Music from the Trading Spot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway...baseball cards....

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

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

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

I bet my list would vary greatly from theirs.

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

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

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

Something Strange This Way Comes

Hi there.

Yes. I've been gone for a couple of weeks, but I'm back now.

In the past couple of weeks, I have barely had time to be on Twitter. I have some cards to post, of course, and I have some other items to scan and post as well. 

More on that in a minute. 

But, something very strange has been going on here, and I'm not sure what -- if anything -- can be used to explain it. 

Why in the heck was my last post so popular in terms of views?

If you're familiar with the Blogger interface on your posts to see how many hits your posts get, you know that some strange things can happen there. Depending on how search engines catalog your pages, you might end up with dozens -- even hundreds -- of hits on a particular post. Prior to this year, my record number of hits for any one particular post came on the handwritten post contest idea that Gavin came up with last year. It was an incredible 1574 hits.

Then I decided to title a post, "Bowman's Coming, But I Need to Post Heritage." That was my most recent post before today. I had all kinds of stuff going on lately so I haven't been paying much attention to the blog or collecting generally, so I was a bit surprised when I looked at my post list today and saw this:

Six thousand hits? What in the actual hell is going on here?

I dug deeper. Most of my hits over the past several weeks have come from the US. No surprise there. But, proportionately speaking, my American hits are much lower than normal. 

Here's the Overall numbers:

But here's the numbers for the past week:

I've suddenly become huge in South Korea? Is it that Eric Thames is now a Brewer and suddenly everyone in South Korea is seeking out every morsel of Milwaukee Brewers writing on the Internet? 

I really don't have any good ideas why that is the case. It's just weird.

Maybe it has something to do with my Twitter activities. Maybe. I mean, Twitter is how I got a new addition to my Dan Plesac collection:

Back in March, Redskins fan Kenneth -- the man behind the Washington Redskins site Cardboard Hogs -- posted this Rediscover Topps card of Dan Plesac. I asked him if he would part with it, and he was glad to oblige. He even threw in another of the Dan Plesac MLB Network inserts from Topps Series 1 for me.

Y'all be sure to check out Kenneth's website and follow him on Twitter too. 

I mean you, my South Korean friends. Please follow Kenneth. 

Thanks to everyone for reading, and here's to my getting back to posting again!

Bowman's Coming, But I Need to Post Heritage

At the beginning of this year, I decided to stop trying to chase new sets by happenstance and, instead, jump into the case breaks that Chris from Crackin' Wax does.  I like that Chris is a Packers fan living in Minnesota, and I enjoy watching and listening to he and his wife going through the break with the cards. I also like that he donates money to charity as a result of his breaks.

I haven't had much luck scheduling-wise in catching the breaks live, though. Every time a break is scheduled, I seem to miss it. This weekend, though, I should be able to catch the Bowman case break. I noted this on Twitter recently, but I've never been more excited to pay more than the average slot cost in my time back collecting.

In fact, it's probably the first time I've ever paid more than the average slot cost for the Brewers thanks to the fact that Topps probably can't pick out Milwaukee on a map if you spotted them its location in Wisconsin. I mean, I heard that native New Yorker President Trump today identified Wisconsin as a state that borders on Canada. It does not, but that's pretty typical for a lot of New Yorkers -- there's New York, there's LA, there's Florida (a/k/a "Retirementland") and there's "the rest."

But I digress.

The most recent break that I took part in was the Topps Heritage break. Let's talk about the set through the Brewers cards:

We start with the player that Milwaukee would charitably call "the Forgotten Man," Chris Carter of the New York Yankees.  The way that Eric Thames is going, Carter will be the answer to a trivia question of "who did Eric Thames replace as the starting first baseman for the Brewers?" Thames's story is incredible -- I mean, it has to be for him to have two ToppsNow cards in the month of April!

Clearly Topps spent approximately $8 of effort on this leaders card. They reused the portrait portion of Carter's regular card as the photo for the HR Leaders card. The Arenado photo got reused on the 1968 Heritage Game card and the Bryant card makes an appearance in the Heritage set on his "NL All-Topps Selection" card. It's inspired decisions like this that show why Topps deserves the monopoly in licensed cards that it has.

