What if I Collected the Premier League?

In 2003, I was single and living in a condo in Midtown Atlanta with my dog. At that time in my life, though I was pretty free generally, I had a fairly set schedule every day during the week. I'd get up around 6:45, take the dog out, and go to work. My drive was quite short, so I'd be in the office by no later than 7:45. Without a wife or girlfriend at that point, I'd go out when I wanted, I'd go to sleep when I wanted, and I'd try to get up when I wanted.

But, despite my best efforts, my dog generally would not let me sleep in too long in the morning.  So, I'd get up on Saturdays at around 7:15 or so and take her for a little walk. We'd walk to Starbucks a couple blocks away, and Clea would sit outside as I picked up my venti coffee.  

One morning -- it was probably February, but it might have been early March...it was after after college football season had ended, and it was also after the NFL had wrapped up for the year -- we got back home after our walk and I turned on the TV.  I flipped channels some before coming across Fox Soccer Channel. A live English Premier League game was on, and I stopped to watch. I had played a little soccer in college in intramurals, but I was hopelessly lost on the pitch -- I had no idea what I was doing, where I was supposed to be on the field, how difficult it is to put a shot on goal, how difficult it is to beat even the crappy keepers we were facing.  But, with very little else on TV that interested me, I started watching.

Almost immediately, I was hooked. 

I'd watched the Premier League on highlights shows in the past, to be fair. In fact, I distinctly recall watching Eric Cantona's kung-fu kick one day in 1995 on a "World Sports" show.

But, I'd never watched games live before. I started planning my Saturdays to watch games. I went to the local Barnes & Noble and found some books about the history of the game. I found one magazine called Four Four Two from England, and I bought it immediately.  In fact, I recall exactly which issue it was:

I even picked a team in those first few months. I had a sort-of friend who lived on my freshman hall in college and who then showed up in Athens unexpectedly to transfer to law school there who loved Arsenal. As a result, I immediately disliked Arsenal.  

I was trying not to like Manchester United. Everything I knew about them said I shouldn't like them.  People call them "the New York Yankees of England." That should have dissuaded me immediately. But whenever I saw them play, they were just fantastic to watch.  Great, attacking football -- swashbuckling, even.  They won games regularly.  They weren't Johnny-come-latelies either.  

Despite my efforts, I became a fan. Just another glory-hunting non-local Manchester United fan. It was cinched for me just a couple of months later.  

United went down 1-0 to Newcastle United before equalizing through Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Then, Paul Scholes scored first a great team goal and then a thundering shot from outside the box.  Ryan Giggs tucked away a rebound next, and suddenly it was 4-1 before the break.  Scholes finished his hat trick, then Ruud van Nistelrooy closed out the scoring for United by putting away a penalty won by Diego Forlan on a Titus Bramble tackle. Newcastle got a consolation in the end, but the attacking, foot-to-the-throat play had won me over. 

I could go even deeper into my backstory on English football -- I went to New York to see Man Utd. play AC Milan in 2004, I went to three games in England in 2006, I woke up at 3 AM local time in Sydney and watched games, and I still watch today and love NBC's coverage -- but all of this is a long way to introduce a trade package. Back a couple of months ago, I corresponded with Jackplumstead of the excellent blogs Pursuit of 80s, Pursuit of Red Sox, and Pursuit of Jacoby. I sent Jack a package of Red Sox cards that I think he needed. 

In return, Jack recently sent me a fantastic package of Brewers cards and a bunch of unopened packs of stickers and cards from the world of Football.  Not Gridiron. Football.

Here are a few of the highlights.  Let's start with the Manchester United cards and stickers:

Radamel Falcao came to United with a lot of promise. For years, his name would be heard every transfer window, tied to big clubs in England like ManUtd or rich clubs like Manchester City or Chelsea. When he came on loan last year, it was on eye-watering wages and for a loan fee that was crazy.  For all that money, we got to see Falcao falling over frequently. I'm glad Chelsea now have him.

Tyler Blackett played a fair amount last year out of necessity thanks to injury. I recall him costing United a game last year by giving the other team the ball back very politely. That allowed the other team to take a free kick quickly -- while United were out of position -- leading directly to a goal.  He's on loan at Celtic in Scotland this year.

