Music from the Trading Spot

One of the trading world's really underrated guys is John from Johnny's Trading Spot. I say he's underrated because the guy literally drops fantastic packages on every one of his trading partners whenever he sends something. Johnny has sent me boxes of bobbleheads, massive and jammed Priority Mailers, and tons of awesome parallels that I have distinct difficulty finding in the wild at card shows or online.

John is right up there with Wes/JBF in my book -- both of them are incredibly generous fellow SEC fans who go above and beyond and seemingly ask for very little in return generally. John recently (within the past two months) sent me yet another excellent package. To thank John, I did a little research and found some of his favorite bands from his past. That means I read his blog, by the way.

Anyway, let's get to the music and the cards!

One of the first things I found on John's blog was a post where he showed off a TON of cards from a set all about Kiss from the late 1970s. I think it's a Donruss set based off a search on Trading Card Database. Every time I see a set like that, I think, "Man, I need to look more at non-sports cards and collect some." 

Then that feeling passes as I look at my mounting want lists for the Brewers. I have chipped away at those in terms of organization, though -- I'm all the way up to 2014 in terms of getting all the Topps parallels, inserts, and autographs into binders!

Speaking of parallels and inserts...here are four parallels that I needed. It's always interesting to get a Yuniesky Betancourt card. How he started in 152 games at shortstop for a 2011 team that won 96 games and won the NL Central is one of sabermetrics biggest questions. Betancourt "hit" for an OPS of .652 and tallied -0.5 WAR. And the Brewers paid him $4.3 million for that "production." Wow.

For whatever reason, it makes me chuckle to look at that team page on Baseball Reference and see the photos of the top 12 players from that team -- nearly everyone is shown on a team other than Milwaukee! The list goes Ryan Braun (MIL), Prince Fielder (TEX), Shaun Marcum (CLE), Corey Hart (PIT), Nyjer Morgan (CLE), Yovani Gallardo (SEA), Rickie Weeks Jr. (TAM), Randy Wolf (DET), John Axford (OAK) Carlos Gomez (TEX), Zack Greinke (ARI), and Jerry Hairston Jr. (BAL).

By the way, that Surhoff #1 pick is one of my favorite cards. I loved that subset in the 1985 Topps, and I was disappointed that it came out too early in 1985 for B.J. to be included. 

Now, when I saw John was a CDB fan, I knew damn well that he is a true Southerner despite his questionable choice of being a Florida Gator. Charlie Daniels comes from that late 1970s pop-country music time when country was really still country, but, as always, certain pop sensibilities had invaded. You have your Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelsons, of course, but folks like Eddie Rabbitt and Ronnie Milsap and Barbara Mandrell were their generation's versions of Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, and Miranda Lambert. 

By the way, be sure to watch this video at least from the 3:30 mark on to see what happens when someone learns a new special kaleidoscope camera effect.

Let's get on the Upper Deck here. Two Prince Fielder inserts to go with a card from Carlos Lee to commemorate his short-lived Milwaukee stay and a Mat Gamel "Signature Star." Man, if Mat Gamel could have stayed healthy. All I got here, though, is that he went to the same Jacksonville High School as the daughter of two good friends of mine in Jacksonville (she's there as a senior now), and that his brother Ben is off to a pretty good start in Seattle this year.

I'm just not a huge fan of the song "Freebird," but I've listened to "Sweet Home Alabama" literally hundreds or thousands of times. I do hope that Neil Young will remember that a southern man don't need him around anyhow.

Of course, this is a big song for the University of Alabama, as you might expect. 

Man, I miss college football about this time of year.

Anyway...baseball cards....

Bowman seems to go well with the collegiate feel here for me. The whole "Bowman is about prospects" thing works in this regard. 

