New Goal: Chasing 3,000

Hello friends,
Thank you for following this blog and for on average leaving a few comments on every post.  I greatly appreciate the friendships that I have made since becoming more of a PC player collector then collecting everything Pittsburgh.  Save those cards for Matt at BobWalkThePlank.

As you all have learned last week, I have eclipsed my 2,000th unique card of Cutch.  Looking back at the past 8 years of Collecting Cutch I have learned a lot of things about this hobby.  It's best to collect what you want to collect and not go into purchasing things for investment purposes.  Unless you are really good at predicting the future and are in this "hobby" to make money you will most likely fail.  There was a 3 year stretch where McCutchen cards were on fire!  Things were selling for crazy prices.  They have since cooled down because Andrew, the player, hasn't been performing up to the same expectations we as fans put on him after his torrid 2012-2015 seasons when he was a top 5 MVP candidate for 4 years straight, winning the award in 2013.

Andrew, despite his hot and cold stretches is still my favorite player to watch play.  Not just today, but of all time.

I grew up loving baseball.  I had an uncle who was close friends with Ken Caminiti so I got to see up close the Astros teams of early 90s several times a year when they came to Philadelphia (it was the closest stadium to where we lived).  It was the early 90s Pirates, Twins, and Blue Jays teams that I rooted for though.  I thought Barry Bonds was an absolute beast (he was btw).  I would go on to hate the Braves mostly because of my mother rooting for them in 1991.  When the Bucs were eliminated I rooted against the Braves so was cheering on the Twins in the 1991 World Series and the Blue Jays in 1992.  All of those teams, I am still a closet fan of.

The 1994 strike happened and I hated baseball.

I got really into music and began forming my own punk and metal bands.  To curb my nerdy side I got into comic books especially Image Comics.

I still liked to play baseball though with my friends, but I had no idea what was going on with the sport.  Sports as a whole vacated my life.

Barry Bonds insane Home Run season brought me back...for one summer.  I watched the month of September and October.  Then I stopped caring again.

In 2005, I was given free tickets to a Pirates vs. Phillies game by my employer.  This was my first time going to the new ballpark and it was a lot different then the Vet which the Phillies played in for many decades.  Watching the game in person from the outfield bleachers with my dad, brother, and ex girlfriend I fell in love with the sport again.  The sound of the bat, the smell of hotdogs, popcorn, beer, and fresh grass.  The way the sun falls on the field.  It was like heaven on Earth....but it was in Philadelphia.  I hate Philly.  The Pirates lost the game 4-3.

I decided then that I wanted to get back into baseball.  I did some research on who was good and who was bad.  What were the guys I used to root for up to?  Paul Molitor and Kirby Puckett were already enshrined in Cooperstown along with Dave Winfield representing my Twins and Blue Jays love.  Andy Van Slyke was retired?  Barry Bonds was still in San Francisco, but his career was on the twilight.  It was approaching an end.

Pirates are cool!  I thought.  Plus Jerome Bettis made me a Steelers fan.  Let's just go with an all Pittsburgh theme.  My aunt and cousins are just outside Pittsburgh.  Yup.  I'm going to root for the Pirates again.

I researched how bad the team was and how they basically had sucked the entire time I left them back in 1994.  Ok, who is their top prospects?  Well they just drafted this kid Andrew McCutchen out of high school.

Cool.  I'm going to follow his entire career I thought.

And thus it began.  I rooted for the Pirates and my favorite player became Andrew McCutchen.

I got to see the Pirates AA team play against my local minor league team, the Trenton Thunder around the 4th of July and remember him making an awesome catch and almost hitting a HomeRun.  He also beat out an infield single.  The dude could fly.

Now in terms of card collecting, I really didn't get back into that until late 2009 early 2010.  By 2011 I had just a few dozen autograph relics of Cutch.

Six years after starting the Treasure Room blog, I moved on to have quite possibly the biggest and best Andrew McCutchen card collection in the world.  I often battle with a few others on the high end 1/1s and even some of the mid /50 or less cards, but I know my collection kicks ass and have been buying other former collectors out of their collections.

The next K milestone in terms of Collecting Cutch is 3,000.  I am going to slow down a little with all the plain jersey swatch relics, but will still chase down the rarest of cards.  Printing plates will now have a set budget by year that I am willing to spend.  Autographs will always be sought out and I will always pay a premium for on card certified autos.

But as I get nearer to this 3,000 journey, I am reminded of the number 3,000 and what it means to Pirates fans.  It's because of this that I am going to start another.

Join me at Chasing 3,000 my new blog where I will be chasing down my journey to acquire 3,000 Roberto Clemente cards.  I am interested in everything Clemente.

It should be a fun journey.  I suspect it will be decades in the making.  I currently have a few hundred Clemente cards so there is lots more to grab.

As always thank you for reading my cardboard adventures.
Please add my new blog to your blogroll.  I will continue to post on both blogs as daily as possible.

Thank you for your friendship and continued support

Brian aka CollectingCutch