Happy holidays, all!
Allow me to welcome myself back to land of blogosphere living. I’ve been doing some “therapeutic” card-browsing this evening. One of our dear little rats, Idgie, has not been well. We think that she had a minor stroke yesterday (something not uncommon in rats of her age), and she’s been pretty weak and wobbly since. We have a vet appointment for tomorrow and there are steroids that might help her recover, so here is to hoping that they’ve got the thing to fix her up. I’m trying to stay positive by paging though some steroid-era sets… vision of Bonds and Manny and Sosa make me hopeful that our little fuzz ball can get all ‘roided up and beat this thing.
Here she is with her Brewers helmet this summer. She shall see a Brewers pennant in her lifetime!!!!
Aside from my steroid-era blues, I had completed a couple of trades recently that I wanted to share. First up is Dime Box Nick, who mailed out a stack he’d been saving for a while.
There was a number of Brewers, of course. And I’ve got to start with this one…
I remember this “flip-up” cards from Oscar Mayer products from when I was a kid. But I was unaware of these disc flip-ups. I flipped a disc in my back this summer and it hurt like hell. Anyway, this is mid-90s Brewers bopper Greg Vaughn.
On the topic of Brewers outfielders who could absolutely crush the hell out of the baseball, here is the sadly-departed Khris Davis, now with the A’s. It’s a purple parallel of some kind, and it actually looks pretty sharp.
Richie Sexson could rake as well. He is of the George Scott type for the Brewers. In both how he was a slugging first-sacker, but also in how he was involved in two great trades for the Brewers. They got him from Cleveland for a pile of near-dead arms, Slugged 133 homers for the Brewers with a .902 OPS, then was sent to Arizona for a bevy of useful pieces, including 18-game winner Chris Capuano and doubles champion Lyle Overbay.
Orlando Arcia is a hell of an exciting young player. Here is one of the 30,000 different rookie cards Topps issued for him this year. It’s a new one to me.
Here is 4-time All Star Dan Plesac in the 1988 Score Young Superstars set. Did you know that Plesac made more All Star teams than Robin Yount? It’s true.
Mark Rogers was the 5th overall pick in 2004, but never did much with the Brewers. He had two stints in the big, and actually pitched pretty decently for 49 innings. I already had a Rogers auto in my all-time Brewers set, but this one is defiantly an upgrade and has won a place in the big binder.
I’ve made some modifications to my PC list lately, adding Joey Votto among others. Votto is a sickening kind of talent. For my money, he might be the best pure hitter since Wade Boggs, and he wears a dorky-tight uniform and seems generally like a grumpy kind of genius on the field. Nick tossed a handful of Vottos my way.
Here is a manu-stamp/patch/whatever. Not usually my thing, but with the connection to Jackie Robinson and all, this is actually a pretty cool card.
Here were have a 1979 look-alike. An underrated design, I think.
Here is a 1992 mimic from the latest Archives set. I really dig these ’92 design cards, although Topps didn’t QUITE get it right.
Note the tiny differences in the typeset.
I also put out the call for oddballs, and Nick sent me some very odd balls.
Here is my very first Mother’s Cookies card, a set I’d long been aware of, but had never come across. They’re weird cards, very thin and with a flat, glossy finish.
Willie Smith pitched seven innings for the Cardinals in 1994 in the midst of a 9-year pro career. He gave up four homers and seven hits in those innings.Yeesh.
Not really an oddball, but it doesn’t get much odder than a pitcher sliding on a baseball card. This would have to be in the running for the best card in that 1991 Fleer set.
I also completed a swap with Scott from I Need New Hobbies.
Base set needs mania!! He sent this lovely trio of 1976 needs. Even though it’s mis-matched, I really love that green on the Orioles cards in this set. I can’t explain why.
1990 Topps! The big ugly! This Glarin’ Sparky is one of the better cards in the set.
1990 was the last year for Turn Back the Clock cards, which is one of my favorite Topps subs of all-time-forever. I like these especially when I was a kid, because with the very-wide bordered design, it’s like getting a peek behind the photos on the base cards.
And the hell with everything, the 1990 All Stars are some of the best-looking cards of the decade.
2009 Topps is a set that I’ve really turned around on. I HATED these when first came out, I thought the design was one of the laziest Topps had ever done. I’m still not wild on the design, but I have come to appreciate its simplicity… particularly with the awful over-done cards of the years before. And the photos on these is a mile better than 2008… which was one of the most uninspired lots of pictures since, well, 1990.
I’ll close with Geoff Jenkins, a long-time Brewer seen here in his only season with the Phillies. That was, of course, the year the Phillies won the World Series. And the year the Brewers broke a 500-year playoff drought. Looking it up, Jenkins actually got an at bat against the Brewers in the NLDS, the first playoff game in Milwaukee (and Brewers playoff win) since game 5 of the 1982 World Series. I was at that 2008 games and I’m surprised I forgot that Jenkins played. His last at bat game in Game 5 of the ’08 series, when he hit a double and scored the go-ahead run.
So that’s what I’ve gotten in to lately. Now, back to my the sofa with my binders. Wish us good luck for tomorrow!
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