My 1,000 Mile Jaunt Through Wisconsin

 Typically, I take one baseball themed road trip each summer. I stayed at home in 2020, because attending baseball games was not an option. This year I saw four games in five days, with an opportunity to see the Brewers play on my last day, but with Vogelbach being on the injured list I just kept on driving by Milwaukee on my way home. Get well soon, Vogey!

I started my trip out with a a card show just west of Milwaukee. There were only a dozen or so vendors there and only one had dime cards, but that was enough for me. I purchased around 150 cards from this gentleman. 

It's hard to pass up Ohtani cards for a dime each!

I wish this was a Cubs card, but I'll take what I can get when it comes to Theo. 

Starting Lineup, Canseco pitching, an oddball of Greg Luzinski and The Chicken. The boxes had a great selection!

These cards will go straight into my Folder of Fun. 

Again, just some really neat cards!

On this baseball trip I decided to try something different. Usually I try to knock another MLB stadium or two off my list, but this time I went the amateur and minor league route. 

First up was a game between the Kenosha King Fish and the Battle Creek Bombers. I arrived in the sixth inning of the first game of a doubleheader and watched the King Fish bullpen play spikeball in the outfield between games. 

Here's a picture of their mascot using a zip line during his grand entrance. Pretty cool!

The two teams belong to the collegiate Northwoods League. The rosters were crammed full of players from Big Ten schools and others around the country. I left the nightcap after the 3rd inning (2+ hours for 3 innings, ugh!) when the King Fish jumped ahead 14 to 2. They ended up winning 17 to 5.

My second game was in a western suburb of Milwaukee, and featured the Milkmen and the Gary Southshore Railcats, of the American Association, which is an independent league. 

This ballpark was absolutely gorgeous and I really took to their mascot, Bo Vine. He was extremely interactive with the crowd and I thought his uniform number, 2%, was pretty unique. 

I'm not sure I know what a railcat is, and I'm wondering if the scoreboard operator did either. Each player had a different picture of a cat, like grumpy cat! I got a chuckle out of that. 

I traveled up to Rhinelander and soon found out about the legend of the Hodag. 

In short, it was a publicity stunt in the 1890's, but the Hodag is kind of revered in Rhinelander. It's even the high school mascot!

The next day I played disc golf at three different courses. My favorite, oddly enough, was a local dump not too long ago. 

My main reason for heading north for this trip was to watch a game of Snowshoe baseball. 

Yes, Snowshoe baseball. If you're looking for more information here's the article which initially caught my attention. It does a great job describing the events of an evening in Lake Tomahawk. 

Dinner. Mmmmm...

I went for a cheeseburger and two slices of pie. 

Everything is donated, from the buns, to the meat, to the pies, to the wood chips on the field. All the proceeds are donated to a local cause and the entire community supports the effort. This demonstration of support and community kind of actually makes me want to move to Lake Tomahawk. 

Here's the pie board. Town members would walk up and donate their pie and the volunteers would divide it into eight pieces and place it in the refrigerators. The white board would see a LOT of action during the night! I had one piece of raspberry for dinner and one piece of peanut butter.

Then I went back and bought a piece of lemon meringue for dessert. I mean, hey, it was all for a good cause!

Here's a picture of the home team strapping on their showshoes. 

Below is a snapshot of the infield from my seat. By the time the game started there wasn't a seat to be had and there were more folding and camp chairs than I cared to count. 

I'm hoping this short video will give you an idea of how the game was played.  

They played nine innings and used a sixteen inch softball. My biggest take away was that everyone was there to have fun, including the umpires and announcer. Just a tremendously fun outing!

The next day I played another disc golf course in Manitowac, right on Lake Michigan. There were 36 holes in all, but #26 was definitely the highlight. Certainly not your traditional basket!

That evening I saw the South Bend Cubs play against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in Appleton. 

The Timber Rattlers have the best minor league ballpark I've seen for the A-level, and I've seen many. It could easily host a AAA team if given the chance. 

How about this for a carrying device for your concession stand purchases? Innovative. It was $2 beer night, so these boards with four holes cut into them were a pretty common around the park. 

My hat goes off to the scoreboard operator again. The Cubs had a fellow by the name of Ryan Reynolds in the lineup. Every other Cub had their head shot on the board, except for Mr. Reynolds. Good stuff. 

On the last day of my trip I played my sixth different course of the trip. 

Like many of the courses there were two tee pads and two basket locations. I knew going into the trip my arm wouldn't be able to take 135 holes of golf from the longs, so I played the shortest distances during each outing. I scored fairly well and came back to P-town with a nice boost to my disc golf ego!

