It's only a month away...
The 4th Annual Save Second Base
Pink Cards For Breast Cancer Awareness event is about to kick off and this year will be the biggest yet!
I announced the first of 4 contests I plan on running for the Save Second Base contest. Please go here before September 1st and predict who you think will lead the National League in doubles by season's end. All rules for that contest are in the post.
Here are the contestants so far
Fuji-Blackmon
Matt of Diamond Jesters-Rendon
Brett A-Seager
Lost Collector-Story
John Sharp-Rendon
Johnny Trading Spot-Albies
Gavin-Javy
Pgn3540-Rendon
Nate-Bell
Jafronius-Javy
Daniel-Seager
Henry-Blackmon
I will reveal my next contest and announce the winner of the contest pimp next week.
In the meantime, here is another memorabilia item of Cutch I own.
It is a signed Breast Cancer Awareness Mother's Day ball obtained last year when Cutch returned to PNC Park as a member of the Giants.
I was watching a rerun of Expedition Unknown on Discovery Channel and learned that Thursday is named after the Norse God of Lightning, Thor.
I have always enjoyed watching the baseball version of Thor pitch so I have been picking up a few autographs of his over time. It's nothing really special, but I do like having a small bit of variety to my PC besides just Collecting Cutch with some Clemente, Bettis, and Morton sprinkled in.
I am starting the PC not because he has a cool nickname (although that helps).
It clearly isn't for any rooting interest of my home team either (although the Mets are much closer geographically than Pittsburgh)
It's partially because I think building a side PC of a guy on my mom's favorite team could be fun since I really don't see her much anymore and looking at a stack of Mets cards from time to time could bring back some of the good memories we had.
I only have one rookie of Thor. It is a pack pulled Chrome Prism Refractor.
Are there any PCs you are building that people don't know about?
With the 3 Day absence from the blog, I can safely do my Save Second Base Event, it's recap, and World Series recap without interfering with my 1,000th post EVEN IF I post an entry each day. I feel a lot better about this and am sure that there will be a day or two I skip as I get closer to October anyway.
By now I am sure everyone has read about and heard about the trimmed card scandal that has been going through our beloved hobby. I don't buy cards as an investment. I strictly buy them to collect. Because of this I tend to not get overly hyped about the grades of cards. PSA 10 or PSA 9 on a modern card? Doesn't really matter to me.
For vintage cards a PSA 3 with good looking colors on the front and no tears is jist as cool as a PSA 8. I am more about the collecting of those vintage cards than caring about value 20 years down the road.
One of the biggest consigners in the hobby has been front and center for selling cards that have been known to be trimmed and authenticated by PSA with higher grades. I buy from the big consigners (PWCC and Probstein) on multiple occasions. Do I understand that there is a risk that I am getting shilled and prices are going up on the other end by the original owner trying to get a few extra bucks? Yup, I understand that. And I am ok with it. That's why there's something called a max bid. I am willing to go up to "X".
Recently PWCC posted two cards on auction that I REALLY WANTED. I didn't have an official wants list, but I knew of 5 cards that I coveted more than others.
Topps Heritage and Archives are my two favorite releases now that Gypsy Queen has become absolute garbage with their hits and lack of minis. I have been piecing together all the Topps Heritage Pirates team sets since the initial release. There is something really awesome about current players on vintage designs that I love.
One of the most achievable cards (cards with print runs greater than 50 copies) that I have always wanted to own is the 2009 Topps Heritage High Numbers Black Refractor to 60 copies. Like my Eleanor Photo Variant, it doesn't pop up often. Only one copy was sold in 2018.
This brings us back to PWCC. They offered an ungraded copy for sale....
AND I WON IT!!!
To celebrate my incredible addition of adding this 10 year old cardboard to the collection, I am going to show off all my Topps Heritage Black Refractors.
2010 Heritage
2011 Heritage
2012 Heritage
2013 Heritage
2014 Heritage
2015 Heritage
2016 Heritage
2017 Heritage
(blue replaced black for the "burlap" year)
I am on pace to have my 1,000th post on November 1st. Because I have something big planned for hitting the millennium mark I am going to not post for a couple days so that I don't mess up the flow of SaveSecondBase event, it's recap, the World Series review, and any other blog worthy posts that may come up.
For the past few years I have averaged about 350 posts a year, missing only about one entry per month and keeping a fairly regular daily schedule of posts.
In preparation for my 1,000th post on this blog I have something big planned. Details will be released after the Save Second Base Event I run each year. Again, I promise this year's prizes for Save Second Base will be the biggest prizes I have given out over the course of my annual event.
With the current heat wave hitting New Jersey again, I can't wait for cooler weather. I don't do well in 90+ degree heat and am hating this 92 degree weather everyday again.
Come soon October!!!!
