Who's The Rookie?

Cutch's rookie year in MLB was 2009.  He came up sporting dreadlocks and some stylish facial hair. 

It's been a long time since we saw Cutch without facial hair.

Gotta go back to his draft year 2005 when he was fresh out of high school and selected in the 1st round by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This is just strange.

13 years have passed since these images took place.

In case you missed it Cutch was traded to the Yankees.

Terrible News While You Are Trying To Sleep

Last night I was laying in bed getting ready to fall asleep when I got the MLB AtBat alert followed by an ESPN alert followed by several email alerts and text messages.

Terrible news broke late last night.

Andrew McCutchen was traded by the Giants to the Evil Empire, the New York Yankees.

It is bad enough that I won't be able to see Cutch with his name on his back anymore, but he won't even have his trademark 22 either. 

The reason is because that number belongs to Jacoby Ellsbury who hasn't played a single game this season.  It must be nice to offer a guy $153 million to be a bench player for 7 years.

Great job Yankees. You have killed my Cutch fandom.

At least I can watch a Yankees game and root for someone besides just Neil Walker now. Let's go former Bucs!!!

$9 Winning Bid Lands Me a 1/1

You may recall last month that I entered into a group break for 2 cases of 2018 Archives Signature Edition.  I was fortunate and landed a redemption for Cutch.  Not a bad score as some of these redemptions had been selling in the $90+ range.

I also won a few more redemptions after that initial victory and entered my codes all at the same time.

I was dreading to see how long it would take for the redemptions to come through.

I also was dreading seeing 3 autograph copies of Cutch's 2018 Bowman card come in numbered 32, 33, 34 of 80 or something like that.  Fortunately that didn't happen as you will soon see.

While doing a mock draft for my fantasy football league I heard a knock on the door.  I threw on a shirt and opened it up to see a FedEx driver with a package for me.  I didn't recall ordering anything recently, but signed for the package said my goodbye to Mr. FedEx and closed the door.  Upon sitting back on the couch I noticed it was from Topps.

Is this my Cutch redemptions?

Well....yes it is!!!!

All 3 of my Cutch redemptions were 1/1s.

BOOM!!!!

I am officially over 200 1/1s of Cutch now.  These cards are super sharp looking in hand.  I would love to get a rookie card or a Heritage buyback autograph and will be closely looking for more redemptions to win.

On The Block?

The August nonwaiver trade deadline is literally just days away.  Andrew McCutchen has cleared waivers and news broke today that Josh Harrison has cleared also.

Could the Giants trade Cutch to a contending team looking to bolster their outfield and lineup?

Could a team use a super utility guy like Josh Harrison to be a late inning bat bench?

One thing is for sure these 2014 MVP candidates are not viewed by their current teams as being cornerstones to build around anymore.

With the offensive decline of both players I have been able to pick up a few cards here and there of both of them for significantly less than their previous prices would have commanded. 

There was a time in 2015 when a certified Elite Extra Edition sticker autograph of Harrison numbered to 600 would command $50. Now?

I am able to buy autographs of him in Topps Archives for under $10 delivered for on card signatures of my favorite cards he has appeared on.

This will likely be one of the last dual cards of Cutch and Harrison produced and it's Majestic.

Well...partially

I love bad puns.

Needed to recharge the batteries....

I have tried to blog daily, but for the past few weeks I have missed a few days.  Life has just gotten in the way.   On top of that I haven't been buying much in terms of Cutch cards.  I have really enjoyed looking at my collection especially the Heritage cards.  

I have actually bought a few low numbered Pirates Heritage cards recently, one of which I took advantage of some great eBay savings. 

Looking back at my Heritage collection has really recharged the batteries for my collection.

Pardon the pun you are about to see...

Al Kaline (not alkaline) and Cutch on a 1966 style punchboard.  

Rookie Of The Year Race?

The National League has a lot of close races as we enter the final month of the season.  From the East and West coast divisions to MVP to Rookie of the Year to Cy Young there are a LOT of tight races that could literally come down to the final games to determine a winner.

If I had to pick my favorites here is what I would vote for
West: DiamondBacks
Central: Cubs
East: Braves

Wild Card: Dodgers at Rockies

MVP: Freddie Freeman
Cy Young: Max Scherzer
Rookie of Year: Ronald Acuna Jr.

I think the hardest to determine a winner is the ROY decision as Acuna, Soto, and Albies all look like they could win the award.

During Andrew McCutchen's rookie season of 2009 he immediately made an impact on Pittsburgh baseball.  He would get a hit in his very first at bat.  He finished the season with a .286/.365/.471 slash line in only 108 games.  He had 12 homeruns and 22 stolen bases.  He had a memorable walk off homer against the Phillies where he "Air Jordan" his helmet on the round tripper and also had a 3 homer game against the Nationals.

His 2.4 WAR earned him a 4th place finish behind 1.1WAR and winner of the award Chris Coghlan.  J.A. Happ and Tommy Hanson.