Finally, there's a sticker of Chris Smalling.  Smalling is quickly becoming one of my favorite players. He's composed on the ball as a central defender and is quickly becoming a take-charge man in the defense.  Unfortunately, with Luke Shaw's terrible double-leg break at PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League today, Smalling will likely have to form a partnership now with the rotund Marcus Rojo.

There were also some great World Cup cards and stickers that Jack sent. Here are three former United players.  First, here on the bottom, is Angel di Maria. di Maria looked as happy in Manchester as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It didn't help that someone -- probably a Scouser -- broke into his home in January.  But di Maria always wanted to be in Paris and not Manchester.  

The top two cards are far more pleasant to discuss.  First, there's Robin van Persie. van Persie was probably pushed aside a year too soon by Louis van Gaal. Okay, he definitely was let go a year too soon.  Perhaps van Gaal figured he didn't need more than one true striker on the team? I don't know.  But van Persie came over from Arsenal and provided the goals to give Sir Alex Ferguson one last league title to knock Liverpool off its f**king perch. For that, everyone loves RVP.

Then, there is Patrice Evra.  Evra was always a favorite of mine, bombing up the left sideline from his fullback position to drive attacks and provide crosses. He made 273 appearances for United before Louis van Gaal told him he could leave Manchester United. So, he did -- and got to play in the UEFA Champions League Final for Juventus.  

Jack sent a bunch more stuff, so tune in later this week (or tomorrow...not sure yet!) for more.

I promise that I won't keep telling my soccer stories.

I Was An Owl Once

Pretty much everyone in the baseball card blog world knows Night Owl. He's been around a long time -- since 2008, in fact -- and is a prolific poster as well.  It must be all that quiet time he gets being a Night Owl that allows him to be that prolific. 

But it brings me to a confession of sorts: I was an Owl for a long time -- at least 13 years, in fact. My school mascot all the way through elementary, middle, and high school was and still is an Owl. The Slinger Owls.

We've never had anyone remotely famous attend Slinger High School, as far as either I or Wikipedia can tell. I mean, we've had a couple of NCAA Division I athletes, a few college professors here and there, and a few attorneys as well. But, no one truly famous.  

I lettered in high school baseball three years at Slinger, but I wasn't really good enough to do much after high school with it. Perhaps I could have gone to a small NAIA school and tried out, but even then I'm pretty sure that I was not all that good at the sport. I mean, I was good in the "better than people at my school" sense of the word, but not in the "better than other players my age" sense of the word. 

But at least someone now has come up with a great logo and a booster club now for the team:

So, my Owl-history aside, it's time to show off the cards that Night Owl sent my way.

I think that this 1982 Topps Ted Simmons sticker started the festivities off for this envelope coming my way:

While that alone would have been great to add to my collection -- I'm quite deficient in 1980s Topps Stickers because I insisted on putting them into an album all the time -- Night Owl didn't stop there.  

He hit two player collections with some parallel majesty:

The 2012 Gallardo refractor is followed up by a 2015 Stadium Club Gold Parallel of Jonathan Lucroy.  So, now all I need are the base cards for nearly all of the Stadium Club set.  Man, I need to get cracking on that.

Night Owl also sent a great variety of cards from other years that I needed.  First off, he sent me a tough-to-find 1972 high numbered card:

This is Mike Ferraro. I could have sworn that he managed a lot longer than parts of two seasons in the 1980s -- 1983 in Cleveland and 1986 in Kansas City.  He played one season of 124 games in Milwaukee in 1972 (and 5 games in Seattle in 1969) and 33 total games with the Yankees in 1966 and 1968 and was done as a player. He went into minor league management shortly after that, and then worked his way up to being a major league coach. In 1980, he waved Willie Randolph around third to try to score him in Game 2 of the ALCS. Randolph was out, and George Steinbrenner went ape$hit on him.  Steinbrenner cleaned house after the season ended, and manager Dick Howser led Ferraro out the door.  That 1986 season in Kansas City was the year Howser died. Ferraro took over, then was let go at the end of that season.

Night Owl then sent another great early 80s oddball:

The 1983 Fleer Stamp of Pete Vuckovich (I think it's '83, at least).  Fleer stamps were so exotic to me that I don't recall ever seeing them for sale in 1983.  I may have been too busy buying stickers and putting them in albums, though.

