Community Involvement

This week my company is working together with the local townships we serve and helping to clean the roads and surrounding areas.  It is part of our Green Team initiative where we use the value of sustainability to ensure the Earth is still around for future generations.  We also will be doing a massive Partners in Caring event where we hope to raise nearly $20,000 for the local food pantries.

Cutch has always been an active member of the communities he lives in.  Back in 2010 Pepsi had a Pepsi Refresh promotion and Cutch tried to make an area in Pittsburgh that could be used to provide healthy farm raised goods right in the city to the community for free. He has partnered up with Make A Wish on MANY MANY occasions as well. Immediately upon being traded to San Francisco, Cutch wanted to join the late Willie McCovey's Stretch Drive to provide baseball equipment to financially struggling families. 

I have a button of the charity promoting the bobblehead that was given to patrons who contributed at least $50 in a donation.

Check Out This Rack (pack)!!!

It's been a long time since I highlighted a rack pack. So let's show off another.

I am always looking for retail exclusive packs that feature color parallels of Cutch on the front.

I have previously shown a green retail exclusive pack that showed Cutch on the front. It can be seen here.

Cardboard Cameos: Rematch No One Was Waiting For

The Pittsburgh Pirates will be trying to avoid an 8 game losing streak that has taken all the early buzz of the team's first 2 weeks success completely out of the air.

The starting rotation excluding recent struggles of Chris Archer (now on IL) and Jordan Lyles (also on IL) has been pretty good.

Tonight the Pirates will be sending their most reliable arm, Trevor Williams, to face off against Rich Hill making his season debut.   This won't be the first time these two faced off.  In 2017, Williams, threw 7 shutout innings against the Dodgers while Rich Hill took a no hitter into the 10th inning.

Pirates fans all remember how that ended.
Josh Harrison hit an 0-1 pitch for a game winning walk off homer.

I like these "Where's Waldo" style of cardboard cameos.  Can you find the McCutchen cameo on the card?

Juan Soto and Bryce Harper touched my ball

Clickbait? Yeahhhhhh...

But it's true.

I have been trying to acquire game hit baseballs of Cutch in different stadiums now that my cardboard collection has gotten completely out of control.

With the addition of Statcast in every stadium, game used baseballs go to a whole new level of collecting fun.  By entering the code at MLB.com authentication site you can learn everything there is about that baseball.

So we learn that this baseball was used in a game with the San Francisco Giants playimg against the Washington Nationals in Washington.

It was the first pitch thrown by Ryan Madson in the top of the 7th inning to Andrew McCutchen which lined it to Bryce Harper for a distance traveled of 236 feet at a speed of 80.27MPH.

Using the same ball, on the very next pitch, Evan Longoria scorched it on the ground to Juan Soto.  It left the bat at 103.7MPH and traveled a distance of 215 feet before being retrieved by Juan Soto.  It was hit with an angle of only 1.43 degrees.

Upon retrieval of the ball, Ryan Masson threw it to catcher Nick Huntley and it was a ball.  At that point Madson must have said "this is all your fault" to the 108 stitched piece of equipment and asked the umpire for a new ball.

(End)Game Changer?

So I saw Avengers:EndGame this morning at 2am.  I will not say anything about the movie and ask that no one reveal spoilers in the comments.

Instead I will show off some sketches of one of my favorite Superheroes, Tony Stark aka Iron Man.  About 5 years ago I got rid of all my sketch cards I had accumulated of my favorite characters: Gambit, Wolverine, Daredevil, Green Arrow, Flash, and Hawkgirl.  I held onto all my Iron Man sketch cards because...
Well you'll see below. They are ridiculously awesome.

This incredible sketch is done by comic book superstar, Jimmy Cheung, who cocreated the Young Avengers comic.  The sketch was done on Iron Man 2 stock.

I also have a pair of Iron Man sketches on Avengers: Age of Ultron stock.

There is a discussion about "character" collecting on a sketch card forum I frequent from time to time because I love looking at the artwork and it got me thinking about what character I would collect if I were to ever get back into it.  I gave it some thought and even though I love Iron Man, Flash, Gambit, Batman, Deadpool, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Wolverine, Venom, among many others I think I would probably super collect Daredevil.  Daredevil is just such a tragic character and I can relate to the man without fear thing.  Maybe I will start to look for some DD cards from old 90s sets...or maybe I will just stick to Collecting Cutch and the Pirates.

