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. 

Tardiness, Thy Name Is Off Hiatus

In some respects, Shakespeare presaged the internet. By that, I mean that Shakespeare was really incredible at coming up with pithy yet memorable lines that completely foretold the coming love 500 years later for memes. 

One that has persisted for centuries derived from Hamlet -- "Frailty, thy name is woman." To paraphrase Wikipedia, the "____, thy name is ____" phrasing is used to indicate the completeness with which something or somebody embodies a particular (usually negative) quality. 

That applies completely to me this month. I keep complaining about how work keeps getting in the way of blogging, but it does. I guess I need to start writing things up on weekends and scheduling and releasing them during the week or something. But then, I get tired of writing or I start writing in the same vein constantly and I fear that folks will get bored.

At any rate, today I am going to combine a couple of things that came in to the OHHQ from random directions. One is an obvious source and the other sounds just strange.

Happy Holidays from Topps

While I was never a fan of Wham! or of George Michael, there is no denying that the man could sing and write catchy songs. 

The Wham Christmas song goes well with Topps's Topps Now Holiday card. Lord knows I am critical of Topps on many levels. Topps deserves much of the criticism I send its way too. Take this holiday card, for instance. On the back, it features Ichiro (for his 3000th hit, I'd assume) and David Ortiz for his retirement. And while I have made multiple jokes about the multiplicity of David Ortiz Topps Now cards, the fact is that Ortiz had an excellent career. 

Then you see this side of the card. You get Kris Bryant -- the NL MVP who led the Cubs to the team's first World Series victory in 108 years. 

But Gary Sánchez? 

Gary Sanchez, thy name is shoe.

Yes, he had a good debut this year for his two months in the majors -- 20 homers in 53 games is nothing to sneeze at. But come on! He wasn't the AL Rookie of the Year -- Michael Fullmer was, and deservedly so. Sanchez was not the AL MVP -- Mike Trout was and deservedly so as well (only Mookie Betts was within a win by WAR of anyone in the majors of Trout's shocking 10.6 WAR) and, in fact, did not even get a single vote. 

So what the hell is he doing on a 2016 Highlights card, other than the fact that Topps had its own little Sanchez-gasm, spewing Gary Sanchez Topps Now cards around like Ron Jeremy at the AVN awards? I guess Topps felt like it needed to send its own employees a Christmas card with their favorite team on it.

Cards from Christmas for Kids

My wife does a lot of volunteering around Dunwoody. One of the coolest ones is Christmas for Kids. The Dunwoody Police Department collects up toys through donations. They then work with local social workers and local child services organizations to identify children in need and give those children invitations to a special outing the weekend before Christmas. 

At the event, the children are ordered by their relative level of need. The neediest go in first and get to select multiple gifts for themselves. The kids get to meet Santa, and they get to eat free food from local food trucks which volunteer and donate the food for the day. 

At the end of the event this year, there were tons and tons of toys left over. There were so many toys left over, in fact, that the DPD drove around Dunwoody on Christmas with toys in the back of a patrol truck and handed them out at local apartment complexes. My wife saw some cards laying around unclaimed and asked the police about them. Turns out that the cards had been left for a couple of years, so they said that my wife should take them.

It's a bit sad, therefore, that I have these cards. After all, it means that dozens of kids decided they would rather have some GI Joe toy -- or whatever else was available -- instead of grabbing baseball cards. I'll take them, but I feel bad about it.

On the bright side, I got some good stuff:

Such as a complete factory set of the 2009 Upper Deck First Edition set complete with relic and five 20th Anniversary cards. What did I get from those?

Josh Barfield didn't make it past 2009 as a major leaguer. He started his career pretty well with the Padres in 2006. He was passed by Asdrubal Cabrera in the organization by the end of 2007. He kicked around the minors thereafter, and played last in 2013 in the Atlantic League. Most recently, he has been a part of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization as the Assistant Director of Pro Scouting.

Otherwise, my 20th Anniversary cards were decent. Granted, I'm not a hockey guy, so I had to Google him to find out that Eric Staal is a "Triple Gold Club" member, being a winner of the Stanley Cup (2006), the World Championships (2007), and the Winter Olympics (2010). 

I've heard of the other four people/things, though the whole idea of putting "The Universe" on a card is a bit ridiculous. Maybe we can get a "stars of the stars" card set to highlight all the great stars in the sky soon.