Now it's time for the former Brewers portion of this post. Thankfully, Will Middlebrooks didn't make an appearance in this set. Somehow, though, Chris Capuano did. As for Scooter, well, I'm happy that he is getting to play in his hometown. The Brewers really don't have space for him anywhere, and Gennett simply did not have the ability to play elsewhere on the diamond to make his presence useful.

Two starters for this year's team. My stomach just sunk when I read on Baseball-Reference that Garza has a vesting option for 2018. Oh God No. Could that happen?

Well, thankfully, Garza has spent too much time on the DL for that option to vest. Thankfully. It's now a unilateral team option that could be exercised for $5 million. I would not doubt that the Brewers could use that option as a trade chit somehow if Garza can stay healthy. The team may even exercise that option depending on how players develop or how this year plays out. We'll see.

As for Peralta, well, he currently leads the National League in wins with three. Congratulations.

Next up: the guys who've come from elsewhere to play pretty well as Brewers. In order: the Mayor of Ding Dong City has come to Milwaukee and is slugging like crazy -- of his 18 hits through April 24, 14 of them have been for extra bases. Shaw is a candidate to stick around for a few years depending on how guys like Isan Diaz and Lucas Erceg develop. Shaw is still cheap and isn't arbitration eligible until 2019. I can see him being a Gennett-type -- kept around while necessary, dumped when not.

Hernán Pérez is a similar guy, I think. He's the "super-utility" type who will be useful to play all the positions while the Brewers develop better options. He doesn't walk enough -- only 18 walks in 430 plate appearances last year -- so he has to keep his batting average high to be useful. He reaches arbitration after the 2018 season; we'll see if he's still a Brewer then. Incidentally, the Brewers have had both players named "Hernan" play for them -- Iribarren and Pérez.

Keon Broxton has started the season slowly again. He showed a fair amount last year in the half-season he played (.784 OPS) but he cannot afford to relax at all with the prospect-studded outfield at Colorado Springs.

Finally, we have the youngest player on this page, Jonathan Villar. That's right -- Villar has been in the majors since the age of 22 with Houston back in 2013, and he's about six weeks younger than Pérez. He's almost a full year younger than Broxton. Shaw is older than Broxton by three weeks. Villar also comes up for arbitration in 2018.

Here are the two horizontal cards -- youngster Orlando Arcia (whom some in Milwaukee are already wondering whether he is a bust...at the age of 22...thanks to his lifetime slash over 74 games of .217/.264/.345...oh my god he's Rey Ordoñez) and Harvard grad Brent Suter.

Suter actually follows me on Twitter thanks to the fact that I passed along a message to him from Ray Peters, so I've got that going for me. Perhaps because of that, I really hope for the best for him and want him to be in the major leagues with the Brewers. After all, no pitcher should have to pitch in Colorado Springs regularly.

Finally:

I got one copy of the New Age Performers card of Orlando Arcia. I mean, I really hope Arcia develops and all, but his bat has never been his strong suit. Still, he needs to pick up the pace at the plate.

Now, this case was pretty terrible for me. I didn't get any Ryan Braun cards from the short-printed high numbers. I had to hit eBay for those two. Oddly, though, the hardest card to find -- which I also purchased on eBay -- was the "Then and Now" card of Villar with Lou Brock.

Here's hoping that the Bowman break treats me right this weekend. I'd better be in the chatroom though to get some of that famous Crackin' Wax Chat Room Mojo©!

Recharging and Collating

The last two months have been brutal for me with work. Being gone thanks to being crazy busy last month led directly into being out this month with busyness and ABA meetings. The next thing on my agenda is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I figured I'd better write something now before I let another week go by.

I wish I could say I was recharging. I feel like Steve a/k/a Cardboard Jones f/k/a The Chop Keeper has reinvigorated and reinvented his collecting: he moved on from being the Chop Keeper as the Atlanta Braves morphed into a team he did not recognize and became Cardboard Jones at Collating Cards -- the set builder. I could see doing that at some point in my life, but my chase for Brewers keeps me moving forward. I don't have it in me at this point to be anything more than a one-note collector of Brewers in many respects.

That is, until such time as I decide that I'll become an oddball type collector and try to get at least one card from every oddball and minor league set in what I consider the modern era of post-World War II.

See, I don't like easily attainable goals. It's too Easy.

Steve's change of collecting has aided me a bit. Steve used to collect the Braves, as I mentioned above. His decision to go to set building of sets led him to send some Braves stuff my way. To be fair, he never disappoints.