So, who is Cody Scarpetta and how did he end up on a Bowman Platinum card? Scarpetta was an 11th round draft pick in 2007 out of high school in Rockford, Illinois. His dad Dan was a third-round pick of the Brewers in 1982 who made it all the way to Triple-A before crashing out at the age of 25. Cody worked his way up the system all the way to Double-A Huntsville (Sweet Home Alabama) in 2011 and, in addition, made five appearances in the Arizona Fall League that year at the age of 22. He got shelled, and it was an indication that something was wrong -- as in, yup, Tommy John surgery. That really killed his career, though he continued to pitch in independent league baseball last year.

There are literally dozens of better songs from Steve Miller Band that I could have posted. But, I'm a child of the 1980s, and this song from 1982 is the one I most remember personally. Yes, "The Joker" is a thousand times better in my opinion, even if Billboard put this song at #70 on its list of Greatest Songs of all time. 

I bet my list would vary greatly from theirs.

Here's "the rest". Seth Lintz in the 2010 Pro Debut set as a blue parallel got into that set because he was a second round draft pick in 2008 out of high school. He barely made it to the Midwest League with the Brewers -- total of 14 appearances as a reliever in 2011 and 2012 with Wisconsin -- before he was cut loose. He made the independent league rounds some as well for a while, but it doesn't look like he has pitched since 2015.

Jed Bradley -- from Huntsville -- recently retired from baseball. He made it to the major leagues briefly last September with the Braves and appeared in 6 games in the same city where he went to college (he's a Tech kid). His card mate, Taylor Jungmann, was sent down to Double-A Biloxi earlier this year to be stretched out as a starter. Jungman and Bradley were both first round picks in 2011, but neither has really panned out. Jungmann's been passed not only Josh Hader, but also by Luis Ortiz and Brandon Woodruff and maybe even journeyman Paolo Espino.

My thanks go out to John as always for a great package of baseball cards. I would have played Molly Hatchet, but there's no damn way I'm putting any song called "Gator Country" on this blog!

Where Did the Time Go?

It's been a very long month for me. Today is the first day in 3 weeks that I haven't worked (at least I hope I won't work), so I finally get to sit down at my computer in my home office and relax for a day. Perhaps it is appropriate, then, that today I am writing about a package that I received in the mail almost two months ago now from someone whose 2016 buried them: Julie from A Cracked Bat.

Julie and I traded a few times back in 2015, when both of us had much more time on our hands to spend with our hobbies and our cards. Those halcyon days. Oh how I miss them.

I'm not complaining, though. I'm very happy with my job, and even though I have been exhausted lately it's much better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs and wondering how long I'd have a job (as was the case in 2014, to be fair).

Anyway, it's time to show off the cards. Let's get to them, powered by some music of course. I'm going to go a bit basic on the music though; since Julie's living in the great state of Michigan, I'll go with music from Michigander musicians.

Eminem

While I have not listened to much Eminem in the last several years -- I mean, I know he has released new stuff but I just haven't listened to it -- I have always liked a lot of his early stuff. "My Name Is" is a really good song that makes me think of my younger days ... holy crap, that song is from 1999. Geez I'm old.

Perhaps surprisingly, these cards are now eleven years old.  The word "Fleer" hasn't appeared on a baseball card since for a decade. Let that sink in for a moment. I will not bemoan the fact that baseball card collecting is more fun with multiple companies having licenses because the companies abused those licenses and collectors with their multitudinous parallels and inserts and parallels of inserts for most of the decade of the aughts.

For what it's worth, I am not a fan of the Fielder or the Weeks cards. The white on orange name plate reminds me too much of the vomit-inducing colors of the Tennessee Volunteers. Orange is evil, people.

Orange is evil.

Kid Rock

I'll admit it. This song -- again from 1999...this song graduates high school this year, y'all -- was something of a guilty pleasure for me 18 years ago. At least when it first came out. 1999 was the year of the rap-rockers like Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, and, at a more principled level, Korn. Kid Rock wasn't really a rap-rocker, though. As we have seen his career develop, he doesn't care about any particular genre of music -- he will besmirch them all given enough time.

If you're missing those days of 1999, though, feel free to sign up for the Kid Rock Cruise, featuring Kid Rock, Doug E. Fresh, and a bunch of artists I've never heard of.

