Reflecting on Sharknado

I've mentioned Sharknado a few times on this blog in it's brief history.  It combines my love of sharks (Hey it's Shark Week on Discovery Channel!!!) and those bad animal feature films.  

The first film series debuted in 2013 and starred former 90210 heart throb Ian Ziering (born in Newark, NJ in 1964).  Ziering plays Fin Shepard, a former surfer who is the world's best hope to stop these tornadoes that spew out hundreds of sharks.  Shepard uses a chainsaw as his main weapon to combat this natural disaster.

Because it's Shark Week (one of my favorite weeks of the year) and Discovery Channel recently showed an episode starring Ian Ziering (and Tara Reid) debunking some of the stories discussed in all the Sharknado movies, I thought it would be fun to discuss my Cutch collection and Sharknado.

I wonder if there's a baseball card of Andrew McCutchen that references both 1964 and 2013?

Behold 2013 Topps Heritage!

The 2013 Topps Heritage Set uses the same design as 2014 Topps.  Andrew McCutchen's base card is 438, the same as a checklist in the original 1964 set.  Talk about a huge missed opportunity.

Above are the 9 cards I have of Cutch from 2013 Topps Heritage.

1st Row:Base, Base League Leaders, Chrome

2nd Row:Action Variant, Red Retail, Black Retail

3rd Row: Purple Hot Box Chrome, Black Refractor Chrome, Venezuelan black back action photo variant

I still need two of the chrome parallels

 Gold Refractor /5 and Chrome Refractor /564

A gold Refractor was listed last fall, but was pulled before the auction ended.  It was being sold by a seller in Japan.  I tried to reach out to the seller, but got no response.  Here's hope I can land one of the other 4 sometime.

Have you watched any of the Sharknado movies?

A "Flood"ed Day in Cutchstory

It rained all day yesterday and rather than blogging, I focused on catching up on Netflix shows.  My latest binge watch is Locke and Key based on the IDW Graphic Novel of the same name.

Cutch made his debut June 4, 2009.

On the same day in 1967, Curt Flood record 227 games without an error ended. During those games he had 568 chances, a major league record.

To baseball fans Curt Flood is remembered for several things.
1)His 1964 Topps card is highly overpriced due to one collector Supercollecting only that card.  An article about it can be found here.

2)He was a three time All-Star and 7 time Gold Glove winner in Centerfield for the St. Louis Cardinals.

3)He helped bring about the ability for modern day free agency.

It is because of number 3 that I am writing about him today as part of Black History Month.

Flood challenged the initial reserve clause stating that "I do not believe I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes."

His fight in 1970 for free agency was groundbreaking.

Flood was eventually black balled from Major League Baseball because he stood up and said he wasn't happy to have been traded to Philadelphia.  He took the battle to the Supreme Court and ultimately loss.  It was until over 20 years later after his last game that changes were made regarding what the definition of the reserve clause meant and how long the initial team to sign the player for gets the rights to said player.  In 1998 the Curt Flood act was formed, but it is often referred to as 10-5 rights.  This means any player with more than 10 years in the league with the 5 most recent years being with the same team can choose not to be traded due to MLBPA rights.

Flood passed away January 1997 which was prior to legislation being implemented regarding antitrust laws for MLB.

He was elected to the Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2015, a second year induction to the building erected in 2014 to celebrate the All-Time greatest Cardinals players. He finished a career with 7 straight gold gloves, a .293 average and over 1800 hits.


Today's Cutch related card is this 2016 MLB Debut card

Happy Belated Hammerin'

Hank Aaron recently celebrated his 86th birthday.  In addition to his birthday making National headlines he stated that any players involved in the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal should receive a lifetime ban from baseball.

This is a radical idea, but at the root of it falls in line with similar bans.  Chris Correa, former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals was permanently banned for having the scouting database of the Houston Astros.  That ban was deemed necessary because it ultimately jeapordized the integrity of the game.

Hank Aaron, the former Home Run King, was the league's first 3,000 hit and 500 HR member.  He was one of the greatest players of all-time.

I remember doing a project in 5th grade where I had to write about and present a person for Black History Month.  I chose Hank Aaron.

I will not go into his accomplishments as they are long and plentiful.

I've done a few Heritage Comparisons of the League Leaders cards you see on this post. They can be viewed here.

Heritage Comparison pt 5: The Runner Ups

As I have been doing these Heritage Comparisons I have to give Topps a lot of credit.  They have conciously matched up Cutch's Heritage numbering to Clemente's original card numbers very often.  They have done similar things with Koufax and Kershaw too.  Dodgers fans: Get On This!!!! It's a fun exercise!!!

Today I am only going to look at one card from the 2013 Heritage release.

2013 Topps Heritage is based on the 1964 design.

Looking at the National League Leaders card #7 we see Cutch finished second in the batting title race in 2012 and Clemente finished second in the 1963 batting title.

Before we get started let's take note that 14 players finished the 2012 season with a .300 or higher average.  Some surprising names on that list include Marco Scutaro, Jon Jay, and Allen Craig.  In 1963 only 11 players finished above .300 for the season.

It was ruled during the final month of the season that Melky Cabrera who was suspended for part of the season as a result of failed PED testing would not be eligible for the batting title per his request.  You can read the article here.

Normally what I do for the Topps Heritage Comparisons is look at many facets of the players previous seasons and compare them.  What I thought would be fun instead is to see how close both players came to actually winning the title and what months they made the most ground up in achieving that.

So we know that Buster Posey and Tommy Davis, two west coast players would win the 2012 and 1963 titles respectively.

