An Infield Fly from the Colorado Mountains

Adam from Infield Fly Rule is a Rockies collector and, for some reason -- I think it was #SuperTraders -- he sent me a package of Brewers cards. I'm fighting a cold right now so my brain isn't working terribly well. As a result, the cards Adam sent are going to get a musical treatment to help me some ideas on what to write.

With no more introduction than that, here we go!

Let's start with a jam band I have known about for about 18 years now but have not listened to hardly at all: The String Cheese Incident. These guys formed 24 years ago, and they are originally from Crested Butte and Telluride. This song, "Colorado Bluebird Sky," has some pretty clear bluegrass influences, though the guitar solos are very much in the jazzy/prog rock tradition. In other words, it's totally a jam band. 

It seems appropriate to use this song to introduce a card that looks like it could have been hidden in a jam jar. It's a 1994 Score Rookies & Traded set card of Matt Mieske, not that you can read his name in that swirl of yellow and red at the bottom of the card. It's like someone at Score/Pinnacle took a look at 1990 Donruss and it's red ashtray border and said, "YES! THAT'S IT!"

At any point in life, if you find yourself saying "THAT'S IT" when pondering the design of 1990 Donruss, life has clearly gone wrong.

3OH!3 is from Boulder, and this song ("Don't Trust Me") hit number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2008. Though their career has apparently gone on since that song, I have heard one other song by them -- "My First Kiss" with Ke$ha. This song is very catchy, and it's hard to believe that it is already nine years ago. Of course, considering that I have started encountering first year lawyers who were born after I started college, I'm feeling quite geriatric now that I'm 45. 



Having nothing to do with me feeling geriatric, I present two cameo cards that have made their ways into my player collections. The one on the left features a neon Jeff Treadway trying to tag out a very matte version of Robin Yount. On the right, Ty Wigginton is successfully catching a ball on a bang-bang play at first base that looks like it might have just gotten Rickie Weeks out.

Cards like these are great to get in trade packages because most of the time such cameos elude me. I'm still too busy trying to catalog my 2013 Bowman parallels.

Long before Katy Perry talked about kissing girls and making it seem so titillating, Jill Sobule -- born in Denver -- was singing this song for the Clueless soundtrack in 1995. This odd video helped drive the song to success on alternative radio. Sobule's song is very much more of a 1950s still flirtation, while Katy Perry was in full on Jenna Jameson make-out territory with hers...not that there's anything wrong with that.

Ahem.



Another area in cards where I sometimes miss out on Brewers is when they are listed as being on other teams. Apparently, the Brewers cast aside a few players to the Rockies in their time. The Triple Play Brewer-Rockie combinations worked out far better than the Fleer and Upper Deck guys did. Holmes was nothing special in Milwaukee -- 2 seasons, 9 saves in 81 total appearances -- but in Colorado he earned the scarlet "C" for closer in 1993 (saving 25) and rode that to a career through 2003.

Jim Tatum and Tim Bausher? Not so much. Tatum came to bat a total of 218 times in 5 seasons with trips to Japan, Mexico, and Korea thrown in for good measure. Bausher never got to the majors and, oddly enough, only made 16 appearances in the Rockies system.

Bichette? Y'all know him.

Every once in while during my early morning runs -- which I'm still trying to do despite the winter temperatures -- this song comes on the local radio station I listen to while I'm out. I can honestly say that I do not recall the song getting much airplay on the stations that I listened to in the 1990s. 

Of course, I also recall being in Salt Lake City in 1993 for an NCAA tournament game. I was in the Vanderbilt basketball pep band, and we were playing in the First and Second Round at the University of Utah. We saw a marquee that said that Big Head Todd & The Monsters -- from Boulder -- were playing at this club. I chuckled inside at the name, but one of the women in the band pointed and said, "Dude, those guys are awesome" or something similarly nondescriptive.

They aren't bad. This song has grown on me, even if it sucks to try to run to it.

Yeah, it's as close to "Big Head Todd" as I can get. The amount of texturing and Photoshop work done on this photo makes it look positively awful. Bring back real photos -- not CGI Baseball cards!