As for the set itself, well, it's a set. I needed nearly all the Brewers in the set, so no complaints there. It was fun to see CC Sabathia in a Brewers' uniform and to see Mat Gamel listed with uniform number 98 though.



And, this set was a great reminder of how good a card design can be when you don't have the creeping death fog at the corners of the card.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and I'll try to write again this week -- but I do have to go to work some too!

Rip It Up

By now, you have probably seen the Holiday rip cards from Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown. 

It's the first time since I got back into collecting a few years ago that I was legitimately happy to see a 1989 Fleer card show up. Of course, like nearly everyone, I did the right thing when I got this card. I had to Rip It Up.

While Little Richard didn't write the song, his version was released first. So, I'm giving him credit for that -- meaning everyone after that was a cover. A quick YouTube search shows, well, it's absolutely crazy how many covers there are of this song. It's so crazy that I'm going to treat you to a few of them. 

But I'm going to make you wait on what is inside until the end.

1.  Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley released his version shortly after Little Richard did, so it's a close question as to whether this counts as a cover. 

To start this off, I am going to highlight the protection that Gavin sent for these cards. He always sends interesting things, and this one was no different:

It's been over two years now since I had a dog around. With the two cats we have getting along famously and fabulously, we just don't want to introduce a third party into the situation to throw all that off. But I miss my Cinnie girl.

We subscribed to the BarkBox for a few years for her. She loved some of the treats, turned up her nose at other treats, and generally was a good sport about the whole deal. Even if that meant having a Christmas bow on her head.

Okay, let's get back to happier things -- baseball cards, of course.

2. Paul McCartney

The Beatles covered this song as part of a medley with "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "Blue Suede Shoes," a track that was released on their Anthology 3 album. This version is Sir Paul covering the song live in concert.

Yeah, this card is pretty interesting. Is there a "Groveling Gavin" version of it somewhere? Perhaps this one is it:

I tried chewing tobacco when I was about 7 or 8 years old -- maybe younger. I think that is the perfect age to try it because you have no idea what to do and you think it's like gum or something and swallow it and become violently ill. And it takes like crap at that age too.

Or maybe that's just me.

3.  Buddy Holly

Perhaps this song was one of those songs that artists in the 1950s just had to play. You know -- like how every cover band has to play "Twist and Shout"? Because Buddy Holly isn't the only singer from this era to cover it. There will be more. 

Hey, I have a great analogy now! Every band and artist in the 1950s had to play "Rip It Up" just like Topps/Bowman must have at least 10 different parallels for every one of its sets! That's it! 

Don't get me wrong here -- as a player collector, I do enjoy getting these parallels for those collections. But as the numbers of parallels stack up in each set, I start thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't try to put together full sets for my Brewers collection of these."

Then I laugh, have a drink, and forget I ever said that to myself. I'm easily amused, especially when I'm in a pure Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness mode.

4.  Elvis Presley

See, I told you there were more from that era who played it. I mean, Elvis never met a song he didn't try to take and make his own. Or, rather, Elvis never wrote any of his own songs -- even the fawning "Elvis History Blog" says that he was not a singer-songwriter. So, it should come as no surprise that he or Colonel Tom Parker would hear a song with a good beat and say, "Elvis, you gotta sing this song." And he would.

Apropos of a southerner of whom a lot was asked, here's Ben Sheets. A serial numbered to 899 Ben Sheets from 2006 SP Authentic at that. That's pretty good in my book.

5.  Stray Cats

Considering the band's sensibilities -- and Brian Setzer's later dabbling in Big Band/Swing music when it got popular again in the 1990s -- it should hardly be surprising that the Stray Cats would cover this song. I don't know when or where this cover came from -- I'd guess the early 1980s somewhere. But the Cats do shred on it.

Astin was the Brewers third round pick in 2013 out of the University of Arkansas (Woo Pig Sooie and all that). The Brewers sent Astin along with Kevin Shackelford to the Cincinnati Reds in late 2014 in exchange for the large human being that is Jonathan Broxton. Broxton chipped in 47 innings at a 5.55 ERA clip (though with a FIP of 3.47) before the Brewers sent him to St. Louis in exchange for Malik Collymore (an Ontario native who "hit" .167/.227/.208 in 208 plate appearances in the Florida State League in 2016 at the age of 21). 

Astin and especially Shackelford have a chance to make the Reds this year, what with the Reds still being in flux and all. Astin will start in Triple-A this season, and Shackelford pitched creditably in Louisville in 2016 out of the bullpen.

