Just Tweet About It

I know I have mentioned before how there are quite a few good Cardinals fans in the blog world. And there are -- just look at my blogroll. Would a Brewers fan include a Cardinals blog in their blogroll otherwise? 

Twitter is much the same in many respects. We only get 140 characters there to make our point, so subtlety can get lost quickly. I view Twitter like being at a sports bar, and every user is a game on a TV. Some TVs you just ignore right away -- "no, I don't care about netball." Other TVs, you look in for a bit to try to figure out what is actually going on: "sure, I'll give Rugby Union a look." Then, there are the games on TV that you probably pay attention to: "It's 3:30 PM. Who is Alabama playing this week on CBS?" Finally, there are the games you circle; for me, that is Georgia football.

Similarly, there are a lot of users whom I pay attention to like I do Alabama football. You know what I mean -- you see what they are saying, see what they are talking about, and maybe even get into what is going on for a few minutes. There are a few folks that I seek out and try to see what is going on with them; there, it's folks like my pal Peter Steinberg (who still wants all your 1995 Fleer), like @AllTimeBrewers, and like the Cardinals fan I'm thanking tonight: Jmack a/k/a @RMcardsfan. 

J is a great guy -- a pleasant guy, even -- who is a Cards fan in Colorado Springs. Being in Colorado Springs, though, he is getting treated to watching the Brewers Triple-A farm club. That's led him to collecting certain Brewers players as player collections -- in particular Orlando Arcia and Josh Hader.

Recently, we worked out a trade by direct messaging on Twitter. Since he just told me he's on a 90s music bender recently and mentioned Hootie and the Blowfish (hashtag: noshame), it's time for the Dolphins to make Darius Rucker cry.

Just watch for the old-school SportsCenter intro with Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, and stay for the slightly out-of-tune singing! Or, stick around for the not-far-from-annoying close to the video with Chris Berman!

To be fair, I remember I got Cracked Rear View from a girl that I worked with who didn't like it because it was too country for her tastes. She obviously knew that Darius Rucker would go on to become a country music singer twenty years later. 

Obviously.

I liked the CD when I got it, but I really liked the other CD she gave me that was even more "country": Anodyne by Uncle Tupelo.

J sent me three autographed Brewers cards from his collection. The first is this Bowman Inception card of Monte Harrison. Harrison was a second round pick in 2014 from Missouri. The Brewers had to give him a good chunk of change to keep him from going to college at Nebraska to play wide receiver for the Huskers. 

Considering that he would have been playing against the University of Wisconsin regularly, there are hopes it will work out well for two Wisconsin teams.

Harrison has had all kinds of health issues. He was healthy near the end of last year and in the instructional league he really showed off his abilities, according to Baseball America. He'll probably end up back with the Timber Rattlers this season. Depending how things shake out, I would not be surprised to see him traded in the next couple of years for pitching. The Brewers are deep in the outfield, after all.

Here's Hootie reuniting in 2015 during the run toward David Letterman's retirement. I swear -- the rhythm guitarist does not look all that much different 21 years later than he does in that older video. 

The drummer, on the other hand...wow. He has not aged well.

So, it probably was well known back when they hit it big, but I recall hearing that Hootie & the Blowfish actually started off life in Columbia, South Carolina as an REM cover band as freshmen at the University of South Carolina (that's USC(e) to college football fans, as in USC east). This would be consistent with the story of nearly every band from a southern college town from the late 1980s. There were a lot of guys in bands who used being sort of alternative sounding and playing REM songs to try to get laid.

I could make a joke about USC(e) generally being a University of Georgia cover act, but that would be unfair. They are not a UGA cover act. They are a pale imitation of the University of Florida. I keep waiting for them to hire Ron Zook.

The Brewers First round pick in 2014 was high school pitcher Kodi Medeiros from Hawaii. Medeiros struggled last year -- badly -- at High-A Brevard County. I would not be surprised to hear that Medeiros ends up in the Carolina League this year to repeat the level (the Brewers changed affiliates at that level). Here's hoping he fixes what was wrong.

Finally, we have "Time." This song hit #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 1995, though it hit number one in Canada. See -- not everything Canada does is worth imitating!

It may be difficult to recall how huge Hootie really was. Cracked Rear View hit number 1 on the album charts in the US, Canada, and New Zealand and was certified Diamond -- which means that the album has sold over 10 million copies in the United States. It has been certified as Platinum 16 times, which means it has sold over 16 million copies in the US. Wikipedia says it is the 16th-best-selling album of all time in the United States. That is massive.

