Rediscovering The Hobby Fun

So I did a thing while still (temporarily) living with the in laws.

I dug out some of my boxes of Cutch cards that I never scanned or sorted or entered into my spreadsheet.

This is just one of the five boxes of relics, autos, printing plates, and manufactured relics boxes I have to go through.

I am certain that there will be cards in here that I forgot about and I am certain I will find cards that I scanned but never entered into my spreadsheet and vice versa. 

I found so many awesome cards just hanging out in these boxes.

My goal is to knock out one of these boxes every ten days to sort, enter into my spreadsheet, and maybe even find some gems to blog about.

One card that caught my eye was this 2015 Topps silver frame league leaders card.

The 2015 silver frame cards were limited to only 20 copies and followed the success of the 2014 Topps Gold Label framed inserts.

The fronts and backs are identical to the standard base card, but they have a very heavy and sturdy silver frame outlining the card along with a serial number marking on the front of the card.

If you were playing NL Batting Title Bingo at the begining of the season and you had Ben Revere, Jonathan Lucroy, Josh Harrison, Denard Span, and Jayson Werth you just might have won.  

It's always fun to look back at some of the stat leaders and who were the guys you wouldn't expect to be in competition for that stat leader.

Cutch finished third in the batting title race in 2014 behind teammate Josh Harrison and former teammate Justin Morneau.

I thought it would be fun to look back at that 2014 batting title race between three guys who finished the 2013 season with the Pirates.

By the rules to qualify for a batting title, a player must have 3.1 at bats per game in a 162 game season.  This equates to 502 at bats to qualify for a batting title in a standard season.

Coincidently Justin Morneau had exactly 502 at bats in the 2014 Season and played in only 135 games.  On September 26th, Justin Morneau had his 501st at bat of the season and was substituted out of the game after a 2 for 3 performance at the plate and raising his average to .319.  The 4th place Rockies chose not to play Morneau in the second to last game of the season and would use him as a pinch hitter in the 7th inning to close out the season.  He got out, but kept his batting average at .319 if you round it up from it's original .318725 mark.  This pinch hit at bat on the final game of the season gave Morneau the opportunity to clinch a batting title.  If he had walked or gotten injured before completing this pinch hit at bat, Morneau would not have qualified for the batting title and the Rockies who finished the season with a 66-96 record would have one less thing to celebrate in a pretty forgettable season.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were battling for their second straight postseason push and were within a few games reach of winning the division heading into the final week.  

The Pirates had to play their stars to continue to make the push for their best shot at the postseason.  

In the final four games of the season, Cutch went 4 for 12 with an additional 4 walks.  Had Cutch gotten 3 more hits over the course of the season while maintaining his 548 at bats, Cutch would have won the batting title with a .319343 mark.  

The last Pirates player to win a batting title was Freddy Sanchez in 2006.  

Do you remember these silver frame parallels?

Who was the last player on your favorite team to win a batting title?