What's gcool is I was able to play the three top rated courses in Wisconsin, according to the Udisc app, and each one was quite noteworthy in their own way. 

Here's a summary of my trip by the numbers:

Miles driven = 1,274

Days/Nights = 5 days and 4 nights

Aunts Stayed With = 1 night with Aunt Beth (Thanks, Aunt Beth!)

Ball games attended = 4 (Kenosha King Fish, Milwaukee Milkmen, Lake Tomahawk Snowhawks, Wisconsin Timber Rattlers)

Disc Golf Courses Played = 6 (Adeliade Park, Rookery Run, Sandy Point, Brandy Lake, Silver Creek, Rollin Ridge)

Disc Golf Holes Played = 135

Discs Found & Lost = 2 found & ZERO lost (Woo-Hoo!)

Mosquito bites suffered = Zero (but I used a bunch of bug spray)

Pie consumed = 3 pieces (raspberry, peanut butter, lemon meringue)

Beers consumed = 3 total (the best was Blue Bobber by Fox River Brewing Company)

Culver's Visited/Seen = Only stopped at one, but saw at least two dozen of the restaurant

Favorite Food (non-pie category) = Deep Fried Cheese Curds at Franklin Field, home of the Milkmen

Baseball Card Shops/Shows = 3 shops & 1 show attended 

Best Card Related Purchase = I finally found a 1985 Topps baseball set for a good price! Woot!

Consecutive days seeing Great Blue Heron = 4

Books Read = 1 

If you need a pick me up, then I would like to suggest The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America. 

Buck O'Neil was such a positive person. What stuck with me most through this book was how he could take any hardship, slight, or negative situation and always find the good in it. It's a quick read with many great stories about Negro League players. If you have the time, then I highly suggest. 

So, that's my summer trip. I feel more or less rejuvenated, although not quite ready to get back in the classroom. Lucky for me I still have a little time to get myself prepared. 

Thanks for reading about my trip! I hope you were able to take a summer vacation that made you smile as much as I did on mine!

Creeping Toward 700

 Without the addition of a 2021 release to chase after, the growth of my Dan Vogelbach collection has truly slowed. I'm trying to pick up cards from past years which I missed the first time around, but Milwaukee must really love the Vogelmonster because I've never had so much competition while bidding on Ebay. 

2020 Topps Jumbo Jersey Sleeve Patch

I've been watching this card for a few months at a very high "buy it now" price. The seller eventually gave in and began marking the item down 10% every time the seven day auction expired. I waited a few cycles of the mark down process until I figured it was time to pounce. I probably could have waited a couple of weeks longer, but I didn't want to risk losing this one to another buyer, especially with a card with such a low print run. 

I'm not particularly a fan of manu-relics, nor autograph stickers, but for whatever reason I'm attracted to this card. The most logical reason for my captivation can be traced back to the subject: it's THE VOGELMONSTER!

I hope you've enjoyed this quick post about card #691 in my Vogey collection.

Thanks for reading and have a great one!

Waiting Out the Rain with Some Cardboard

 It seems like the weather in this country is really bizarre as of late. Last week there was talk about record high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and hurricane Elsa was doing her thing in the southeast. Death Valley hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend and here, in P-town, we're enduring a fourth straight day of rain. It's so humid and soggy out. Ugh. 

Thankfully the mail came early today and Nick, the generous and brilliant blogger, came to rescue me from my inevitable boredom with a wonderful padded mailer.

We'll start off with two of Chicago's best pitchers from the 1980's, Lee Smith and Rick Sutcliffe. I believe these are from the 1984 Wrigley Field promotional team set. 

The Ron Cey card is also from a Wrigley Field giveaway and I absolutely love food issued oddballs. Hello, Bill Buckner!

I have a mini collection of Glenn Beckert and both of these will slide right into the binder. The card on the left is from the 1969 Topps Milton Bradley game. Very unique and super cool!

Somehow this 2014 Panini Golden Age card of Gabby Hartnett flew under my radar when it was released. 

The All-Star game is tomorrow night, and it just so happens to be in Colorado this year.

I'm assuming this Lou Brock card was part of a five card giveaway set at the 1998 All-Star game in Denver. 

Big Daddy! Great nickname!

I don't think the holiday parallels are going away anytime soon. Of the three I think I like the 2020 design the best.

More parallels! Dexter is one of my favorites from the 2016  team and I think the orange border from Topps Big League complements Cubs cards nicely. 

A couple of "pre-rookie" cards of two of the Cubs more popular players, Kris Bryant and Kerry Wood. 

Maybe these two will become household names someday, too? It seems like Miguel Amaya has been talked about forever. Meanwhile, Ed Howard, who was drafted about a year ago, already has his second Bowman card. Crazy how the card world works. 