This is legitimately the first time I have ever listened to a song by OneRepublic, who hail from Colorado Springs. This song isn't bad. It's a typical, overwrought ballad for a movie or something, I suppose. But it could be a lot worse. They recently released a new album, in case you're interested. The one song I've heard from it (just now, since Wikipedia said it's a different sound from previous albums) is called "Kids" and it sounds like Imagine Dragons-Light to me. It's not bad, but it's not exactly ground breaking.

Nothing wrong with that. Ask any musician and they will tell you that everyone is still riffing off the Beatles, the Stones, and Elvis.

Topps has been trying for years and years and years to incorporate digital cards into its repertoire. This is because it is easier to print digital cards -- there is literally no overhead other than licensing. Topps finally broke down a couple of years ago and rolled out the Bunt app, which I used for about 3 weeks before growing tired of it.

This is a "Gold" Invitation to Topps Town from 2010. It's the rarer of the invitations, I believe. Eventually, I'll get all these inserts catalogued. Till then, I just gather them up in a monster box or two and hope that I don't lose any.

Finally, we have The Fray, a band that formed in Denver. This song, "Over My Head (Cable Car)" also shows up from time to time on my alt-rock radio station. The follow up to this song, "How to Save a Life," got played constantly -- to the point where The Fray's album in 2009 was #1 for the entire year.

Drawing on Wikipedia again, critics compare them to Coldplay and Keane because of using piano as the lead instrument. The band says they were influenced by Counting Crows and Better Than Ezra. I can see that too.

They aren't bad -- at least in my book they aren't.

These are not ordinary 2014 cards. Nope. They are 2014 minis! Slowly but surely, I am creeping up on getting a complete team set for the Brewers from that year. Maybe someday I will complete it. 

In the meantime, my thanks go out to Adam for the great cards and the excuse to dig into Colorado music.

John Denver needed to be here. He just did.

Thanks for reading.

Another Trade Post from Not Another Baseball Card Blog

Before I introduce some cool cards I received from Mike at Not Another Baseball Card Blog, I heard some very sad news today. Hobby legend Bob Lemke passed away today. 

For those of you who do not know that name, Mr. Lemke was the Editor for the final version of which I am aware of the bible of cards, the 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. He also edited the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, which was published in October of 2011 and the Standard Catalog of Minor League Cards, which does not appear to have been updated since It came out in 2000. For many years, he worked for Krausse Publications in Iola, Wisconsin -- the publishers of Sports Collectors Digest and Baseball Cards Magazine -- and his Wisconsin background showed itself regularly in the custom cards he made available through his information-packed blog. His knowledge about all things in our hobby and his proselytizing for the hobby will be missed.

After that somber note, the only appropriate way to respond is to be reverential. Mike from NABCB sent me a number of Canadian cards that I needed for my various team sets and player collections along with some Pacific Legends -- for which I think I now have a complete Milwaukee Braves set.

Let's start with the Pacific Legends



The Pacific Legends set is a concept that I feel like should be brought back by someone other than Topps to highlight the stars of the 1970s and 1980s. I don't trust Topps to do it -- we'd probably end up with 12 variations of Dave Collins and Dale Berra on the Yankees and then one card of Lloyd Moseby to represent the Blue Jays.

But doesn't that sound like a good idea? 

If you look at the list of players who were featured in the original sets, it is a hodgepodge of players from all through baseball history and of varying abilities. It's got everyone from Ty Cobb and Eddie Mathews to Ed Kranepool and Gary Peters. 

I feel like a set of nostalgia like this could do well. I mean, we don't need another set with Paul Molitor and Robin Yount in it, but would you say no if Molitor and Yount and Brett and Gossage were joined by Chris Chambliss, Steve Balboni, Willie Mays Aikens, Lonnie Smith, Vince Coleman, Joe Charbonneau, Mel Hall, Greg Walker, Mickey Rivers, Oddibe McDowell, Jody Davis, Eric Davis, George Bell, Charlie Lea, and Bob Welch?