The cooler weather isn't the only reason I want colder weather though. (2019 Steelers Football is better than 2019 Pirates Baseball too) It's also because I am looking forward to this year's Save Second Base Event. This will be my fourth year (3 years on collectingcutch and 1 year on PiratesTreasureRoom) where I celebrate nothing but pink/magenta/peach cards for an entire month.
It is a fun month long event that I use to help bring awareness to breast cancer and hope that it grabs enough attention...
I have plenty of cards to give out for this year's event and plenty of different contests to enter. All contests will focus on the K or Second Base as we look to K Cancer and Save Second Base.
The first card I am going to offer up is this Troy Tulowitzki autograph. Tulo announced his retirement from baseball about a month ago. He finished his career with 225 HRs, .290 average, 5 All-Star games, 2 Silver Sluggers, and 2 Gold Gloves. When people look back at the decade of 2008 to 2018, one of the first shortstops that will come to mind should be Troy Tulowitzki. He was elite on both sides of the field.
To win this card, simply say in a comment below who you think will be leading National League in doubles by end of the 2019 regular season.
Only National League teams qualify so any doubles hit by a player for part of a season with an American League team does not qualify. (Sorry Nick Castelanos but all those doubles you hit in Detroit mean nothing now. )
Here are the current leaders
Contest entry closes September 1st.
Winner will be determined after the final regular season game is played.
Must be a follower or frequent commenter of this blog/Twitter.
If multiple people select the same player, I will random off using random.org and hit the randomizer to an equal amount of people who selected the same player. (Example 6 people say Javy Baez and he leads in Doubles, I will random off 6 times).
If multiple players have the same Doubles total by end of season, the player with the fewest strikeouts on year gets the victory.
Let's K Cancer and Save Second Base!
As an added incentive anyone that pimps this contest ON THEIR BLOG linking to this entry will be randomed off to win an assortment of pink cards from this year's 2019 Topps Chrome. Over 20 cards to win!
Yesterday news broke about two former MLB players being part of one of the largest drug raid in the history of the Dominican Republic.
Octavio Dotel and Luis Castillo were both connected to a large drug trafficking raid per the ABC news story.
Octavio Dotel began the 2010 season as the Pirates closer.
He was unbelievable in his brief time with the Bucs. In 40 innings with the Pirates he converted 21 saves and struck out 48 batters. Keep in mind the Pirates only won 53 games for the year and only had 36 wins at the time of the trade.
He would be traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Andrew Lambo and James McDonald, both players who I was a fan of personally.
This is my only card that features Dotel on the Pirates with Cutch. It is from the 2011 Heritage team card.
Dotel is seen wearing number 29 on the far right of the second row up.
The image itself is from the 2010 Team Picture Day
I will finish with this video of Dotel's entrance for when he closed games for the Bucs. It features lots of police sirens.
Being a supercollector can be exhausting and frustrating. It is almost like an addiction. On one hand you have the mentality of "I need every card possible", the reality is you can't have them all. This is especially true if you collect a player that is one of the top 100 players in the game and has played for teams with loyal fan bases like the Yankees, Giants, and Phillies. Did I mention that he was the face of the Pirates franchise for nearly a decade?
Andrew McCutchen may not have all the hype of guys like Acuna, Alonso, Tatis Jr, Guerrero Jr, or Trout but trust me when I say that he is collected and has a VERY LOYAL following of collectors.
I have made some trades with other Cutch collectors and have bought large collections from guys that sold their Cutch cards after the Pirates traded him to San Francisco last year.
That being said there are at least two other collectors of Cutch that have been buying up his stuff lately. One I was told has unlimited funds and has purchased a card for $100 more than a copy of it that sold the day before.
Now the pictures used by the seller may have influenced one being sold too much and one being sold too little, but that is a huge discrepancy for a 24 hour difference of basically the same card.
I am not going to buy new releases of Cutch in a team's uniform I'm not even a fan of for double or triple prices just to cross something off a list. The Red Tribute /10 auto is probably a $40-$50 card. Definitely not $133. If these other collectors want to battle?
Have fun!
I am sitting on several hundred cards that I have never shown off here ranging from high end autographs and 1/1s to base cards.
With getting 3 of my top 5 cards on my want list in the past few months, I am going to decide to lay low for a bit to not get into bidding wars with other collectors while they are being in my eyes too aggressive buying recent cards of the former MVP.
I'm sure some of you may remember the chaos that occurred a few years ago when a pair of collectors were battling each other for Omar Vizquel and Andres Gallaraga cards. Some 1/1s were going for thousands of dollars. I am not prepared for that $#*+.
Call me chicken.
Call me yellow.
Call me what you will, but I'm out of this madness for awhile until it settles down.
Today's post features just 5 of the 1/1s I have never shown off before. They are all yellow printing plates, a fitting color for my recent admission to get out of buying new cards. Of the five shown off today, the only one that has been bought recently was the Tristar Elegance pictured above. I won it in June for only $9.99, before one of the other Cutch collectors resurfaced.
