Cheese and Beer: Life Before "The Strike" #1

And thus begins the resurgence of my childhood hobby - baseball card collecting. I chose the title for this thread, 'Life Before "The Strike"' because the Major League Baseball players' strike of 1994 ended my years of baseball card collecting. My brother and I just stopped buying cards after that. When the 1995 MLB season began, I was too busy listening to the Smashing Pumpkins and discovering that girls bodies were...changing...to put any effort into card collecting. At that point, all the major card companies had converted to a "glossy" format, thus driving up the price of cards. What used to cost 50 cents for 20 cards, now cost $2.50 for half as many cards. For an unemployed 13-year old, this was no longer an affordable hobby.

13 years later...2008. Baseball is still my favorite sport, and I have been blessed with a job that affords me the opportunity to religiously watch and follow baseball once again. And so, my love of cards is re-awakened. It also helps that the Brewers are actually a good baseball team again!

A fellow Brewers fan and I share something in common - our favorite baseball player of all time is Robin Yount. We recently agreed to trade some cards, 2 of mine for 10 of his - I scratched his back, and likewise he scratched mine. At any rate, here are the cards I received from Thorzul today.

1994 Pacific Silver Prisms Circular #1
This card is really neat - not only is holographic (which means 3 dimensions of fun) but the back is in both English AND Spanish...which helps. I now know that the Spanish word for "Homeruns" is "Cuadrangulares". Badass.

2000 Upper Deck why 3k? #59
Robin Yount retired with a career batting avg of .285 - and averaged 1.1 hits/game. Math says that if you can stay healthey, that average will get you to 3,000 hits.

2001 Fleer Greats of the Game #83
Perhaps one day MLB will bring back the pullover game jersey. At least Kansas City is doing their part by bringing back powder blues.

2001 Topps American Pie #71
I think the bat he's holding in this photo weighs 12 oz., it's tiny.

2002 Donruss Team Heroes #286
I actually found this card today at a card/coin/uniform/clock shop. Nice photo of him during his "mullet days".

2004 Donruss Leather & Lumber #78
There's nothing better than Mizuno's and stirrups...call me old-fashioned, but we need to bring stirrups back.

The only thing on this card better than the stirrups is the photo of Robin on the back, circa '76...

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings HOF Heroes #HH-61
My favorite card in the lot. The border around the card is raised, and the painting of Robin has him sporting his legendary handlebar mustache.

2005 Upper Deck All Star Classics #96
Great photo of Robin sporting the blue and white batting helmet that the Crew abandoned in favor of the solid blue helmet after the '86 season.

2005 Upper Deck Legendary Cuts #69
Even though I already had this card, I wanted to post it because it's very well done. I like the scrollwork, looks old school. It also has Robin's middle initial, "R". First time I'd ever seen that on a baseball card.

1986 Dorman's Cheese
Just like Kraft and Post used to offer baseball fans inserts and "cutouts" from boxes, the smart folks at Dorman's Cheese figured out that baseball and cheese are a great couple. Not liscensed by MLB, they of course had to remove the logos from the hats. This always confused me as a kid.