Perhaps This Year is The Year?

Before King Bud decided to relive his childhood by forcing the Milwaukee Brewers to switch to the National League back in late 1997, I actually cheered for the Chicago Cubs as my National League team thanks to my aunt, my uncle, and my cousin from Chicago loving the Cubs.  I even attended a game there in 1984 and cheered for the Cubs. 

In those days before interleague play, Brewers fans really didn't mind the Cubs, I don't think. In fact, if you'd have asked me in, say, 1989 to name the three teams I hated the most, my answers would have been easy.  Number three would have been the St. Louis Cardinals. 1982 took a long time to get over.  Number two would have been the New York Yankees. 1981 also took a long time to get over.  Number one, though, would have easily been the Chicago White Sox. 

Going to a White Sox/Brewers game at either stadium was akin to taking your life in your own hands. I've seen mosh pits at concerts that weren't as physically intimidating or as harrowing as sitting in the bleachers at County Stadium for a Friday night game between those two teams. You mix a day of tailgating with full stands and throw in, perhaps, some heat and humidity if the game was in July or early August, and it was like a tinderbox. Dozens to sometime hundreds of arrests would occur.  Seriously, it was dangerous at times.

I know that the 17 years of being in the National League in the same division as the Cubs and not often playing the White Sox has changed the dynamic in Milwaukee.  Cubs fans are viewed as obnoxious -- which they can be, but so can every single fan base of every single team on the planet in some way.  I still carry that soft spot in my heart for the Cubs, though.

That's a long way of introducing Eddie Vedder's paean to being a Cubs fan to honor the envelope of incredible items from Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year.

In that video -- an excellent HD-quality video from the Pearl Jam show at Wrigley in July of 2013 -- Eddie Vedder explains that he wrote the song "All the Way" because Ernie Banks asked him to do it.  Eddie thought that the idea of writing a song to try to capture the feeling of being a Cubs fan was impossible, but since it was Ernie Banks asking, Eddie has to do it.

I view trying to thank Tom for the excellent cards he sent as being impossible, but I have to try.  Let's start with a card that I'm still trying to identify with a bit more specificity other than simply them being "Brewers cards."

So, I think these are cards from a Brewers yearbook or program. I based that on the fact that they are slightly oversized in a size similar to the Brewers yearbook cards from 1989 and 1990, and they are perforated on the edges again in a manner similar to the yearbook cards from 1989 and 1990.  For the obvious reason of this being the '82 Anniversary Collection, the cards must be from either 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, or 2012.  But, I don't know which year.  

If I had to guess, I'd imagine it was 1992 for a couple of reasons -- card stock quality isn't great, the close proximity in time to the previous yearbook cards, and the fact that the Brewer name is both so huge across the card and reflects the new home jersey look for that year, which is circled below:

But, as the Violent Femmes said, "This is only a guess."

Okay, back to the Brewers now. Not only did Tom find those cards for me, he also helped fill in some more recent gaps -- such as 2015 Bowman:

So, that's a base card of Jason Rogers, who's Adam Lind's platoon partner currently, a Yellow parallel of top prospect Orlando Arcia, a "Farm's Finest Mini" of last year's #1 pick Kodi Medeiros, and Taylor Williams (who hasn't pitched this year due to arm problems) on the Prospects Chrome parallel.

Another item from 2015 also arrived with this envelope, but it's not a card:

Of course, it was slot right into the Lucroy collection in my binders, but this is a schedule.  I love schedules that show real Brewers player photos on them!

If Tom had stopped there, it would have been an incredibly generous package.  But he didn't stop there. But, nope, there's more. 

Super-vintage Kellogg's! That's Bill Parsons on a 1972 Kellogg's card!  Parsons was a true prospect -- well, as much of a prospect as a pitcher can be -- for the Pilots (drafted in the 1968 draft in the 7th round).  He was tall and thin -- 6 feet, 6 inches tall but just 195 pounds. He tore through the system quickly. The Brewers jumped him from the Single-A Midwest League in 1969 to Triple-A Portland in 1970, which they had to do to keep promoting him since none of the new 1969 teams (the Royals, the Expos, the Padres, or the Pilots/Brewers) had Double-A teams that year. 

The thing is, Parsons only pitched in 4 games that year before missing the rest of the season.  Despite that, as a 22-year-old rookie in 1971, the Brewers put him on the mound for 36 games (35 starts) and 12 complete games over 244-2/3 innings.  He finished 13-17 with a 3.20 ERA, which was good enough to have him finish second behind Chris Chambliss for Rookie of the Year honors (and Parsons deserved to win it according to WAR).  And yet, two years later, the Brewers traded him to Oakland for Deron Johnson, and after the 1974 season -- at just 26 years old -- Parsons was done in the majors.

And yet, even a 1972 Kellogg's card is not the topper.  You see, a few months ago, I sent Tom a Ryne Sandberg Topps Tribute Blank Bank 1/1 that I bought last year on eBay for a price far below what I thought it should have sold for. Tom's a Ryno collector, so that card belongs in his collection.

In return, Tom asked me what he could possibly send me to repay me for that card in light of the fact that he would be going to a card show in Milwaukee in May.  I told him, well, if you really feel like you need to look for something there for me, look for non-Milwaukee-Police Police cards.  