Archives started out like this, but Topps gave up on that concept quickly and started adding more current players/rookies to drive sales. It's too bad.

Why in the world would I put up two Fleer 1990 cards -- especially a checklist? Because these two cards were the final two Fleer Canadian cards that I needed to complete my team set. I happened across an eBay seller who had two team sets at a reasonable price, so I bought them. It was easier than having to turn over literally every single 1990 Fleer card I ever see to check for "PTD IN CANADA" on the back. Mike happened to have these last two cards that did not come in the team set, and so he sent them to me.

Proving that guys that make the major leagues are special -- especially if they are from a small town -- George Canale was honored in May of 2016 by Cave Spring High School by having his jersey retired. Canale is a Virginia Tech legend, having set the Tech record for career homers (76) and RBI for the Hokies during his three seasons there (1984-1986). Canale retired after the 1999 season and owns a batting cage facility in the Roanoke, Virginia area.



See, here are two guys who should be in that 80s Legends set. Ted Higuera won 20 games in his second season in the majors -- completing 15 games in the process and finishing second in the Cy Yount Award voting behind Roger Clemens's 24-4 season. Funny thing: according to WAR on Baseball-Reference, Higuera was 0.5 wins better than Clemens even though Roger was a unanimous winner.

B.J. Surhoff had a long career in the majors -- 19 years, in fact -- and finished his career with 2326 hits. Perhaps if he had gotten more playing time in Atlanta in 2000-2002 and not been a catcher for much of his early career he would have had a better start offensively and gotten to those major milestones. 



And finally, we have almost certainly the least interesting O-Pee-Chee cards to have ever come out -- the 1990 versions. Keeping the Topps logos on the front and being different only by the occasional "Now With" notation on the front along with the bilingual backs, 1990 O-Pee-Chee really just mailed it in. 

I will say, though, that Jerry Reuss and perhaps Bill Krueger also should have places in that 1980s Legends series I'm advocating for. 

Krueger is an interesting case -- almost certainly he stayed in the major leagues as long as he did because he threw left-handed. He didn't make it to the majors until he was 25, but he stayed until he was 37. In that time, he played for Oakland, the Dodgers, the Brewers, the Mariners, the Twins, Montreal, Detroit, San Diego, and back to Seattle and split his time almost evenly between starting and relieving. He was both more accomplished and more nondescript than I had ever recalled.

And that is saying something.

Perhaps Chris Bosio should be in the 90s Legends version instead. 

Mike, thank you very much for plugging up some gaps in my Canadian baseball card collections -- it is much appreciated. 

Happy New Year with Shoebox Legends

Over the past year, I've started keeping a new binder. The label on the binder is called "Random Cards I Like," and I started it because I did not have a good place to put cards that weren't Brewers. So, stuff like the Malcolm Mitchell printing plate that Wes/JBF sent me went in there, as did the T206 and the John Norwood Bowman parallel that Kenny/Zippy Zappy sent. 

I was not expecting that I would add tons of cards to this binder, but a recent package that I received has led me to reevaluate that position. Shane from Shoebox Legends sent me a PWE that, at first, looked like any other PWE. It had some protective cards, and behind those were, of course, Brewers.

Let's see those first:



This is already an incredibly fantastic PWE. I have no grievances with a PWE that features a 1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection card -- especially of the late Darryl Hamilton. Being an optimist, I see any PWE with a 1995 Bazooka card of Dave Nilsson as half full. Then, including the 2007 Bowman Heritage Carlos Corporan in that PWE -- sometimes I wonder how much you guys read these wantlists/wishlists on my website, but this card showing up shows me Shane probably did.

But it seems very unlikely that a high-number short-print from Topps Heritage of anyone -- not just Ryan Braun -- would find its way to me. That just makes me smile.

If Shane had stopped to take a breath here, he would have been nearly marked for immortality. 

Can anyone other than Shane figure out where this is going?

You all know I love music. I've probably mentioned once or twice that I have a few real favorites. One of those real favorites is Pearl Jam, who have put out songs called "Grievance," "1/2 Full," "Wishlist," "Smile," "Breath," and "Immortality." Yes, it is a contrived way to write a post, but sometimes you have to go with it because it makes sense.