I personally lost the band off my radar after this album. It is just so soft rock in so many respects. That's not to say it isn't melodic, and listenable, and something that when I hear it I wouldn't hum along with it. It is to say that it's just nothing I'd go out of my way to hear too often. I just heard it too much in 1994. 

Jorge Lopez was the token Brewer rookie in just about every single Topps/Bowman release last year -- the way Orlando Arcia is this year. The Brewers are not generally allocated more than one rookie slot, so it can be discouraging when the one who does show up is as terrible as Lopez was last year in Colorado Springs -- where I'm sure J got this card signed in person. Lopez had a 6.81 ERA in 79-1/3 innings at altitude. 

There's still hope, though -- after all, Lopez was born only 16 months before Cracked Rear View came out and he had a really good winter league showing. 

My thanks go out to J for the three great cards, the trade, and for being a good Twitterati. He's no Twitter egg!

S.mackdown

I'm terribly slow at posting and at catching up on trades. I have a package waiting for one trade partner, and I need to put together another trade package for another trade partner.

Jimmy from Talking S.mack cards is the exact opposite of me. He is meticulous about following up with trade offers, making sure things are acceptable on each end, etc. I sent him a bunch of those Topps Heritage Minor League cards that I opened way back when, and in return he crossed some needs off my lists (and probably kept some cards from ever getting to the want lists in the first place).

I've been in a strange, out-of-sorts mood all day today. I had trouble getting my clutch to engage properly on my car this morning to allow me to start it right away. That threw me off for the entire day -- my schedule was off, my routine was off, everything felt off. The music in my life which seems to go with that is late 1980s stuff. Random 1980s stuff.

Like:

I tipped my hand on this Pixies song going around in my head lately. The normal speed version of this song is really good. But I have always been more drawn to the "UK Surf" version. It's more pensive, and that's usually the mood I'm in when I want to hear it.  Like yesterday and today.

Nothing says "pensive" like 2009 Topps base cards. I'm being serious here. I still have card needs in that arena -- 2009 seems like the time that a lot of my trade partners started coming back, but mostly they hadn't made it back enough to have accumulated enough 2009 base cards to send Brewers to me. Plus, 2009 is too recent for most card show dealers to schlep boxes and boxes of them to shows. So, it's a big hole.

That hole got smaller, though, thanks to Jimmy's kindness here!

Most people who have heard of Oingo Boingo know their album Dead Man's Party, which features the song "Weird Science." I heard that on tape as a kid and said, "Let's buy another one of their tapes." The one I bought -- probably through BMG -- was BOI-NGO. This album never got any airplay whatsoever, as best I can tell, though this song, "We Close Our Eyes," was covered by every teen boy's late 1980s crush (Susanna Hoffs) for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film soundtrack.

In that vein, let's show some cards from Peter Steinberg's favorite set, 1995 Fleer. Seriously, if you have duplicates, I think Peter, from Baseball Every Night, is trying to build at least 2 or 3 sets of 1995 Fleer, so send all your duplicates to him. He'll appreciate it greatly!

For some reason, it seems songs that I dig that are alternative end up on TV shows much later than when I get into them and suddenly become even more mainstream. "A Little Respect" by Erasure apparently got played on episode 3, season 1 of Scrubs. To be fair, this song did hit the top 20 in the United States, so it's not like it's entirely out of the blue.

Vince Clarke wrote the songs and played keyboards for Erasure. The guy is an awesome, visionary musician. He was a founding member of Depeche Mode, then formed Yazoo (known as Yaz here in the United States), then he started up Erasure. 

Some Upper Deck and some 1990s parallels to add to some player collections come with a little respect. I sometimes have trouble telling all the Upper Deck base sets from the 2000s apart. They all feature excellent photography that isn't overly filtered or contrasted so as to make veins pop off the card. But, they also tend to feature very similar minimalist designs. 

That, or I am just lazy and haven't taken the time to figure out which year is which yet. 

It's probably the second one.

Okay, last song to go with a great last card...inspired by what I just wrote about Vince Clarke:

This song has always kicked ass as a dance tune. When I was in my late teens, a buddy and I used to go to an underage dance club. We never had any money on us -- not even a quarter for water -- just enough to pay the cover charge and dance our asses off. While we always thought we were there trying to meet girls, the reality was we were there to hang out and have fun. We tried awkwardly to meet girls -- like teenage boys do -- but I usually ended up at least as interested in dancing like an idiot. 