More 2021 Topps, but this time some Opening Day. I miss you, Yu!

Didn't Stadium Club just come out? And I already have some in hand? The blogosphere works in magical ways!  (And, it goes without saying that Nick is the best!)

Here are a couple more Stadium Club Cub shortstops to go along with the Baez from above. The Dunston card is an iconic one among Cub fans. 

I think I had about four Cubs cards released from this current year before this package. Now, 2021 inserts? Wow! 

I can always count on Nick to send some cards of the Shooter!  Woo-Hoo!

Shiny. Brooks. Kieschnick. Most excellent!  Both of these are dupes for the Kieschnick binder, but now I can fill a couple hole in the Cubs boxes. One of these has a good chance to make the Cubs FrankenSet as well. 

One of these cards is not like the others! Or is it?  Buckner and Sutcliffe are both from the O-Pee-Chee brand and with further inspection... 

Mon Dieu! So is Rick "Big Daddy" Rueschel! 

Thanks for the great assortment of cardboard Nick. Sorting cards is certainly a better alternative to watching the rain gauge slowly fill!

Have a great week and thanks for reading!

2nd Card Show of 2021

 I found a three day card show in Mattoon, IL, which is a little more than a two hour drive from P-town. I decided to make the drive Friday, because the rainy weather wasn't going to allow for much else. 

1980's cards of HOF pitchers for the win!

The fifteen dealers had their tables set up in an abandoned JC Penny store and there was plenty of room for all. A few tables were vacant and I assume those dealers couldn't make it Friday but they would be in attendance the following two days. I bummer that I didn't catch everyone, but I suppose that's to be expected in rural Illinois.

The top two are magazine issued cards.

A couple have asked for more details of the Dale Murphy card. Here's a snapshot of the reverse side.

As you can see, it's been cut out and there's "1987 Baseball Card Magazine" directly below the Major League Totals data. 

The gentleman who had dime boxes at the last show in Peoria had set up shop once more and I dove in again. Most of the cards in this post are from this dealer. He was a pleasant fellow who I conversed with quite a bit while flipping through cards. 

1st and 2nd year cards of notable stars.

I don't mind idle chatter as long as I can still focus on pulling cards I like!

For example: Jim Thome rookies cards for a dime. Score!  Plus, who doesn't miss the designs and technology from the '90s?

Across from the dime boxes was a father and son combo who had a few cases of high-end graded cards and an entire table devoted to blasters, hanger boxes and retail boxes. I was disappointed to see the bubble hasn't burst on the retail market yet, as they were asking $35 for blasters of 2021 Topps Series 2. Bummer.

Parallels for a dime? Yes, please!

Another table had LARGE prints of the on demand Topps Living Set. I've always wondered who buys those. Up close they are quite impressive, but not enough for me to pull the trigger. 

Two of my favorite players ever. 

I finished at another dealer who I think will do very well at this show. He had a Cardinals case and a Cubs case with player stacks and each card was priced quite competitively. Two other cases contained star cards from vintage sets. All of it was very organized, easy to sort through, and priced for all to see... my favorite! I probably spent more than I should at this dealer, but I came away with great cards for my personal collection and a very cool record. 

I grew up watching This Week In Baseball, hosted by Mel Allen, and I also love table top baseball games. Totally a no-brainer purchase for me!  I'm thinking about framing this one and hanging it on the wall. 

Although I was hoping to find a "vintage" card of Tony Lazzeri as a Yankee, I will place this one in my HOF binder for the time being. Once a Yankee Lazzeri is acquire the one you see here will slide into a Cub binder for sure.

  I have a mini collection of Stan Hack and was really happy to finally track down this 1961 Fleer card. 

The above two "cards" are from the 1965 Topps Embossed set. I was never much a fan of these, but I couldn't pass them up at the price. 

This card is beautiful. Just. Plain. Gorgeous. It's from the 1961 Post cereal set. 

This is my favorite find of the day: The 1970 Topps Booklet of Ernie Banks.

Eight pages, if you count the front and back, in all.  They don't make collectables like this anymore!

Overall, it was a good trip. It was a lot of time in the car, but it sure did make my Friday fly by. I was able to catch up on my favorite podcast in the car and got a quick round of 9 holes of disc golf in at the local junior college in Mattoon.

The downside was I didn't find the last card I needed to complete my 1982 Topps baseball set. I thought it was done, but the other week I decided to quickly flip through to make sure everything was accounted for. Ugh. I came up one card short. #FacePalm

I have one more baseball card show planned for the summer, but this one is in Wisconsin. Should be fun!

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!