Leaping to the 1990s:

The Listach Leaf card from 1993 means that I am a Greg Vaughn away from a complete team set.  Someday soon, I'll have to highlight some complete team sets -- perhaps as a foil to falling back on "Meet the Brewers," though I will have to do one of those soon, I think. The Seitzer card is as 1994 as a card can get. It seriously looks like the Topps card designers borrowed from Pearl Jam's liner notes for Vitalogy...

...which also came out in 1994.

So, let's leave my enjoyed youth behind, as I slowly teeter toward my mid-40s, and go back to the cards again.

Night Owl sent me some great Upper Deck efforts from the Aughties too.  Those top cards -- 2007 Upper Deck Johnny Estrada and the 2008 Baseball Heroes Bill Hill -- are nice.  The Jeff Suppan O-Pee-Chee from 2009 with its black border would be much more beautiful if it weren't Jeff Suppan, of course (I covered my Jeff Suppan dislike here before and won't repeat it).  

But let's talk just for a sec about the 2008 Documentary set. What a great concept done incredibly poorly by Upper Deck. You know the set make up -- it's basically the same photos of the same players done over and over again ad nauseum without any reference as to whether the player on the card had anything to do with the game itself.  

Wouldn't this be a great set to revive today, though, in a limited release style? As in, release a set of 200 to 250 cards, for each major league team, perhaps in box set form or online only, that chronicles each game from the previous season with a player photo tied to the actual game action.  If the team got no-hit in the game, show the player who struck out to end the game, or the starter who didn't get any support.  Then, include photos for each player who made an appearance during the season (or, to simplify matters, the top 25 players) and the manager and coaching staffs.  I'd buy a Brewers set like that.  And who among us team collectors wouldn't buy our team's offering?

But I digress, because Night Owl sent me one final shiny card:

That's a Shaun Marcum refractor from 2012 Topps Chrome with a painted-on Brewers outfit. It reminds me of the paean to the airbrushers of the 1977 Topps set that Night Owl wrote recently.

Finally....

...off Duran Duran's weird "Thank You" album. Thanks, Night Owl, for the great cards and the randomness embodied in this blog post.

Cards from Bob Walk the Plank

Not too long ago, I didn't have much to write about. Now, all of a sudden, I have plenty of things to write about and about one-tenth the time to write about them.  

I'm not complaining about either thing.

About two days after I got cards from the Bubblegum King in Tampa, a bubble mailer from Morgantown appeared.  Matt breaks more boxes of cards in a month than I buy in a year. Sometimes I feel like he's Ric Flair to my Dusty Rhodes (RIP, Dusty):

I can almost picture Matt saying "I've spent more on cards I've given away than you've spent on your entire collection. WOO!"

So, why the hell not.  Let's use some of Slick Ric's interviews to introduce these cards.

Stylin' and Profilin'

It makes me chuckle that I believe Tony Schiavone is the guy to whom Flair is talking. For the past nearly twenty years (or more), Schiavone is a fill-in sports guy on a radio station here. He also is the radio voice for the Gwinnett Braves.

Flair was talking smack here back on March 8, 1986 about how guys like Ronnie Garvin didn't have a belt.  I love the intro here, though, as he walks in and starts with "Stylin' and Profilin'! Woo!"  

Like these two cards:

Two awesome autographs from the Panini Hometown Heroes set from 2013.  I don't really like the base set cards -- they are bland, yellow backgrounds with cards that don't feature anything like a Brewers uniform color on them.

"Ric Flair's Best WCW promo ever!"

This promo starts with Flair talking $hit about his son joining the NWO of Buff Bagwell, Scott Hall, and a few others. The main part of the promo is Flair talking about his upcoming cage match with Hulk Hogan.  

Flair really was one of the greatest talkers that the wrestling world ever saw.  This promo show how awesome Flair was at selling a match -- not that anyone needed to be sold on a Hogan/Flair match -- but man, he was awesome in this promo.

Again, kind of like this card is just an awesome...1 of 1 awesome, that is!

It's a 2012 Allen & Ginter mini printing plate of Yovani Gallardo! Gallardo has had a solid year for the Rangers this year, and I hope he keeps pitching well.

"To Be The Man..."

It's a quote I use pretty regularly.  Well, sort of...when the opportunity arises I do.

"To be the man, you gotta beat the man, Woo!"

Now, I know that Robin Yount won the MVP twice, and he is definitely one of my all-time favorite players.  He's my main player collection because of that, the HOF, the 3000 hits, and the full career spent in Milwaukee.  

