Beers and Baseball Cards
One of my favorite blogs is Waiting Til Next Year by P-Town Tom. Tom and I have a lot in common: Cubs fans, baseball card collectors, bloggers, craft beer drinkers, and we both hail from central Illinois. We could be brothers. Over the past 18 months we have completed a few baseball card (and beer) trades including two that were in-person in Madison, Wisconsin.
Tom has some relatives that live in Madison and last year we met at the Baseball Card Shoppe to conduct an in-person swap. I actually traded away some Cubs cards Tom needed for his collection along with some local craft beer for a big box of Cubs cards. Sadly, the Baseball Card Shoppe closed last summer due to a devastating flood.
A couple months ago Tom reached out and asked if I would be interested in a bunch of junk wax. He had several thousand baseball and football cards from 1987 to 1993 that he was having a difficult time donating. If I wasn’t interested, they were going in the dumpster. Call me the baseball card rescue, because I will not let cardboard go to waste. He was just happy to find the cards a good home, because he too did not want to just throw them away.
Since I knew Tom’s taste in beer, I whipped up a mixed six pack of some Wisconsin craft beers in exchange for the boxes of cards. We met in the parking lot next to what used to be the Baseball Card Shoppe, and I was surprised when he unveiled a six pack of his own. Tom brought some Illinois craft beers and we had a good old state-to-state beer swap. I had never had any of the brews he brought, and I am looking forward to trying them out.
He had several boxes of cards to gift me, and even had a box filled with over 500 Cubs cards. There were also Cubs cards mixed in with the rest of the boxes that were sorted mostly by product and year.
As I searched through the boxes, I pulled out several hundred other cards for various trades. Currently from this era I am pulling Red Sox, White Sox, and Twins cards for upcoming trades. Additionally, I pull all junk era stars like Ken Griffey Jr., Bo Jackson, Nolan Ryan, Kirby Puckett, etc. as there seems to be many player collectors out there.
In the Cubs box there was about 600 Cubs baseball cards exactly, while another 600-plus Cubs cards were mixed in the other boxes. While it was mostly 1987 to 1993 cards, there were a few newer, and a few older cards mixed in. How about rookie cards of Javier Baez and Jorge Soler from 2015 Topps.
Even vintage baseball cards like a 1958 Topps Bob Anderson and a 1963 Topps Danny Murphy.
One of my all-time favorite Cubs, Rick Reuschel. And this is his second year card from 1974 Topps.
It's in the middle of the junk era, but I have a thing for oddballs. Here's a 1989 Topps Bazooka Shining Star Mark Grace.
You can't have enough 1990 Score Pat Perry baseball cards. Okay, maybe I'm the only one.
Finally, a 1997 Bowman Jon Garland first Bowman card. Why did the Cubs feel the need to acquire Matt Karchner in 1998?
What a great trade, and as I finish this piece I am drinking a Midnight Express Oatmeal Stout from Iron Spike Brewing Company in Galesburg, Illinois.
This was one of the beers in Tom's six pack. I give this beer two thumbs up as we usher in stout season (a.k.a. cold weather) in the midwest.
One Million Cubs Project Stats Sunday's (10/13/2019) Cards: 1,217
Sunday's (10/13/2019) Packages: 1
January's Cubs Count: 9,343
February's Cubs Count: 8,980
March's Cubs Count: 15,704
April's Cubs Count: 11,651
May's Cubs Count: 7,273
June's Cubs Count: 7,690
July's Cubs Count: 10,803
August's Cubs Count: 11,929
September's Cubs Count: 9,127
October's Cubs Count: 6,027
Total Trades/Donations: 262
Trade States of Origin: Arizona (4) Alabama (5)
Arkansas California (20)
Colorado (5) Connecticut (14)
Delaware
Florida (10)
Georgia (3)
Idaho (3) Illinois (20) Indiana (5)
Iowa (2)
Kansas
Kentucky (2)
Louisiana Maryland (12) Massachusetts (10)
Michigan Minnesota (3)
Mississippi
Missouri (4)
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire (2) New Jersey (13)
New Mexico (3) New York (26) North Carolina (6) Ohio (15)
Oregon (3) Pennsylvania (7)
Rhode Island (2)
South Carolina (2)
South Dakota Tennessee (8) Texas (7)
Utah
Vermont (3)
Virginia (2) Washington (5)
West Virginia (7) Wisconsin (12)
Countries of Origin
Canada (1)
Korea (2)