Ribbit ribbit

When I was younger I used to be fascinated by the metamorphosis of frogs.  I know that ultrasounds of humans show incredible growth and we are amazing stories of survival too, but the idea of so many tiny tadpole eggs and the development of them to one day become a frog is a journey of perseverance that nature can provide.  It absolutely amazes me that any frogs can survive so much.

I bring this up because one of the most interesting and bizarre sets that Panini has used their unlicensed baseball product line over the past few years is a release called Chronicles.  Chronicles basically takes an amalgam of their basketball and football releases and makes mini sets for their baseball release. 

Spectra Triple Threats is a very popular set that Panini uses much in the same way Topps produces Triple Threats.

The 2018 set was supposed to have a few parallels to chase.  The neon blue would be produced /99, neon pink would be /49, green would be /25, gold to /10, and nebula would be 1/1.

Shortly after release Panini stated that not all players would be featured for all parallels and some players may have less than stated numbers produced. 

Of course I wanted to grab a copy of the 2018 Neon Pink /49 for my Save The Boobies event.  Unfortunately Cutch fell in the "or less" copy. 

The Neon Blue parallel looks like tadpole eggs to me.

And much like the survival rate of a tadpole, much fewer survived than what should have.

In short, Cutch didn't survive the cut for a Neon Pink copy.  Instead his Neon Blue which should have been /99 copies was instead produced as a short print /49 card.