I picked Kid Rock for these Gypsy Queen Minis because, back in the day, Kid Rock palled around with a dwarf named Joseph Calleja a/k/a Joe C. Joe C. had coeliac disease which stunted his growth at 3'9" tall and ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of 26. 

Joe C.'s contribution to American music did not end with his collaboration with Kid Rock. He also contributed an instant classic song to an important soundtrack. I'm speaking, of course, of his song "Kyle's Mom is a Big Fat Bitch" on the South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Soundtrack. May he rest in peace.

The Von Bondies

When I first heard the Von Bondies back in 2005 or 2006, I liked this song ("C'mon C'mon") but I can't actually remember hearing any other song by them at all. In fact, the only other thing that I remember about this band is that the lead singer Jason Stollsteimer got his ass kicked by Jack White at a Detroit club in 2003. Stollsteimer and White had been feuding in the press, apparently, and that led to the scuffle.

Ah, the craziness of youth.

As I was sorting through a bunch of Bowman after that Nashville card show I attended, I actually wondered aloud to myself where I had gotten the Bowman Platinum Orlando Arcia card. Now I know that I need to thank Julie for it!  That Trent Clark card seems to pop up in multiple iterations and parallels at nearly every show I attend as well -- but I don't think I had the purple one...just as I didn't have a purple Heritage High Number of the YMCA's favorite pitcher, Jungmann.

Sorry. Had to do it.

The Romantics

I could have gone for the two big hits that The Romantics had -- "What I Like About You" or "Talking in Your Sleep." But I wanted to go with this one because, well, look at how adored these guys with their poofed up pompadours are at this soda shop in 1983! Plus, all that vinyl clothing...it's too shiny to be leather, right, unless they legitimately are wearing patent leather jackets. 

I suppose that's possible, of course.

Just don't read the comments here, where people start saying how much they loved 80s girls because their body parts were real and their rear ends weren't the size of "airplane hangars." 

Yikes...

This random jumble of cards was intriguing. The Sheets card was a "Fleer" insert (after Fleer's name was bought by Upper Deck). The O'Leary card is one of those Cyberstats parallels, I think. Then you get the Topps reprint of Coooooooooooooooooooooooop! in the early 2000s -- you know, before the Brewers were reduced to getting cards of only Robin Yount with occasionally Paul Molitor thrown in. 

Then, there is the encapsulated "Just Minors" card of Gaby Hernandez and Yuniesky Betancourt. It's hard to comprehend how former GM Doug Melvin allowed himself to be put in a position where he forced his manager, Ron Roenicke, to play Yuni for 68 games at FIRST BASE in 2013 -- a season in which Betancourt's slash line was .212/.240/.355. It made Juan Francisco look like Paul Goldschmidt.

The real question, though, is whether Julie was just trolling me with that card. After all, Betancourt came up in the Seattle system, and that card shows him with San Antonio in 2005. The other guy on the card, Gaby Hernandez, was a Mets farmhand in the Gulf Coast league in 2004 when his photo was taken.

Hmmmm....

The White Stripes

I could use Michigan music for literally dozens more posts -- there are so many great options available from there. But after mentioning Jack White above, I felt compelled to go this direction. However, there's no way I would subject you to the now ubiquitous "Seven Nation Army." I remember in 2006 that that song got adopted by the European Championships as the song for the crowd to chant aloud. It was cool then.

Now, 11 years later, it's a tired cliche. It's been beaten into the ground by nearly every sports team on every continent. If Antarctica had a sports team, the penguins supporting the team would chant that damn song. 

Come on, folks -- come up with something new. Y'all finally got past having Blur's "Song 2" blasted every three seconds during NBA games -- let "Seven Nation Army" drop now too.

The final card I'm highlighting is this beautiful SP Legendary Cuts of Warren Spahn. Julie's one of the bloggers who remembers that I also have several Milwaukee Brave collections that I chase. It's always a pleasure to get a new one, too.

Julie, thanks for the great cards and sorry for how long it took me to post them!