Let's start with the cards:

Starting with the three earliest cards, we have 3 from the very green (for the Braves) year of 1958. Casey Wise is an interesting story, even if he would be completely persona non grata in my house based on his choices of colleges and universities. While he started his collegiate career on scholarship at the University of Texas (not bad), Wise eventually received his degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Florida (very bad). He then played baseball (and was terrible...more on that in a minute) before going to dental school at the University of Tennessee (flat out ugly) -- becoming the first orthodontist in Naples, Florida.

As to being terrible, Wikipedia quotes The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book as saying, "His may not be the worst Major League hitting record of all time, but it's definitely in contention." How bad was it? Well, over four seasons with the Cubs in 1957 -- which explains the weird blue brimmed hat and the M appearing over what appears to be a scribble, the Braves in 1958-1959, and Detroit in 1960, he came to bat 352 times. He "hit" .174/.243/.240 -- a career OPS of .483 and a career OPS+ (average is 100) of 32.

Wow. Hope he was better at orthodontics.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago/a couple of posts ago that I got two Red Schoendienst 1959 Topps in the space of about 3 days -- one from Commishbob. This one is the second one.

Harry Hanebrink caught my eye in this group for being someone I did not know. Hanebrink was a native St. Louisan who somehow ended up being signed by the Braves in the late 1940s after a tour in the Navy. He had a weird batting stance and hitting approach. As it was described by Hanebrink in his SABR Biography, "Feet very wide. I don't even take a step, but I come forward with the bat three times then take one fast cut when the pitcher starts to throw. All the fans used to count cadence on every pitch at Hartford, clapping and shouting: 'One, two, three, dip.' I guess it looks funny, but I can hit better that way."

Whereas Casey Wise was godawful terrible, Hanebrink was just bad to mediocre -- an OPS+ of 60, slash line over 345 plate appearances of .224/.279/.315; at least he hit for a little bit of power. Hanebrink returned to St. Louis after his career and become a real-estate broker for twenty years before deciding to drive a park-and-ride shuttle at the St. Louis airport. He passed away from a brain aneurysm in 1996 at the age of 69.

Finally, there is the one 1960 Topps card before we get to the oddballs. Pizarro had a long career that started with Milwaukee in 1957 and continued all the way until 1974 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His SABR Biography notes that between the minors, the majors, Mexico, and winter ball in his native Puerto Rico, his career win total in the regular season was 392 and his overall total was over 400. 

He was the son of a construction worker/cockfighting trainer and gambler whose personal love for the nightlife was well known; in one book Where Have You Gone, Vince Dimaggio? he was quoted as saying, "I love to celebrate. I only remember the parties, the women, the hot times." He learned he could throw hard by being a bit of a delinquent -- throwing rocks to hit bottles in a game called piedritas. He is quite the character and is still with us at the age of 80.

Now, for the oddballs:

This postcard sized card is of Vermont's own Ernie Johnson Sr. The elder Johnson led his son Ernie Jr. into the broadcasting profession, in that Ernie spent years and years as the color commentator for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves -- starting in 1962 and ending in 1999.  Ernie Jr. even worked games with his dad in the mid-1990s (1993 to 1996). 

The reason I mentioned that Ernie is Vermont's own is that this card was issued by the Vermont Historical Society in 2000. Others in the set include Jean Dubuc, Pat Putnam, Birdie Tebbetts, and, of course, Carlton Fisk.

Thanks to Steve, I now have three of these photos of former Braves -- he also sent me a Frank Torre in the past. Apparently, I am still missing at least the Andy Pafko card, as an eBay auction lists a lot of 4 including the three I have and Pafko.

These are pretty cool, and it makes me wish that I had made the effort to go back to Wisconsin to see a game at County Stadium one last time before they tore it down after the 2000 season. It was a dump, but it had character. You were close to the field in nearly every seat and the place had history. Yes, it was falling apart and the team needed the ability to close a roof to keep folks from freezing, but dammit that place had character.

And finally:

This is my first Jay Publishing Milwaukee Braves card/photo. This one is from 1961, and it is the same size as the Ohio Casualty Group photos from above. 

These last cards show clearly why oddballs rule. It's easy to get the Topps runs -- relatively easy, at least. But it's a lot more fun to go oddball.

Many thanks go out to Steve for the great cards and the oddballs.