Eddie Vedder is a big baseball fan -- very much a Cubs fan, of course, with his Chicago upbringing. This past summer, they played two shows at Fenway Park and followed it up two weeks later with two shows at Wrigley Field. In conjunction with these two shows, Pearl Jam put out some baseball cards. Shane apparently got a pack or two and shared these with me:



Hawaiian Boom Gaspar joined Pearl Jam as an unofficial member in 2002. Even though he has played on tour with the band and recorded with the band continually since that time, he still is not listed as an official member for whatever legal reasons that may be involved. Of course, after 15 years, he's "basically" a member. I remember when he really was added -- on Riot Act -- and one of the songs that really features him is "Love Boat Captain," which dealt with the Roskilde tragedy:

This is a song that has really grown on me. When it was new, I wasn't really keen on it. But, the lyrics really make the song. Once I learned the lyrics and heard the message, it really grabbed me. Fifteen years later, it grabs me more.

Matt Cameron has been Pearl Jam's drummer since 1998 after Jack Irons (originally of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) left the band due to what Irons's Wikipedia biography called Irons's dissatisfaction with touring. Cameron had worked with Pearl Jam before in the band Temple of the Dog thanks to his work as Soundgarden's drummer. Every so often, Pearl Jam will play the song -- sometimes joined by Chris Cornell as happened in September of 2011 at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin:

Damn Chris Cornell can still wail.

Vedder had to love the opportunity to hit the cages in both Chicago and Boston. If you know the history of Pearl Jam, you probably know that Vedder was living in San Diego working part-time at a gas station when he got a demo tape from his basketball buddy Jack Irons -- there's Jack again. Vedder laid down the vocal tracks to what has been called in the PJ lore as the Momma-Son trilogy: "Alive," "Once," and "Footsteps."

Both "Alive" and "Once" made PJ's debut album, Ten. "Footsteps," however, ended up as a B-side and eventually made its way onto the Lost Dogs album.

A far more detailed story on this whole backstory is available at Two Feet Thick, a Pearl Jam fansite. Pearl Jam has some of the most loyal fans around -- people who buy everything in site and go to all the shows. The band rewards its fan club members in the Ten Club with preferred seating in the front rows of each venue along with Christmas bonus vinyl and early availability of bootlegs from the soundboard recordings. That website is quite the deep dive, but it is not uncommon in the Pearl Jam world.

 

Mike McCready helped Pearl Jam to form thanks to his friendship with Stone Gossard. McCready was in a Seattle band called Shadow which broke up in 1988. He got disenchanted with being in a band and went to community college for a while before seeing a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert and getting back into playing guitar.

The story behind "Reach Down" is that it was written as part of the Temple of the Dog sessions that McCready, Gossard, and Ament (and later Vedder) took part in with Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron. McCready was playing a solo for this song in the studio -- and it was epic. Over four minutes long, and McCready lost his headphone monitor midway through the solo...so he had no idea what the backing track sounded like while playing. 



Without Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, there would be no Pearl Jam, of course. And if Andrew Wood, the lead singer of Gossard's and Ament's previous band Mother Love Bone, had not overdosed on heroin, there would also be no Pearl Jam.

The song that Pearl Jam plays to serve tribute to Andrew Wood and Mother Love Bone is Chloe Dancers/Crown of Thorns. I got to see the band play this song with their regular producer, Brendan O'Brien, at a show here in Atlanta at Lakewood Amphitheater in 2003. O'Brien lives here in Atlanta, and as a result (and as Eddie Vedder noted in the 2001 show here at Philips Arena), the band is very familiar with my town. 

These cards are just awesome. The huge smile on my face as I opened this envelope was evident to my wife -- she actually asked what it was that I was looking at that put such a big smile on my face. After trying to convince her that it was because she was in my office -- it was a valiant effort -- I showed her these cards. She knows I'm a huge Pearl Jam fanboy, or at least used to be. 