I'd go home drenched in sweat, but thoroughly entertained. I loved the music -- stuff like Erasure, Yaz(oo), Ministry, Nine Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine came out in 1989, y'all), and even things like N.W.A. It was so much fun. 

As much as I can rail on and on about parallels, the reason I do it, I think, is because I'd like them to be more limited in scope -- maybe two or three per set tops -- and not as limited in number. I want to collect them. I want them to give me good memories 25 years from now about being shiny and pink and cool and attractive.

Well, at least as cool and attractive as this card design can be.

Jimmy, thank you so much for the great cards. They are much appreciated.

And everyone else, don't forget to send Peter your 1995 Fleer.

Highlights of the Nashville Card Show

Before Saturday, I had never traveled out of the state in which I live to go to a baseball card show. I had heard rumors, though, that the show at Lighthouse Christian School in Antioch, Tennessee, is a very good show, so around the first of the year, I made my mind up to go to it sometime soon. I scouted it out and found out that there are two types of shows there: the "usual" shows and the "big" shows.

I waited for a big show, of course. If I am going to invest around 8 hours of driving in one day to go to a show, I'd sure like it to be bigger than my local show here in Atlanta. Now, I didn't go for the special guests at this show -- which included Beckett Grading Services and James Spence Authentication along with former Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain and pro football Hall of Famer Raymond Berry. I went that weekend because it would feature about 100 tables of card dealers.

Picture a gymnasium with five rows of tables lengthwise on the basketball court and with tables along the ends. That's what we had. Or, just look at the photo above.

I was surprised at how early everything set up. I woke up at about 4 AM Eastern time, showered, made coffee, and hopped in my car. I brought along three empty card boxes, my messenger bag briefcase, my phone, and two fully charged battery boosts for the phone. I was on the road by about 4:45 AM Eastern, and hit the ATM to load up there too. I got breakfast and stretched my legs in Kimball, Tennessee -- a major stop on the interstate because right after it you hit the mountain inclines on Interstate 24 leading up to Sewanee.

The time switched over to Central time around there. Once you get back down the mountain on the other side of Sewanee, the trip to Nashville goes pretty quickly. I got to the show at about 7:15 AM local time. Despite the fact that the show didn't start until 8 AM, I took a chance and walked in. It was going great guns already.

The dealers at the show that I spoke with thought it was a great show. They did well, it seems. In fact, one guy said he got to the show at 5:45 AM, and there were people there buying and selling already. Crazy stuff.

But, this post needs music -- especially since I went to Music City. I spent four great years in that city -- well, surrounded by the city without really venturing too heavily into it, seeing as I was ensconced in the enclave known as Vanderbilt University. I did get a little appreciation for the music of the state. I've already played Arrested Development's "Tennessee" here, so let's go to some other Tennessee songs.

Ronnie Milsap's "Smoky Mountain Rain" is one of those poppy country songs that hit big on both charts -- country and pop -- in 1980. I still remember a lot of the words, though I really haven't listened to the song much since 1981.

But, it's a good way to kick things off.

These three came from the same guy. I had a tough time getting his attention to get him to give me a price on them at first. He was talking to another guy who was sitting in a chair next to me as I stood. At one point, the guy in the chair was popping the chair up and down. He set the chair down (while still sitting in it) on a kid's foot. The kid just stood there going "ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow" over and over without trying to get his foot out or anything. It was strange. 

Anyway, the Hart was $1. The Braun -- serial numbered 25 of 25 -- and the Molitor were both $3. I will take that. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly with Nashville being the capital of country music, it seems that there are a ton of songs that mention Tennessee from that genre. The band Alabama released this song, "Dixieland Delight," in 1983. I'm still trying to figure out if "Turtle Dovin'" is really just a euphemism for sex in Alabama, or if the band just made that up.

I still wonder what a chubby old bullfrog has to do with any of this, but I guess it rhymed.

Scan dump #1 (of several). We've got a couple of "Fractal Matrix" parallels in there, a Donruss Silver Press Proof from 1998, some Leaf parallels, and some Studio parallels. All of these came from this massive trove of 1990s inserts and parallels that this guy from Chicago had. They were all $1 each -- more than I might like to pay for cards of this vintage -- but man, when do I ever see 1990s inserts at a show? Almost never. I paid my money and thanked the man. 

