz. Throw in some chrome prospect autographs and a couple of those Scouts' Top 100 autographs in addition to a few other inserts, and I had hope for a really nice return from the case.

So, before we evaluate this case, let's look at the cards. First, the Major League base:

The Bowman brand scaled back the base cards to just 100 major leaguers. You can tell how much in advance that the checklist was put together, though, because the set featured an entirely unnecessary card for David Ortiz, whose love from Topps last year put the fawning over the New York Yankee Rookie flavor of the month to shame. So, with its usual ham-handedness, we get 7 Cubs and 7 Red Sox (and 7 Astros!) from Topps, but only 1 Red (Votto), 1 Angel (Trout), and just 3 Indians, a team I could have sworn played against the Cubs in the World Series last year.

The only Brewer missing here that has shown up in almost every other set this year is Jonathan Villar, last year's stolen base leader in the National League whose struggles at the plate during the first two months of this season have a lot of Brewers fans concerned. I can understand the concern, of course -- it's never good to have a guy slashing at .210/.284/.319 and striking out as many times (71 in 233 plate appearances) as he has. But, he did change positions to second base, and that adjustment can take away from a person's other abilities. It's not easy to change a mindset like that, and I'm sure he focused a lot on fielding in spring training this year.

Okay, let's move onto the paper prospect base cards:

Design-wise, Bowman's design this year seems to be following the trend that the Flagship has set: lots of blurry backgrounds, weird smoke/haze/fog effects on the margins of the cards, and a logo and nameplate area that appears to be designed for ease of use within the Bunt app rather than for use as a physical card. The problem with this, especially when we are talking about Bowman and its parallel-happy printing job, is that some of the parallels are nearly impossible to notice as parallels.

Such as the Silver parallel. The card on the right is the Silver parallel for Freddy Peralta and it is serial numbered to 499. The card on the left is his base card. You have to look really closely to notice that there is a silver coloration in the upper left hand corner near the Bowman logo and along the nameplate at the bottom. Or, you have to run the card under lights and move it back and forth to see the little dotted line feature that comes across far better on the scan here along the left-hand side of the card.

Unfortunately for me, this Peralta was the only Brewers parallel of any kind that came in the case. 

On to the Chrome:

During the video, every time a Chrome card showed up, the lights in Chris's house made it appear as if the card was a refractor. The Chrome parallel is really shiny this year. 

Unfortunately for me, I did not get any refractors -- only base Chrome Prospects cards.

As I mentioned above, the Brewers have seven players in the Scouts' Top 100. I didn't do very well here either:

Out of the 7, I only got 2. The collation on the boxes in this case was terrible. I actually received a total of four cards of the Brewers in this subset -- three of Trent Clark to go with the Brinson. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm a Trent Clark fan, even if he is essentially a top trade chip with the outfield depth within the Brewer system -- but it would have been nice to get other Brewers from the subset. 

Instead, I'm now surfing eBay to look at pricing on getting the rest.

There were other inserts in the set as well:

I've mentioned this elsewhere before, but it seems like typical Topps to jam Orlando Arcia into the "2017 Rookie of the Year Favorites" subset. Why? Because Arcia is not rookie-eligible any more. Like I said about the David Ortiz card, Topps/Bowman clearly put the checklist together way too early -- I'm guessing that they started in mid-year last year -- and didn't fact check themselves after the season to make sure that everyone listed as a ROY favorite was eligible for the award.

Arcia isn't the only one is this position, either. Alex Bregman and David Dahl also exceeded the number of at-bats/days on the active roster allowed to retain rookie status. So, out of a subset of 15 players allegedly highlighting potential Rookie of the Year candidates, fully 20% of them were not actually eligible to win the award.

Well done, Bowman!

So, you've now seen what I got from this case. All in all, it was quite honestly a terrible case for me. That's not Chris's fault, obviously -- he didn't put the cards in the case. But it means that I'm going to have to hit the aftermarket pretty hard to complete my Bowman run for this year. 

That's a real shame for me.

Secret Santa: En Fuego

I wanted to get to this post before Christmas. After all, it was my Secret Santa post. When I was younger, I was told that a Secret Santa deal was to include the person receiving the gift trying to guess who gave it to them. Of course, those deals always included an in-person gift giving session, so maybe that's why some folks did not go that route in the BWTP-organized giveaway this year.