Oh and since this is a blog predominantly focused on Andrew McCutchen baseball cards here are some other heroic cards sent by a blogging hero, Gregory of The Collective Mind.

He included one of the most heroic players in Pirates history, a 1969 Bill Mazeroski.  I actually had this card, but listed it as a need on my vintage needs because mine is literally folded into quarters.  Greg stepped up in a heroic way and snagged this for me for only 3 quarters.

He also imcluded the Andrew McCutchen 2018 Update Salute card that is part of the Game Changers subseries.

Thanks Greg.  Trade package going out this weekend along with a bunch of other packages to other bloggers.

I have needed the base insert for a long time so I am ultra pumped about adding it to my collection.

I do have another Game Changer of Cutch, the signed version.

There is a red/pinkish parallel available, but I have yet to add that to the collection. Hopefully I can cross that off in the near future.

That ends the show for today. Happy Avenger Weekend to all of you planning to see the movie.

Chicken Little

Forget about the Urban Dictionary. I'm going to use chicken talk to describe how much I paid for this Cutch22 card.

Yup, for the low price of a single George Washington I grabbed another Cutch card numbered 22/xx.

Can't beat that with a baseball bat...

Y'all gonna make me lose my mind, UPTON here

I have been buying up a bunch of the uncirculated printing plates from Just Minors recently for Andrew McCutchen.  Some of the magenta plates will be shown off during my 4th annual Save Second Base Event.

Some others have escaped me because I forgot to put in true max bids.

It would have been nice to add a triple autograph of former Pirates prospects for under $11.  Kudos to the winner on that.

All these Cutch cards coming out at the same time has me acting like DMX

Fortunately a pair of triple autos I have long wanted is another favorite player of mine, Justin Upton, being offered as part of a triple auto.

The card design and sticker autograph is ugly, but I now have a pair of Justin Upton autograph in my Cutch collection.

Wait until October to see my other Cutch/Upton multiplayer autograph card I snagged.

I think this puts me around 240 1/1s of Cutch now.

Y'all gonna make me lose my mind, Upton here. Upton here.  Hahaha

With the first pick of the NFL Draft...

There is speculation that the Arizona Cardinals may use the first overall pick to select former 1st Round Baseball prospect, Kyler Murray.  Kyler was selected 9th overall in the 2018 MLB Draft.  Unlike most other sports where the draft picks can make immediate impacts on their teams, baseball is a slower process.

It is because of that process that Murray ultimately chose to try his luck in football.

Another player who was drafted 9th overall was Bill Rowell in the 2006 draft.  Rowell looked like he would ascend through the minors tearing up the rookie league as a 17 year old batting .328/.415/.503 for an incredible and impressive .918 OPS.  The following year as an 18 year old he continued his success batting at a .273 clip.  When he approached A+ as a 19 year old he began to falter and was out of baseball by the time he was a 22 year old repeating the Gulf Coast League and AA.

Javy Baez has been the most recent success story to be selected 9th overall, but there is still hopes that Austin Meadows and Ian Happ could contribute long careers from that draft selection.

The all time top five WAR leaders to have been selected 9th overall are Kevin Appier  (54.7), Barry Zito (32.0), Geoff Jenkins (21.7), Mark Kotsay (21.3), and John Danks (20.2).

The position players listed above had a career earnings of roughly $48M with an average of a 15 year career and 3 years in the minors.  It is likely that if Murray gets selected 1st overall, he could top those earnings on his rookie contract.

Baseball contracts are guaranteed.
Football contracts are not.

Both sports require extreme levels of athleticism and commitments from the athletes involved. 

The draft ultimately comes down to scouting, player drive, and health.  For every Peyton Manning selected 1st Overall there is a Ryan Leaf.  The same can be said that for every Javier Baez selected 9th overall there is a Billy Rowell.

One thing that can't be said after this week is that for every Kyler Murray in baseball there is a Kyler Murray in football.  Some of the most famous two sport athletes before had never been drafted in 1st Round of multiple leagues.  Bo Jackson and John Elway, both famous for their football feats were selected in the second rounds of the MLB drafts by the New York Yankees.  Both players used their two sport capabilities to get drafted in football else where.  Jackson didn't want to play for the Bucaneers so he reentered the baseball and football drafts.  Elway didn't want to play for the Baltimore Colts and demanded a trade or else he would play for the Yankees.