When this package showed up from Tom, the first thing to pop out was a note apologizing -- saying that the card show was a huge bust.   But how could the show be a bust when you found these, Tom?

From the Wauwatosa Police Department and the Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral Service, it's your 2007 Milwaukee Brewers!  Even though the full set came in a shrink wrapped package, I had to rip that package open immediately to flip through them.  These are excellent!

And yet, there is still one more item.  In his note, Tom said he went to a Brewers game and played Plinko at the stadium on one of the concourses and won something for me.  I didn't realize that the Brewers now feature parts of the set from the Price is Right, but I am not questioning this win:

It's a Ben Oglivie bobblehead from 2007 2014 (oops!)!  That is awesome!  

Tom, thank you so much for the incredible cards, the bobblehead, and all the thought that went into this box!

Tomorrow, it's back to war...hopefully, I will continue to play better against JBF than this former Auburn quarterback ever could:

In the season in which Gross played the most -- 1998 -- the Auburn Tigers went 3-8 and Coach Terry Bowden a/k/a Tater Tot was fired before Halloween.  Gross is lucky he was a far better baseball player than he was a quarterback.

Let's hope I don't get sacked.

Dinner's Ready!

Everyone who collected in the 1980s has food-issue oddballs.  Whether its the Kellogg's cards from the 1970s and early 1980s, the Hostess cards from the late 1970s, the Drake's Big Hitters set, the 7-Eleven Slurpee lids, or any number of other cards that came with pizzas, bread, breakfast cereal, macaroni and cheese, popcorn, or potato chips -- we all have some of those oddballs.

So,once we all aggregate all those meals from a box or snacks from a bag that got us baseball cards, we can sit down to eat.  

But we'll need placemats.  We're refined people, after all.  I'm glad I stopped at Pizza Hut and got this one first.

This one was one of four placemats that Pizza Hut and Pepsi combined to put out during the 1980 season. This particular placemat features Gorman Thomas, Paul Molitor, Jim Slaton, manager George Bamberger, Buck Martinez, and Dick Davis, and they all seem very happy to be drinking Pepsi from a wooden barrel.

I know, though, that this one placemat will not be enough for the crowd here, so let's grab our other placemats:

This is a complete set of 6 of the placemats that the Brewers and McDonald's cooperated on and issued after the end of the 1982 season -- probably during the 1983 season -- to help benefit the Ronald McDonald House in Milwaukee.  As is usual, Ted Simmons looks asleep, Mike Caldwell looks pissed off, Ben Oglivie and Charlie Moore look apologetic, and Rollie Fingers is still smiling.  I only wish that the placemat had included Don Sutton doing his "Suttoning" pose.

Now that we have our placemats down, lets get down to eating.  While we might have placemats from McDonald's, our coupons are from Burger King!

This 8.5" by 11" team calendar features photos for each month from the American League Championship season in 1982.  Back in 1983, it also featured coupons for each month of the year.  I think we used them all up though.

All this talk about food and setting tables has made me thirsty.  Could someone grab a glass for me from the shelf?

In 1982, McDonald's and the Brewers collaborated on a set of four collectors glasses, featuring:

Robin Yount

Ben Oglivie 

Ted Simmons

Paul Molitor

Gorman Thomas

Pete Vuckovich

Rollie Fingers

and Cecil Cooper.

The pairings on the glasses were Fingers/Simmons, Cooper/Thomas, Yount/Oglivie, and Molitor/Vuckovich.  It's the only time I've ever seen Pete Vuckovich look far happier than Paul Molitor anywhere.

These days, fast food restaurants give away "cups" with team logos on them that are thin plastic and get thrown out after one use.  They are so frail and cheap that it makes almost no sense to keep them.  The ones from 1982, though, were made to last.  Yeah, they are glass and might break if you're not careful.  But enough people were care with them to make them fairly plentiful on eBay and other auctions sites.

Still, if you're eating and drinking, you might need some reading material such as, say, the Brewers answer to Pravda:  What's Brewing?

Both of the magazines feature Paul Molitor with his arm around someone -- whether it's Cecil Cooper or his first wife Linda.  As with everything Brewers related, I devoured these magazines as if it really was the gospel according to Paul...

Yeah, bad joke.  Sorry.

Okay, last few items from Wisconsin.  After that joke, I'm sure you've lost your appetite, so let's just see the three Yearbooks:

Before Harvey had his Wallbangers, Bambi -- George Bamberger -- had his Bombers.  I remember getting the yearbook off the local grocery store magazine rack each year -- same as the press guides.  Smart move by ownership to do that -- get as much information out to the public and especially to kids as you can and make the price sort of reasonable.

Two more yearbooks to follow.  They don't have quite as much sentimentality attached.

That 1988 Yearbook looks like it was Upper Deck before Upper Deck was, what with the Molitor Hologram and all.  Obviously the special edition was to celebrate Molitor's 39-game hitting streak in 1987, along with the 13-game win streak to start the season and Ted Higuera's great run of scoreless innings and Juan Nieves's no-hitter.  1987 was a great year. 

1986, to celebrate 1985? Meh.  To be fair, 1985 gave promise -- Ted Higuera and Ernest Riles, in particular -- where 1984 was just loss after loss.  It didn't deserve a "Special Edition" though.

After my three-day walk down memory lane, it's time in my next post to get back to the cards.