Thirty Years Ago Today

Time's passage is inexorable. It hardly seems possible that the most magic April in Milwaukee Brewer history took place 30 years ago. 

Thirty years ago, Juan Nieves threw the only no-hitter in Brewers history: https://t.co/LRsdbVpM4P (h/t @FlyersDeura)

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) April 15, 2017

Through the magic of YouTube, we get the late Mike Hegan calling the game in full color with play-by-play announcer -- and local Milwaukee sports legend -- Jim Paschke right here:

That Nieves no-hitter remains the only no-hitter ever thrown by a Milwaukee Brewers pitcher. In fact, as Kyle Lobner pointed out today, the Brewers have gone 4,785 consecutive games without having a no-hitter. That's the thirteenth longest streak ever in MLB History.  

If you watch the game, you'll notice that Nieves hardly threw a gem -- that, in many respects, this was a lucky no-hitter. It was, definitely. Nieves was the beneficiary of a few defensive gems -- in particular the diving play by Jim Paciorek in the second inning (a far more difficult play than the one Robin Yount made to end the game). 

Add in the fact that Nieves walked five while striking out seven. Nieves had control issues during his whole brief major league career

Between the two teams, there were four Hall of Famers who took the field -- Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Cal Ripken, and Eddie Murray. Each of them finished their careers with over 3,000 hits and two of them were the rare "One-Team" players. 

On the other hand, you also get to see some lesser lights -- guys that many folks will not remember -- such as Paciorek (Tom Paciorek's brother) playing left field for Milwaukee. Nieves himself is not remembered by many these days outside of Milwaukee, and perhaps outside of the Puerto Rico, as he was the first Puerto Rican pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter. 

There are plenty of the "pretty good" guys in this game too: Cecil Cooper, Lee Lacy, Ray Knight, Rick Burleson, Greg Brock, and Jim Gantner among them.

With that being the first no-hitter by a Brewer at the time, the team's official outlets feted the occasion with a fervor reserved for MVP awards. For instance, the May 1987 issue of the official team magazine, "What's Brewing?", featured Nieves on its cover in a not-at-all awkward pose -- kneeling on a dugout holding up what looks to be a wine glass filled with plastic pellets of some sort:

Thereafter, Nieves was treated to a congratulatory pregame presentation at some point during the 1987 season after the Brewers returned to Milwaukee from Baltimore. 

After the handshakes, of course Juan got to tell the fans all about his no-no:

Juan was a very gracious autograph signer. Of course, at the time he threw the no-hitter, he was just 22 years old. Everyone thought that he had a bright future -- that he'd lead the staff as he grew into his stuff and started to command it better. 

But, as often happens in baseball, hoping and wishing and projecting success gets derailed by reality. In Nieves's case, it was a torn rotator cuff that ended his baseball career as a Brewer after the 1988 season.

The Brewers cut him after the 1990 season. Nieves hooked up with the New York Yankees organization then, signing a minor-league contract with a $300,000 salary if he made the major league squad. He never did make it back. 

Instead, by the time he was in his late 20s, he had transitioned into coaching. He started with the Yankees. After a brief comeback attempt at the age of 33, he moved on to the White Sox. He made it to the majors as a bullpen coach for the White Sox in 2008. After five seasons in that role, he was hired by the Red Sox to be their pitching coach for the 2013 season. Nieves picked up a World Series ring that season, but ended up fired and looking for a new job on May 7, 2015. He spent the rest of that year out of baseball before hooking up with the Miami Marlins as their pitching coach.

That 1987 season was a rollercoaster ride for Brewers fans. I believe it was the Sports Illustrated article about the 13-0 start that led to Brewers' and Packers' fans adopting the cheesehead moniker and taking it from what otherwise might be seen as a derisive name and turning into a term of pride. 

I recall this game well. I did not get to watch the game live except for the final out. That year was my freshman year of high school, and we had our forensic team banquet that night. My mom was driving me home and we had the game on the radio. We heard Bob Uecker say, "Nieves just needs three more outs to get there" or something to that effect, and it didn't take long to figure out what he was talking about. I walked into the house and got to see the very last out of the game: Robin Yount's diving catch that he admitted later in his career he did not need to dive for. 

It's hard to believe that this was thirty years ago. But, as I said, time moves inexorably. I hope I am around to see the game's sixtieth anniversary too. 

Thanks for stopping by.