Cutch didn't leave 2009 without getting some hardware though.

He would win the Baseball America Rookie of Year award and be voted to the Topps All Rookie Team.

I am currently still in search for a 2010 Topps Heritage Chrome black refractor, but do have four of the 2010 Flagship card parallels featuring Cutch with the Topps Rookie Trophy.

Top: WalMart Black and Black Hobby/59
Bottom: Gold/2010 and Base

I have 7 of the 2010 Topps Chrome parallels and 2 of the 2011 Lineage Reprint Parallel Autos featuring the same image.

Smooth As Silk!

I have shown a few of my Silk Collection cards before.

This 2018 Allen & Ginter silk /10 brings my A&G silk collection to 4 consecutive years (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018).  It is my first major hit of Cutch in a Giants uniform.

Deep Blue "See 2"

I will be the first to admit I have a strange fascination with sharks.  Every year I get super excited for watching shark week on Discovery Channel.  Shortly after shark week is over, the SyFy channel runs a week of animal creature feature movies.  This week has been all about the sharks as the channel is nearing the debut of Sharknado 6: It's About Time.

The Sharknado movies are so ridiculous you either can't watch them and view them as stupid OR you can't not watch them.  I fall in the second category.  The movies are so bad I have to watch them.

Other movies shown this week include Trailer Park Shark, Santa Jaws, Toxic Shark, and so many more.

Today will feature Six Headed Shark Attack.  I am sure it will be award worthy viewing.

Last night though I was glued to the TV watching Deep Blue Sea 2.
The original Deep Blue Sea featured a bunch of well known actors like Thomas Jane, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Rappaport, and the great LL Cool J.

This movie didn't feature the same star cast.

Part of the reason I was attracted to the movie is because of Danielle Savre.

Ok, that was the main reason

besides wanting to see if any sharks would be biting the heads off people.

SHARK MOVIES ARE GREAT!!!!

What is your favorite shark movie?

I was looking at my collection FINALLY begining to scan in all the cards from 2005 when I realized that one of Cutch's most prized 1st year cards I have uniquely numbered 22/150.

I should really try and figure out how many Cutch cards I have numbered 22/xx

The blue refractor ties in very nicely with the Deep Blue 2 theme

With October just a little over 40 days away I have begun putting together a bunch of cards not shown last year along with a few beautiful women to help highlight them.  I could have saved Ms. Savre for that feature, but hey it's the summer and SHARKS!!!!


Similar to last year I am also putting together a great contest this year.  Stay tuned as we near September for all the details.

Thanks to Jason, I'm Hoarding Cardboard again

Things have been quiet on the mail front for the past month here as I haven't been buying as much cardboard as I once did.

Fortunately for my Cutch Collection, Jason at Hoarding Cardboard hooked me up with a pair of cards I needed for the PC.

Jason sent me two 2018 cards that I previously didn't have.
First up the gold parallel from Topps Big League, a budget friendly set geared to set collectors and younger collectors.

The back which has a vintage look to it provides us with the Did You Know trivia which I think everyone knows about already.

The other card Jason sent was a 2018 insert in the design of the 1983 All-Star cards.

This is the second time that Cutch has received the 1983 All-Star design.  The other you can read about here when I highlighted Steve Garvey.

Jason, thank you so much for your generosity and kind words about my collection.

I will get some Redlegs out to you soon.

They already ate the cake?

In case you may have missed it...

The Dodgers and Giants got into a brawl Tuesday night.

Andrew McCutchen took to instagram Wednesday to describe it.
You can read the article and hear his instagram play by play of the whole thing here.  It's well worth the click to hear Cutch get animated about the event and say things like:

I looked around and it was like a tornado, but it was just the bullpen running in.

I decided to join them and start running.

I thought about doing a karate pose...but I didn't.

Being in the outfield during a brawl is like a kid showing up to a birthday party late.  It's like you're coming in all excited, and they went and already ate all the cake.

Cutch is a funny dude.  I miss his personality in the clubhouse for the pregame and postgame interviews and features.

The only new card to the collection of this bunch is the Big League Caricature.  I got it for $1. The others were all scanned as part of a future post I am working on and they helped tell the story of what Cutch was talking about on instagram.

5 Cases of Cards for $2.49? I Struck Gold!!!

So I joined another player break because I have been having good luck with them so far.  While many people are going after the guys who have autographs, inserts, and are hot rookies I am scooping up multi case breaks of Andrew McCutchen.

For the low price of a $2.49 winning bid I bought into 5 cases of Topps Chrome cards that netted me 25 base cards, 4 refractors, and a really nice Gold Wave Refractor numbered to only 50 copies.

Not a bad deal, I must say.

The back of the card features the same writeup as Series 1 flagship.

Here is the base next to the refractor

ProCamps, Pro Sigs!

I came across this signed badge from a Procamp card for $10 and felt the urge to buy it.