But Paul Molitor always seemed like a more integral player. 

The team seemed to struggle without him in the lineup -- and well they should with losing the on-base percentage that Molitor brought with him. I recall Bill James calling Molitor one of (if not the) most fundamentally sound ballplayer in the 1980s. It shouldn't be surprising that he is succeeding in being the Twins manager, currently standing 5 games over .500 coming off four straight seasons of just dismal performances.

Matt, you are the man...I can't beat that!  Thank you very much, my friend.

A Package from a Brave Tampa Soul

Hi there. I've been gone for almost a week. The funny thing is that I had stuff I could post about that arrived during the week. But, take a holiday weekend, add two parts "hanging with my wife's family" (which, to be honest, I enjoy doing probably more than my wife does) to one part "College Football Started and I'm Watching ALL the Games!" to one part my desire to finish a project I've been working on all summer (identifying and cataloging all Robin Yount inserts and parallels that are on Beckett and putting binders together for them), and you have me not having posted since last week Wednesday.

Oops.

The great thing, as I said, is that I do have cards to talk about.  

Jeff from "Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum" was kind enough to send me a jampacked PWE last week that I received last Wednesday or so.  The cards I am highlighting are all recent cards that I needed either for team sets or for player collections, as always. 

Let's start with Astros centerfielder Carlos Gomez.  

My next project is probably going to be sorting out the cards for the three guys -- Gomez, Gallardo, and Weeks -- who left the team in the past year to put them into binders the way I sort my player collections out.  I have a very particular way of putting my collections into binders.  They are organized first by year, then alphabetically by set name.  The "main set" cards go in the front and are the ones to which I pay particular care in getting the order right.  The other cards tend to get put in whatever order I get them.  At least for now.

So, for Gomez, another part of that is going to be to cull out the Twins and Mets cards in the collection.  

Sort of like what needs to happen for the second guy whose card is getting highlighted:

Jean Segura.  I think it is very likely that the Brewers and Segura will part ways in the next year or two.  In fact, he could be a non-tender candidate if the Brewers decide that paying him for 2016 isn't worth it over running through some internal candidates who are keeping the shortstop position warm for Orlando Arcia.

I do regret jumping on the Segura bandwagon at the beginning of last year. In fact, I knew it was trouble nearly immediately after I decided to look through his stats and dig a little deeper.  

Strike one against him: He skipped Triple-A (other than 7 games in 2009 where he jumped to Triple-A from the Pioneer League).  While not determinative and while many stars skip Triple-A, for a guy with a questionable batting eye like Segura, that developmental time seeing better pitching can help the player to develop.

Strike two: His first half in 2013 looks more and more like a fluke as time passes: .325/.363/.487 during those 90 games.  Second half in 2013: .241/.268/.315.  Two years (including 2015 to date) since then: .257/.291/.332.  

Strike three (?): It is the subject of some debate as to whether Segura's glove is a benefit, a hindrance, or just average.  As the Baseball Prospectus Milwaukee site mentioned, by Baseball Reference's DRS, Segura is average.  By FanGraph's UZR, Segura is subpar. By BP's own FRAA, Segura is one of the best defensive players in baseball. By play-by-play data, Segura is a solidly above average.  

I've said it before -- we'll see what happens with the Brewers and Segura.  

Finally, Jeff sent me some awesome Ryan Braun cards:

The clear highlights here are in the second row. That 2015 Topps Heritage is one of the minis, serial numbered to 100.  That may be my first ever Heritage mini of a guy I actually collect!  The other card is a die-cut from the Bowman Platinum 2013 "Cutting Edge Stars" insert.  Let me tell you -- it will cut you up if you're not careful.

Jeff, thank you very much for the great cards you've sent to me this time and in the past. I'll keep an eye out for some good Braves stuff for you here.

COMC Card Show, Part II: I'm Kuenn to Ad to My Collection

Please ignore my attempt at writing a tabloid headline, but it was the easiest way to say that the other half of my COMC purchases focused on my Harvey Kuenn and Joe Adcock collections -- mostly Kuenn but the Adcock stuff is pretty damn cool.

Let's get started with vintage. I tried to select the best looking specimens of some older cards that wouldn't cost me more than about $1 or so.  For Kuenn, that meant a bonanza of 1960s Topps cards:

It appears that Harvey had a chew of tobacco in his left cheek in every one of those photos. At least it does to me. Perhaps it's because I don't think I ever saw a photo of the guy without tobacco packed in his cheek. 

