Sometimes There's a Man... I Don't Want to Say 'A Hero,' cuz What's a Hero?

It’s been a pretty decent couple of days here in Milwaukee. The Brewers have finally started hitting – CRUSHING – the ball, the snow is melting, and last night our neighborhood movie house ran The Big Lebowski at midnight.

And this afternoon, a package arrived at my box from my twitter pal @alltimebrewers. ATB has a nearly-complete collection of Brewers autographs, missing only a few players joined the team this season. Of course, I have my own all-time Brewers autograph collection. I never really set a goal of completing the damn thing, although it’s a bit inspirational to know that someone out there actually has… takin’ it easy for all us sinners.

A week or so ago, ATB posted something about some “upgrade” cards he had added and it finally dawned on me that me might have some spare autos to trade. So we swapped a few messages and he got a package together, which arrived today.

And holy heck. I’ve been in the blogosphere for over a year now, and in the card twittersphere  for a bit less than that and I am still amazed at how generous collectors can be. Case in point:

Look at that stack! Far out, man…

 

Most of these were his own cut custom cards. These are really well-done. I was actually thinking about using some kind of custom cuts for my ATB collection, particularly with guys who never appeared on a Brewers card.

And this is about as nice a custom as I could ever dream of being able to someday, after a lot of practice, be able to almost make. They really tie the collection together.

Most of these are of mega-obscure players, many of whom never even had a real MLB card. Some though, like Tyler Houston and Gerardo Parra, are more prominent, but tough to find signed on Brewers cardboard.

The only drawback with these is that most are blank-backed. I might get creative and try making my own custom backsides for these, with stats, etc. This is not a First Amendment thing, man.

Meanwhile, some of them do have printed backsides like this…

He also threw in some custom on-card autos.

Again, featuring players that most people outside of Brewersnation (or inside, for that matter) will remember. But what do you do when you get cut by the Brewers? You turn in your library card? Get a new driver’s license? STOP being a Brewer?

He also included some traditional signed cards, including many sigs I’ve been chasing for a long time.

A number of these were minor league cards. My very favorite of the bunch might be this old-ass Doug Loman TCMA Vancouver Canadians card. I dig his style, man…

I also dig this Neal Cotts, which has a transaction “bubble” on it mentioning that he had been promoted to Visalia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on a minor league card before.

All told, he send me 46 (!!!) signed Brewers cards to add to my collection, jumping me to 412 different signed cards in my collection – 48% of the all-time roster. With a batch of TTMs about to go out this coming week, I might actually be able to hit the half-way point before the All Star break.

Having a signed card of one of every two players who ever appeared with the Brewers?

That had not occurred to us, Dude.