The cool thing to me was that this Chicago guy actually is a dealer at the show I used to attend 35 years ago at Gonzaga Hall in Milwaukee. It's apparently still going strong and still has the same stupid auction thing going on near the door of the hall. I never did understand that auction thing. Never took part in it either.

I'm not a huge Grateful Dead fan. In fact, I pretty much haven't listened to much of their music at all. This song is pretty low key -- bluesy and cool and laid back. But did they have a fan blowing on Jerry Garcia to get his hair to keep flying out like that?

Okay, time for a 1990s Molly dump:

It was a rich vein of Molitor parallels and inserts from the 1990s, as you can see. Again, all of these were $1. 

The 1990s in cards make the Grateful Dead make sense. Seriously. People commented on the YouTube video saying, "Dude, I was high on shrooms watching this song and I thought Jerry Garcia's hair was a bird trying to escape his head."

I think that guy who commented like that was a card designer for Donruss and/or Pacific. Lots of weird die-cuts, strange background effects, odd windows with photos inside, and explosions going on. I'm really glad I wasn't collecting then -- I probably would have never come back.

When Justin Timberlake was a boy-band guy, I dismissed him mentally as a lightweight. He broke out on his own in dance music, and it was easy to dismiss that too. After all, anyone with an autotune and a beat box can make a dance track. It may not be interesting, but anyone can do that. 

To his credit, though, Justin Timberlake has some chops. In this song "Tennessee Whiskey," from the 2015 Country Music Awards, the Memphis native really nails the song and, more importantly, the feel of the song. Mea culpa, Justin. 

And if Justin Timberlake actually reads this blog, well, I may just retire from blogging now.

Next up: a dump of scans of guys nowhere near retirement:

I have a pretty good start on a Gilbert Lara rainbow of autos there. A lot of the vendors had Bowman Draft available. That's a good thing because the case break for that product that I was in got me plenty of cards, but only one autograph (a Corey Ray refractor). I took the opportunity to stock up, even grabbing a Brett Phillips yellow paper parallel serial numbered out of 50. I probably spent more on these cards than about anything else. 

I'm starting to get the urge to want to get a new player collection going. I'm thinking it might be Josh Hader, or maybe Brett Phillips. I'd like them to play in the major leagues first, though. 

I'm silly like that.

Johnny Cash would have turned 85 years old yesterday. I can't talk about Tennessee music without getting a Johnny Cash song in here. Some of Cash's best work came late in his life on the Rick Rubin-produced American Recordings -- or at least some of what sounded like his most heartfelt and authentic. Just him and a guitar.

It wouldn't be a card show without some Milwaukee Braves. The Diamond King Mathews and the Upper Deck Aaron were each 50 cents, and the rest of these cards were all $1 apiece (they were 25 for 20 bucks, but I got nowhere near that number). I tried to find more Braves from this same guy, but his prices were all over the place and seemed almost random -- like he was trying to grade the cards himself or something. It was strange. I stuck to dumpster diving.

I also noticed that there was a Milwaukee Brave on that Series 2 checklist. A little sleuthing around (read as: going to Google, then going to Net54, then finding that someone had linked to the fantastic "Number 5 Type Collection" blog) provided the information that we have Joe Adcock standing next to Ernie Banks and Don Zimmer during the July 24, 1960 game between the Braves and the Cubs. So, into the Adcock collection it goes.

Tennessee's contribution to the Dirrrrty South sound is Three 6 Mafia. They've made songs with Lil Jon, and this song says that rapper Lord Infamous is "from the part of Tennessee called SPV, Spray Pesty Varments" (hey, that's the way they spell it). By that, they mean Memphis, of course. Memphis has mosquitos like birds there. 

This song is hardcore, and it's a great way to finish off this post. Well, after you see these:

That's what's left. Both the Lopez and the Burnitz cards have some pretty sweet patches -- especially the Burnitz, for it being just a run-of-the-mill swatch insert card. 

To be fair, this is only about a third of the cards I got. I also dropped $20 on a box of those sheets that fit tobacco cards in them 15 to a sheet because I'm tired of those floating around inside my binders.

All told, it was a great day at the show. I even left a little early. I mean, come on, I was worn out. I got home at 6 PM Eastern time and hit Twitter for a while -- and even that took more energy and attention than I was willing to give!

At any rate, thanks for checking this stuff out, and definitely hit the show in Nashville if you have the chance to get to the big one. It's worth the trip.

My next big show, though, may be in North Carolina. Just saying.