I also picked up two normal Topps cards from the early 1970s on which Harvey is pictured as a coach:

Harvey looks like the long-lost orange member of RUN-DMC in that top photo with those big boxy glasses. And the tobacco-filled left cheek even comes through on the 1974 tiny Harvey photo. 

Now, I also got some more recent Harvey cards as well -- cards from the 2000s:

The two Bowmans are from the 2001 "Bowman Rookie Reprints." One is the normal version, and one is the Chrome version.  Chrome reprints of vintage cards just seems stupid to me.  The other two cards are from two SP Legendary Cuts sets five years apart -- from 2002 and 2007.

And all that is really nice and all.  But you know when you're talking about me and my collecting that there will be oddballs.  The odder, the better.

The older the better, too:

Such as a 1962 Post Cereal card. I have to admit that this scan makes the card look in a lot worse shape than it really appears in hand.  But, come on -- the card is 53 years old. You try looking in mint condition when you're 53 years old.

I picked up a bunch of TCMA cards as well. Five, to be exact:

As you can see, TCMA was not above reusing photos themselves. The top photo of the repeated three is from the 1979 TCMA "The 1950s" set.  These two "Baseball's Greatest Hitters" cards are actually parallels from 1982, I suppose -- one's on regular gray/tan cardboard while the other is on white cardstock.  The card picturing Harvey with the Brewers is actually from the 1975 "The 42" set and not from the nearly identical 1975/6 SSPC set. And finally, the Kuenn in the middle is from TCMA's 1981 set commemorating the 1962 San Francisco Giants.

I did not realize that Harvey Kuenn made a Cramer's Baseball Legends set until this round of buying, but now I do know:

All of those are great cards and great additions to the Kuenn collection, which has now doubled in size. But, they are not the oddest oddball of ol' Harvey.  This one is:

Apparently, Cramer found that photo after the NuSash Replacement Window Company (which is still in business today) issued this card as card #34 in its "Great Plains Greats" set. Others in the set include Burleigh Grimes, Jake Beckley, Jim Bottomley, Cap Anson, Cool Papa Bell, and Yogi Berra, to name a few, and it was released in 1975-1976.

All told, I added 21 total cards to my Harvey Kuenn collection, bringing the overall total to forty-three.  Not bad for a PC I started in May.

Now, on to Joe Adcock.  The Adcock collection started with a solitary 1957 Topps card of his that I've had for at least 35 years now.  I only added three cards this time around, bringing my total cards in that collection up to sixteen.  But I did add three nice cards.  Let's go newest to oldest.

Newest:  2007 SP Legendary Cuts

I am in favor of cards of players from before 1960 appearing in black-and-white photos that are cropped to make them look like art or museum pieces. It shows an appropriate level of respect, I think.  Good job, Upper Deck.  

Still new but older than the SP:  2002 Topps Super Teams Retrofractor

It's shiny and serial numbered (to 1957). So, it's got that going for it. Otherwise, well, I like the Super Teams concept and wouldn't mind seeing it return somehow.  Or maybe, let's do a "Super Crappy Teams" set. Include cards only for teams that lost 100 or more games. Now that would be craptastic!

Finally, here's the last addition to the Adcock collection.  It's not old -- well, it's 25 years old, so that's still relatively recent to me -- but man is it cool:

And now I know that Joe Adcock was a true Southerner. Born in Coushatta, Louisiana, and given the name "Joseph Wilbur", his family shortened both names and, at least for his college years in Baton Rouge, he went by that handle.  

The card back notes that Joe Bill attended LSU on a basketball scholarship from 1945 to 1947. But, the basketball coach at the time was also the baseball coach and asked Joe Bill to come out to play baseball. Adcock was 6'4" tall, but he was the Tigers center -- a full foot smaller than the LSU basketball center when this card came out -- some guy named Shaquille O'Neal.

I want more cards like this one.  By that, I mean that we should get some card sets of guys who became famous playing one sport shown playing another -- say, Joe Montana as a track guy or Mike Trout playing football.  Multisport athletes fascinate me.

So, even though it shows Joe Adcock playing basketball for an SEC team that isn't Georgia, it's still my favorite card I bought in this round of COMC Card Show.

Thanks for reading.