I've thought about trying to collect the full sets of these cards. It looks like it may be a bit expensive, though doable. There are full sets available from one seller for both Chicago and Boston on eBay -- the cost to get both would be about $350 though. I think I'll stick with just the great cards that Shane sent.

Happy New Year to y'all, and here's to a better year than 2016 for everyone -- even if 2016 was your best year ever.

Brewers Cards Every Night

I try to find new blogs every so often. I used to try harder -- when I was the new guy, I followed links for hours to try to find trade partners, kindred spirits, or just good people. I've gotten lazier about that this past year, and one of my goals for next year is to get back to being a better trade partner.

One blogger whom I feel like I've gotten to know a bit this past year, though, is Peter from Baseball Every Night. He and I interact/converse on Twitter regularly about cards and beer and being in our mid-40s and all that kind of stuff. It's always a pleasure to hear from Peter, so getting cards from him is just an added bonus.

If there is one thing that Peter and I have bonded about, it is our mutual love and respect for David Ortiz. Peter recognizes the living legend that Ortiz is -- you can read about his almost fawning affection for Ortiz here. For me, of course, I truly think that Topps Now should have featured Ortiz's retirement year more than it did; I mean, Ortiz did more than enough in 2016. He should have had far more than just the 14 cards on which Topps featured him. Seriously -- did we need 13 cards for the Twins, or should we have had 27 Ortiz cards? I think you know the answer to that question.

In all seriousness, Peter sent me some cards in two different doses recently, so let's feature them here with some video highlights of our mutual friend, David Ortiz.

Yeah, the lines about our respect for Ortiz were complete bull. Y'all knew that about me, I'm sure. Not sure if you knew that about Peter though.

To celebrate Big Papi being a Big Jerk here -- and let's be clear, he got plenty of leeway to still be in the game to take strike three there, and with the close check-swing call, there's at least an argument that he got four strikes in that at-bat -- let's go gold. Peter sent me literally all the Topps Gold parallel cards from 2016 that I needed to complete my team set:



It almost seems weird to see K-Rod and Adam Lind as Brewers. It feels like almost years ago that they were traded away. 

If only I could say the same thing about Matt Garza.

A second "Great Moment in Ortiz History" is the literal David versus Goliath story, but instead of Goliath it was a plastic telephone on the wall in the Orioles dugout in 2013. In an apparently successful effort to steal the telephone's soul and use that power for his own purposes, Ortiz was ejected from a game after a strikeout. The next game he played in, he went 4-for-4 with a homer. 

I guess we wouldn't like Ortiz when he is angry.

In the late 1980s, rumor had it that the same could be said for Jeffrey "Hac-Man" Leonard -- that you would not like him when he was angry. As this Seattle Times article from 1990 notes, though, Leonard was actually a very private man who kept most people at arm's length. Leonard had fights with Giants teammates Dan Gladden in 1985 (supposedly about Gladden taking extra cuts in BP) and with Will Clark in 1987 after Clark allegedly refused to sign an autograph for Leonard's nephew and then followed it with a racial epithet (New Orleans native Clark said it was because Leonard picked on him constantly).

Leonard also hated the press, whereas Ortiz loves to use the press to push his own agenda. As that Times article quotes Leonard in response to the question of whether he trusts anyone, "Trust? Yeah I trust you . . . to get it wrong. It's not really a matter of trust. It's patience. I don't like to speak with the press because I get tired of the stupid or funky questions."

Ortiz? He went to the media in 2011 to blame them for him getting hit by a pitch -- but he always went to the media. In the last months of his playing career, he spoke regularly -- with SI (about steroids and retirement), at length with the assembled media after his last game, with USA Today (about Donald Trump and immigration and his legacy), with Esquire (about his post-career plans), on Late Night with Seth Meyers about his last trip to Yankee Stadium, even about his beauty secrets with Good Housekeeping.

You clicked that link, right? 

Ortiz hopefully will stay retired. Then again, maybe he won't, and when he comes back, he'll say, "Maybe it's my ego. Maybe I crave someone who will never be my rival."

What do you think, Peter?

Thanks for the great cards!