Jackson would again be drafted in the forth round by the Royals a few years later after his success at Auburn.

Do you think Murray goes in the 1st Round of Thursday's draft?

With your powers combined...

Anyone remember Captain Planet?

I was watching a YouTube video about 90s cartoon intros and really dug  the intro for Captain Planet.  Granted it was mainly produced by TBS as a way to educate young people about ecological sustainability, but it had some cool characters and memorable moments.

The premise of it wasn't too far removed from another of my favorite cartoons, Voltron, that I would watch growing up.  Instead of 5 space pilots learning to work together through teamwork and form a giant mechanized super robot, there was 5 teenage activists from across the globe that had to use their "powers" gifted from a magical ring to work together to form a blue bodied mullet bearing superhero called Captain Planet.

Captain Planet literally brought about a hero that could only appear when everyone worked together to stop pollution.  The teenagers that summoned him were empowered through magical rings gifted from Gaia (Mother Earth).  Each ring possesed a different element to control and allowed the user to use it to prevent further damage from occurring.  The 4 natural elements (earth, wind, fire, water) were also used in association with heart to give the Planeteers abilities to overcome the over top villainy of Dr. Blight, Sly Sludge, Duke Nukem, Looten Plunder, Hoggish Greedly, and Verminous Skumm.

Let's take a look at some Cutch cardboard and how it can relate to the Earth Saving rings used by the Planeteers.

Earth

I chose a Gypsy Queen Sliding Stars mini card because it features dirt flying.  Seems appropriate for a ring that can cause the ground to literally come up from under you.

Fire

This card was a no brainer.  Topps has been producing a line of cards called Fire for a few years.  The one represented here is a metal card available only via there website in 2014.

Wind

I love this card. It ranks as one of my favorite images of Cutch on cardboard.  It looks like Cutch is taking some flying lessons with the wind lifting him up at Wrigley Field.

Water

This 2018 Legends in the Making blue parallel is a bit of a stretch for water, but something about the design of the card mixed with it being a blue parallel reminds me of a beach landscape.

Heart

This short print features a pair of 2013 Pirates All-Stars.  Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutchen look like they are great friends.



What are you doing today to celebrate Earth Day and help save our planet?

Scripture Sunday - He Is Risen!

John 11:25

Jesus said to her "I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die"

This Day in Cutchstory: Quality Control?

Where the heck is the quality control at Topps?

They release a high end set with a suggested retail price of roughly $300 per box and said box contains only 1 card.

The design is awesome.

The box it comes in is equally awesome.

The information about dynastic deeds is awesome.

IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE THOUGH!!!

Look up the boxscore for  April 20th, 2017.  The Diamondbacks played the San Diego Padres and lost easily 4-1.

Was Cutch a member of the Padres then?
Nope!

Ugh....

The Debut of Patches Malone

The 2015 Diamond King set reminds me of the posters for Dark Knight Rises.

For proof see below...

Here is the poster not super cropped

Batman created an alter ego called Matches Malone when he was investigating the criminal underground.

Maybe unlicensed cardboard of Cutch will be looked at by Patches Malone.

National High Five Day

Did you know there was a day dedicated to the art of high fiving?

Me neither.

While it doesn't get the Hallmark treatment of other nationally celebrated days, it is a tradition baseball fans should all celebrate.

During the summer of 1977 Dodgers slugger Dusty Baker celebrated with his teammate Glenn Burke after crushing a homerun.

Today many players have done away with the traditional high five for more show worthy celebrations.

Bryce Harper actually has a different celebration for each of his Phillies teammates.  Harper's celebration with Cutch is much different than this high five he gave him at the 2015 All-Star Game.

Hopefully Topps can release a high end card of Cutch and Harper celebrating post Home run.

I need something to take the place of this 2011 Diamond 1/1 celebration of Cutch, Ryan Doumit, and Garrett Jones.

The card is awesome, but man 2010 was terrible year for the Pirates.  Need proof? Look at the back.

105 losses!!!!
The pitcher with the most strikeouts was Paul Maholm with 102 punchouts.
I'm surprised there was anything worthy of celebration that year.