For what it's worth, I kept mine secret for this reason. I don't know if my recipient quite figured out it was me. Still don't.

I was lucky enough, though, to get cards from Ketchupman36 from "Rekindling the Cardboard Flame." It's time for a music post, because that blog name puts the same song in my head every time I hear it. 

Cheap Trick sold out. Yup, they did. But they deserved it -- they worked hard and came back from the dead. It hit number one in July of 1988. The same song writers apparently also wrote Chicago's "Look Away" -- which was another catchy ballad from the time period. 

This song was absolutely huge during the summer before my junior year of high school, and I remember well when this song got played at the music camp I attended that summer. For the first time I could recall, I was one of the cooler people around -- which, I suppose, shows how lame band kids could be -- but it also showed me that I could be myself, trying to be funny and crack jokes and such, and people would actually like me if they didn't come in with a predisposed notion of me as the "smart" kid.

Appropriately for that memory, K-Man sent me a number of late 1980s/early 1990s cards. Let's start with the Sportflics!

Thanks to this mailer, my want list for 1989 Sportflics was obliterated. Ah, the joy of youth matched with the joy of a complete team set. I love it!

Let's keep the music appropriate for the time. 

The next summer, I went to three camps for four weeks total. Music camp was even more fun, because I had a base of friends already from the previous year and I wasn't the "new" kid. I had a blast. I met tons of girls and guys whom I still keep in touch with through the wonders of modern social media a/k/a Facebook. 

One person I have never found again after a few letter exchanged back in 1989 was this fellow saxophone player named Andi. She was obsessed with Skid Row. Like, unhealthily obsessed. I thought she was really cool though, because she wasn't a "good girl" -- and I don't mean that in a sexual way. I mean that in a "doesn't give a crap" sort of way that really appealed to me. Plus she was cute too, of course, with long, curly brown hair and blue eyes. That didn't hurt either.

I think I liked her for that second thing, but that "don't care" thing was pretty big too. I cared too much back then.

Okay, weird remembering Andi after over 27 years of not really having thought about her. Music does that to me.



Some great early 1990s oddballs go with that odd recollection about a very different girl. The Mootown Snackers card shows how good unlicensed cards looked back then, before MLB started getting super picky about its teams' uniforms and probably started filing Lanham Act complaints to protect the teams' "trade dress" as exemplified through their team uniform schemes and designs.  

The 8 of hearts is from a U.S. Playing Card company deck from 1991. I have looked in vain for this; K-Man sent me two. 

The Yount is actually a Cracker Jack card from that same year -- 1991. The front looks the same, but the back is different. 

Finally, we have a Pat Moustache card from the Milwaukee Boozers. I'm pretty sure that MLB was not a fan of this set. Parody is protected under the U.S. Constitution as free speech -- just ask Jerry Falwell. See Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988) (expanding First Amendment protection to an ad parody insinuating Falwell's "first time" was with his mother in an outhouse).

I love parentheticals in legal writing.

Okay, last song for the modern cards:

Yup, I cannot help another Bastille song here. I'm an Anglophile, they are extremely British, and their attempts to make their videos into something straight out of the minds of Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte all appeal to me. Just try figuring out this song's video. I mean, I can figure out the song itself, but the video? Strange.



I'm not saying that these cards are strange. No, they are pretty much your typical Topps cards from 2014 and 2016. It is strange that this is my first Junior Guerra card. Guerra was a waiver wire claim from the Chicago White Sox. In fact, Guerra was the first move that David Stearns made as General Manager. It turned out well -- Guerra pitched 121-1/3 innings and finished 9-3 with 100 strikeouts in 20 starts. With his age being 32 coming into this season, I'd be in favor of flipping him if it's possible. We'll see. I don't think Stearns's moves are done for this year.

It's also strange that Kirk Nieuwenhuis appears to be playing centerfield in the midst of a forest fire. But that problem with design has been addressed in many, many places. 

Many thanks go out here to Ketchupman for the great cards and to Matt from BWTP for organizing the Secret Santa program this year. 

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!