Trading with Robb of Brewers792

The Brewers just finished up a sweep of the Cubs at Wrigley and I feel like celebrating.(And since writing this, they got totally humiliated by some Pirates pitcher I had never heard of... such as life, I suppose)

I made a trade with a new partner this past week, a fellow Brewers fan named Robb who had a blog up and running at https://brewers792.blogspot.com. First off, excellent title, Robb. I surely wish that Topps would go back to the 792-card set size. It's just so comforting and iconic. Anyway, Robb has a trade post for this swap up and has a Brewers wantlist up as well, so I encourage you to give it a look. Lots of Topps base needs, etc. I sent him a stack of dupes I had laying around and he send me a small stack of '93 Topps base, a few cards of players I collect, and something I've been dreaming about since I started the ATB project back in the Spring. He also sent a signed card of a Brewer who was straight LEGEND for a summer back when I was a kid, but I will save that for another post.

Are you ready?

THE 1999 BREWERS POLICE SET.

Ok, we all call it the Police set, even thought it really isn't. It was a stadium give-away set sponsored by Midwest Sports Channel (now FS Wisconsin) that used the old police set format - full team set, dopey messages on the back - but I don't think this was ever actually given away by the MPD. The cards don't mention the police department, anyway.  

The cards are designed to honor Milwaukee County Stadium, as 1999 was supposed to be the final year the Brewers played in the old ball park. It's a nice look, overall, but in the summer of '99, a crane collapse at the Miller Park site killed three workers and delayed the opening of the new stadium by a year. That was just how things went for the Brewers in the '90s. 

So why am so excited for a set of a 74-win team that reminds me of a terrible industrial accident? Because this set contains the ONLY Brewers cardboard of FOUR different players. Let's have a look-see...

Eric Plunk is easily the most accomplished of this group and actually spent parts of two seasons with the Brewers at the end of his 14-year career. We all known that bullpen guy got ZERO love from card companies when set sizes shrank after the strike, so the only evidence of Plunk as a Brewer is this single card.

Sweet Lou Collier was always a guy I liked, for some reason. The Brewers got him off waivers from the Pirates before the 1999 season. He saw a lot of action with the Brewers that year, and showed good plate patience, if not much else. He also saw action with the Brewers in '00 and '01 (I had entirely forgotten about that), but had no major release cards between his time with the Bucs and his 2002 appearance in Montreal.

Rich Becker and Steve Falteisek both debuted with the Brewers in '99. Neither finished the season there. Falty threw 12 innings before being demoted and Becker was a part-timer before being traded to Oakland for a PTBNL. 

This card actually caused a bit of a reshuffle in my binder, as I was unaware that this was a dual card. This is one of two examples of a double-up in my ATB binders, the other also being a team-issue card of Bronswell Patrick and Brad Woodall. I thought about getting dupes of these cards so that the spaces in my binders would match the actual number of players on the ATB roster... but screw that. It was hard enough finding one of these cards.

These cards put me at 819 of the 841 all-time Brewers. Of all the Brewers who have ever appeared on a card AS a Brewer, I am only missing three - Tim Van Egmund,
1997 Pacific Prisms Gems of the Diamond #GD 59; Pete Zoccolillo, 2003 UD Finite #292 or 03 UD Ultimate #145; and Gregg Zaun, 2010 Brewers Team Set #MIL3.Please help if you can...