6. The Chipmunks

If the Chipmunks did a song, you know it was probably overplayed. Funny thing, though -- at this point in my life and despite growing up with The Chipmunks being on TV regularly, I think the only song I really remember by them is The Christmas Song.

Gavin was responsible for putting the first Donruss Optic card in my hands this year. At least I think he was. I have probably about 2500 cards stacked up on my desk now waiting to get sorted out and cataloged thanks to the crazy generosity from the blogosphere this year, so I may have gotten other Optic cards from other places first but just haven't featured them yet.

I look at this card and think, "Damn it MLB, give Panini rights to use your logos just on the Donruss sets. Limit their parallels. Limit their inserts. Give them a trial run, and see if they do a decent job and not screw it up -- just please give us a little bit of competition for Topps."

Then I remember that MLB really doesn't care about collectors except for getting their licensing fee blood out of Topps. Oh yeah. Forgot that.

7. David Thibault

Wait. This guy is just a French-Canadian Elvis impersonator. No, really. The guy nails Elvis's voice on some French-Canadian morning show at this link. I'm waiting for the brunette with the really straight hair and bangs to start screaming like it's the Ed Sullivan Show.

But really, I can't end with this guy. Him covering this song is like a double cover, since his whole life is covering Elvis. 

8. Los Lobos

This cover was done as a part of Los Lobos providing the soundtrack for the movie La Bamba in 1987. Lou Diamond Phillips "sings" the song in the movie, but the Los Lobos version did not come out until their career retrospective El Cancionero Mas y Mas in 2000 was released.

Here's the carnage after the ripping of the rip card took place. Sorry if anyone wanted that special collector's 15/25 version of the double Gwynn for their collection -- maybe you can talk someone else into being nicer to their card than I was to this one.

9.  Hanson

No shit. The little girls shrieking in the crowd probably thought that Hanson were the first to sing this song even though they say they are covering Little Richard at the very beginning of the song. 

See, once something like this happens to a song, it's a sign that the song really should be discarded. If the phrase "jump the shark" hadn't become so trite, it would describe what happened to this song to a T. Except that even then, it wouldn't really capture it. 

Not to be too harsh, but listening to this version would make Little Richard roll over in James Brown's grave. Little Richard is still alive, by the way.

Thankfully, the contents of the rip card were far better than this crapola:

I tried to fix my poor scanning job on this. Here's the straighter version:

 

I love the unique Robin Yount collectibles that Gavin has added to my collection in the past, and this artistic magnet is just awesome.

Thank you so much, Gavin, for letting me Rip It Up.

One More Bonus Box

At the same time that I bought the Heritage Minors box from Blowout, I looked for another box to buy as well. I wanted to spend a total of $100 to treat myself for a job well done this year in developing business as a lawyer (which led to the bonus I got, which led to the money I spent). Yeah, it was more than $100, but bills come first, of course.

Still, I was treating myself. But I still wanted to get cards I needed. So, I looked at my want lists for a set that I needed a lot of cards for, found a box from over a decade ago where I had a significant list, and hit the purchase button.

I chose 2004 SP Prospects. It's a colorful set -- lots of blues and reds and golds and reflective stuff going on. The box promised five autographs on average and one or two relic cards. I looked at the autograph list and knew I wouldn't be pulling anything special, so I went into it looking for fun.

It wasn't too bad. It wasn't as fun as I had hoped, though. 

The obvious reason as to why it was a Stooge box: One single Brewer card.

One. Jeff Bennett, from Donelson, Tennessee. Bennett was a 19th round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates out of high school. The Brewers picked him up in the Rule 5 draft after a 2003 season where Bennett pitched pretty well for Double-A Altoona before getting bombarded at Triple-A Nashville. He stuck for the whole year in 2004 with the Brewers. In 2005, he was back at Triple-A Nashville but with the Brewers organization. He missed 2006, and the Brewers cut him after that.

His odyssey did not end there, however. He pitched in 2007 in the Braves organization and with the Braves before making 72 appearances -- including 4 starts and racking up 3 saves -- in Atlanta in 2008. 2009 was a nightmare, though. Though he pitched pretty well for the Braves superficially (3.18 ERA), he walked 21 in 34 innings and found himself first in Triple-A and then on waivers. The Rays picked him up, and he made his last appearance in the majors in the 2009 season.