Here is a video of Cutch with the ProCamp

It's not a baseball card and I already have nearly 200 signatures of Cutch, but I can now say I have this unique item in the collection too.

Get Your Game On!

Dating back to the begining of trading cards there have been games played around collectible cards.

I have never been one to play card games based around sports athletes though.

There has been the famous 1951 red back cards and 1968 Topps game cards, but between Showdown and Attax I never could actually get into playing the actual game.

Topps recognized that true gamers might not want to play Attax because the sharp corners would get damaged.  This lead to them curving the edges in 2011 from the standard corners used in 2010.

They also went to a standard looking back similar to what Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh use so that you can't predict what card you are drawing.

I haven't bought a collectible trading card game for nearly 5 years and haven't played Yu-Gi-Oh or MTG with friends for nearly 7 years.

Topps Heritage is Awesome!

I was looking at some of my non Cutch cards the other day as I try to organize my collection better.  I realized that I should pick up some more Pirates Heritage cards (especially the certified autographs of the players from the 50s and 60s).

I haven't been buying much in terms of cards recently, but there was an eBay promo a few days ago for 15% off a purchase of $25 or more.

I used the code to grab an awesome addition to the Pirates and Cutch Heritage collection.  Expect me to show it off sometime next week when it arrives.

Until that card shows up, here is an awesome box topper relic I have that I completely forgot I owned.

This oversized extremely rare, hand numbered, box topper features a very boring grey swatch.  I haven't seen one of these pop up for nearly 2 years. 

The 2013 card highlights Cutch's multi homer efforts in consecutive days.

This Day In Cutchstory: Cutch Goes Clutch!

The year was 2009.  The Pittsburgh Pirates were on the verge of becoming a franchise with the longest consecutive years of losing streaks in North America.  Things were not looking bright for their immediate future either as they had no pitching help coming up in the minors.

The team had just traded away many of their previous season's All-Stars.  Nate McLouth, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, and Jason Bay had all been traded in the previous year or through the 2009 trade deadline.

The lone bright spot was the Pirates top prospect (#13 overall) had made his debut in early June and hit the ground running. Literally.  His first at bat was a ground ball up the middle then Cutch had proceeded to steal his first base.

By July he was looking like a contender for the Rookie of the Year.

It wasn't until August 1st that Cutch got some more "National coverage" when he hit 3 HomeRuns against the Nationals, another National League basement dweller team.

There have been numerous cards over the years that Topps has produced referencing Cutch's big day at the plate, but the biggest of them is this 2010 Allen & Ginter Boxtopper.

I think it would be really cool to get custom cards of these "minis" on the card actually made.

The Pirates are playing Cutch's new team, the San Francisco Giants this weekend.  Here's hoping the Pirates can make a serious run in the final two months and pick up some ground for their playoff push.

The National Exclusives 2012

The National Sports Convention just ended and I considered making a set of posts about all the National exclusive cards I have of Cutch, but then the Pirates made a blockbuster trade for Chris Archer and I went out to Pittsburgh for his debut.

So rather than grouping all the cards over a series of consecutive posts I will just randomly show them off over the course of time (or maybe all next year for the Convention time frame as I haven't quite decided yet).

Cutch began gaining superstar status in 2012 following his first All Star Game appearance in 2011 and an extremely hot start to the year in 2012.

Through June 2012 he looked like the clear cut MVP as the Pirates were battling for 1st place in the division and at one point in July Cutch had reached a season average of .386.

As part of the National circuit, Panini made a series of restamped cards including the Elite Extra Edition you see below.

This would have been a good Star Wars Day card as it is numbered 4/5 and I celebrated May the 4th this year with cards all numbered 4/5.

Happy Sidney Crosby Day

Happy Birthday to the superstar hockey talent once known as "Sid The Kid".

While he may no longer be a kid (31 years old today), Sidney will go down as one of the greatest hockey players of all time.  He has already won 3 Stanley Cups in addition to numerous gold medals, awards, and the hearts of Pittsburgh Penguins fans across the nation.

#87 is special to me.  He helped save Pittsburgh Penguins hockey.

Much like how Andrew McCutchen reinvigated the city with a love for baseball.

To merge these two generational Pittsburgh athletes together, I am showing off my Andrew McCutchen on an 87 design. 

Topps has had a recent love affair with putting 1987 and 1983 designs in a lot of their products.  I am looking forward to those 1989 designs next year.

Stop looking at me Swan

I love the older Adam Sandler movies from the 90s.  Movies like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, Waterboy, etc. I can quote nearly every line.

I don't know if it is subliminal messaging to my shaved summer head, but when I got this 2017 Allen & Ginter Silk Framed Parallel numbered to 10, I remember doing the entire bathtub scene from Billy Madison mainly because of the silky and smooth line.

Silky and smooooooooth

I actually broke down and bought a new card (1st in awhile) so that I could continue my A&G Silk collection.  I have shown the 2015 and 2016 versions here.