But, he kept plugging away. He was back in the Brewers system in 2010 after getting cut. He absolutely sucked in 2010, though -- 15 games, 21 innings, 11.14 ERA, 21 walks, 15 Ks, 26 earned runs. So, in 2011 at the age of 31, he pitches in the Atlantic League. The Diamondbacks pick him up for Triple-A insurance midway through June and cut him in August. He goes to Venezuela and Mexico for the winter, and then back to the Atlantic League in 2012. 

2013 -- more of the same. He gets an NRI with Colorado, but it leads back to the Atlantic League again, and then to the Mexican League with Tabasco and the Mexican Winter League. 

The next year, he starts with Reynosa in Mexico and pitches well in 7 starts. That gets him a Triple-A gig with the Dodgers -- 21 starts in Albuquerque. In the end, though, and at the age of 34, he can't find anywhere to hook on for the 2015 season and perhaps finally called it a career.

They won't all be this long. I promise.

So, my autographs? Well, I got them.

These four were just the pedestrian, run-of-the-mill draft pick autographs. Swarzak actually pitched in the major leagues last year with the New York Yankees and has made 217 appearances in the bigs. He was the Twins 2nd round pick out of Nova High School in Davie, Florida. He, too, has gotten to travel around a bit, though he spent all of 2012 through 2014 in the majors. He washed out in 2015 after the first few months of the season in Cleveland and ended up with Doosan in Korea for 20 starts. The Yankees picked him up, and he split time between Scranton and the Bronx last season.

Speaking of Yankees, Brett Smith was the Yanks second round pick in 2004 out of UC-Irvine. He got as far as Trenton in the Eastern League before he lost a season to injury in 2008. He came back in 2009 and pitched 6 games in the independent Golden Baseball League in 2010, but that was it.

John Anthony Raglani was the Dodgers 5th round pick out of noted baseball hotbed George Washington University. He played from 2004 through 2007 for the Dodger organization as an outfielder with some pop. His last year in Double-A Jacksonville was not bad -- .248/.369/.461, 21 HR, 85 BB, 139 K in a league that hit .259/.334/.392 as a whole -- but Raglani decided that his future would require his brain rather than his braun. He went back to GW, finished his undergrad degree, worked for a couple of years in insurance, and then went to law school. He's now an associate at Arnold & Porter in DC (and yes, those of us in the legal world call that firm A&P like the old grocery stores).

Finally, Sean Gamble was a sixth round pick in 2004 for the Philadelphia Phillies out of Auburn University. He only lasted 3 years in the minors before playing two seasons of independent baseball. By the way, yes, his dad is Oscar Gamble. Sean now lives in Atlanta and serves as a scout for the Rockies. His Facebook profile photo is a picture of him under a banner showing his dad. Spitting image.

Okay, one more autograph -- and I bet back in 2004 this one would have been a pretty decent pull:

Bill Bray AND Collin Balester! Bray didn't get to pitch in Montreal, though he was the 13th overall pick and the final first round pick for the Montreal Expos in 2004. The Expos could have selected Billy Butler, Stephen Drew, Gio Gonzalez, or Yovani Gallardo, among others. Bray last pitched in the majors in 2012 and now is in law school at William & Mary.

Balester was the Expos 4th round pick in 2004. He made it to the major leagues in 2008 with the Nationals, and stayed there through 2011. In 2012, he pitched 11 games for the Tigers. He spent 2013 in the Texas organization, but I'm guessing he was hurt -- only 6 appearances. In 2014 and 2015, he spent time in the Pirates organization, but never made the majors. Midway through the year, the Reds bought his contract from the Pirates and gave him a shot to play a bit. He ended up in Korea for three games in 2016 and got hammered there -- 12-1/3 innings, 20 hits, 12 walks, 5 strikeouts. Now, it appears that he is a Pac-12 troll on Twitter.

The other two cards worth showing are my relic cards. The SP Prospect relics were from Team USA Baseball. Who did I get?

Clement was the Mariners first round pick -- third overall -- in 2005 and he got a $3.4 million bonus. The video at this link has him saying that he threw that money into the stock market and watched it evaporate in the Great Recession. At least my 401(k) wasn't the only one taking a hit. Like all scrub catchers are required to do, he spent time in Pittsburgh, and it was in 2012 with the Pirates that he played his final major league game. In 2015, he served as a volunteer assistant with the Iowa Hawkeyes baseball team.

Last one was at least someone whose name was instantly recognizable:

Gordon was drafted one slot before Clement in 2005 -- the Royals took him 2nd overall out of the University of Nebraska. Dude is making serious coin now -- he signed a free agent contract after the 2015 season of four years for $72 million. The Royals may have fallen victim to overvaluing their own players when they did that -- his first year's return was to hit 17 homers with a .220/.312/.380 slash line -- an OPS+ of 84. Yeah. Not so good.

In the end, this box was not all that bad. It was fun getting to see early cards of guys like Gordon and "Benjamin" Zobrist, among others. I was not following the American League for much of the time I was out of collecting, so it was cool to see names I should know but don't pop up as well.

Would I buy another box? Probably not. But it was a fun rip. 

As always, if you need something from this post or from that set, let me know and I'll see if I can help.

Christmas with All Trade Bait All The Time

Here amongst the baseball card blogorati -- which is sort of like the Illuminati but with bubble gum stains-- discussions often turn from baseball cards and baseball to discussions on beer and bourbon and other similar vices. Since we are all collectors, a lot of us like to collect experiences on tops of our cards.

One of the guys with whom I interact regularly is Oscar from All Trade Bait, All the Time. Oscar is a unique dude. He is a Dodger fan -- which is as unique as sand at a beach in Florida in the blog world -- but he is studying Buddhism on the way to getting a Masters degree in Buddhist Psychology. Oscar also is one of the beer guys, as he gets together with buddies and samples beer and cigars.

Oscar is just a all-around good dude.

He confirmed that with his "club PWE" mailings recently. Here's what he sent to me:

This card is a subtly terrible photo. The way the lighting hits Brock's mouth makes it appear that he's missing a tooth or two up front in his mouth.  He also looks a bit hungover. 

Oscar, is Brock a member of your beer club?

This photo looks like Vaughn was in a photo studio in front of a green screen and the background was photoshopped in. In fact, I'd bet dollars to donuts that is what happened here. I don't think that lighting behind him occurs naturally.

Is Gary Sheffield a Hall of Famer? The answer to that question has to start with the elephant in the room: his steroid use is admitted and well known.  He gave an interview saying that Barry Bonds introduced him to the BALCO labs. He claimed he did not know that BALCO supplied him with steroids. 

I tend to give very little weight to such claims of a lack of knowledge.

The more relevant question relates to his overall numbers. On some levels, he should be a Hall of Famer. The Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor puts him #78 overall with a 158 score (likely HOFer is around 100). The Hall of Fame standards test is a Baseball-Reference creation that puts him at 61, with the average HOFer around 50. 

On the other hand, looking at JAWS and WAR, though, and comparing him to right fielders, his career WAR is below the average HOF RF, his 7-year peak is below average, and his JAWS is below average. And, the black ink and grey ink standards there also say he is not a Hall member. 

I think that's right. Just because he went over the 500-homer mark does not make him a HOFer. He doesn't get there without steroids, either. Sorry Gary.

Not sorry.

The Brewers paid Franklin Stubbs $4 million over 2 years, yet lowballed Paul Molitor after the 1992 season and offered less than $1 million a year. 

I don't get it either.

Minis! These UK Minis were never on my radar screen in the late 1980s. Apparently enough of them were printed then, however, that they are typical filler in repacks. The "Tiffany" version is pretty cool though.

This is what it would look like if a baseball player were also a stalker. Probably.

Another mini! I keep putting off buying the 12-pocket sheets for these cards, and yet with GQ and A&G pushing out more and more minis, I am probably going to have to break down and buy them. Zach Davies had a good year last year -- he's a solid mid-rotation starter for the Brewers. Hopefully, going forward, he will end up lower in the rotation thanks to others jumping him rather than him sinking down without being passed.

And, finally:

Thanks to all the random parallels that infect Topps sets like the Zika virus migrating into Miami, I feel like I have or should have this card already. But, it's a high number in Heritage, meaning it's a short print. Why is it that I have about three or four of those chrome parallels for it, but this is the first copy of this card in my collection? 

Are the chrome parallels more readily available than the regular base set cards? If so, that's ridiculous. Base set cards should be more plentiful than parallels. They should -- if set collectors meant anything to Topps, that is. 

Well, at least I like beer.

Thanks, Oscar, for the PWE, the beer recommendations, and the fact that you are just a good dude!