How did they do on Opening Day compared to the Pittsburgh Pirates stars? 

2012
Posey: 2 for 4 batting .500 after day 1
McCutchen: 0 for 3 batting .000 after day 1

1963
Davis: 1 for 4 batting .250 after Day 1
Clemente: 0 for 3 batting .000 after Day 1

I know I've talked about how Topps matches Clemente and Cutch cards up regularly.  I was shocked to see they both had the same at bats to begin the season.

Let's move on to May 1st, shall we?
At this point teams have been able to get 20+ games in.

2012
Posey batting .353 on last day of April
McCutchen batting .302 on last day of April

1963
Davis batting .286 to close out April
Clemente batting .250 to close out April

Both Clemente and Cutch started out slow to begin their campaigns.

The weather is getting less cold and more of the spring temperatures.  Will that have an impact of the Pirates superstars as they chase down the eventual batting title winners?

2012
Posey is now batting only .294 for the year after a rough May

McCutchen kept getting hot and finished the month with a .331 average to finish the first two months of the season

1963
Davis stepped up and was now batting .317 for the season at the close of May

Clemente who missed the last few games of May after being replaced by Stargell in the 6th inning of a game vs Phillies on May 28th was batting .307 prior to injury.

June is here and Cutch is ready to take the NL by storm!!!

2012
Posey is still hovering around .300 (.296 to be exact)
McCutchen is now batting .346 and leading the league in hits.  He would go on to win Player of the Month for his June performance

1963
Davis was raking at the plate raising his season average to .335
Clemente in search of the title has raised his average to .324 and appeared to have recovered from his injuries.

Another hot month of baseball.  Another hot month of Cutch as he takes the 1st Place Pittsburgh Pirates into the All-Star break.

2012
Posey is back above .300 now hitting .317 and getting lots of reps at first base to keep his legs fresh while still keeping the bat in the lineup.

McCutchen won his second consecutive player of the month award and raised his average to .371!!!!

1963
Davis being extremely consistent kept his average at .321 to close out July with just two months left in the season

Clemente overtook the batting title with a .331 mark to close out July.

In the dog days of August both Pirates superstars take a slight step back as the West Coast hitters gain momentum.

2012
Posey with only a month left in the season has closed the gap and is batting .329 to finish out August as his Giants look to make another postseason run

McCutchen after two months of being the best player in the game is returning to just being a Superstar instead of Superman.  His average dropped to .344 and the Pirates who were once 15 games over .500 at end of July now remain only 9 games over .500 and are fighting for a Wild Card with, yup Buster Posey and the San Francisco Giants.

1963
Davis remains consistent as maintains his .322 average heading into the final month of the season.
Clemente with a slight dip in August production has now dropped to .320 for the year with only a month left.

As the final month of the season approaches teams are fighting for playoff opportunities and the 2012 Pirates are desperately trying to get to a winning record for the first time since 1992.  Rather than resting Cutch more and just giving him extra days and time off to clinch his batting title, Cutch will play everyday as the season winds down and the Pirates clinch their 20th straight losing season.  Thanks a lot Jerry Meals and your blown call in 2011.

2012
We already know that Posey wins the batting title, but with only 7 games of baseball left he was hitting .331 on September 26th.

McCutchen was batting .334 on September 26th.
It would be the last day Cutch would have control of the title with only 6 games left to play for the Bucs.

1963
Davis and Clemente would face off each other in LA as the final week of baseball approached they were at .323 (Davis) and .319 (Clemente) respectively.  Davis in anticipation of the postseason would only get another dozen at bats to finish out the year and win the title.

Clemente vs Cutch Heritage comparison Pt 1

Over the years, Topps has used Heritage to bring the current stars of the game on designs from the past.

Cutch has appeared using the same numbering as Pirates Legend Roberto Clemente a handful of times.

I want to preface these segments and state that I do not believe that a single season of Cutch can take away from the greatness of Roberto Clemente's life or his baseball career.

Each of these Heritage comparisons will take a look at a card of Cutch and compare it to the design's original numbered card.

I am going to start with the 2014 Heritage release because of all the parallels I have.
The 2014 Heritage card release is based on the 1965 design.

Cutch's 2014 Heritage card is numbered 160 the same as Pirates Legend and Hall of Famer, Roberto Clemente.

To pay homage to the original Clemente Topps even made a super short print error variant to recognize the misspelling of Pittsburgh (Pittsburfh) on the back.

As will be customary for these Heritage Comparisons I will take a look at the standard counting stats typically found on the back of a baseball card for the players previous year.

Slash Lines
Clemente in 1964 went .339/.388/.484 for an .872 OPS
Cutch in 2013 went .317/.404/.508 for .952 OPS
Advantage Cutch

Plate Discipline
Clemente had a 1.70 K:BB rate (87:51) during his 2nd batting title run in 1964
Cutch's MVP season showed one of his best career rates when he had 1.29 K:BB (101:78)
Advantage Cutch

Extra Base Hits (XBH)
Clemente had 40 doubles, 7 triples, and 12 HR in 1964
Cutch had 38 doubles, 5 triples, and 21 round trippers
59 v 64
Slight advantage Cutch

Runs Scored and Runs Batted In
Runs scored and RBI are based on who hits in front of you and who hits behind you.
Clemente scored 95 runs and drove in 87 in 1964.
Cutch scored 97 runs and knocked in 84.
It was almost a draw (182 v 181), but a
very slight Advantage goes to Clemente

Hardware and awards
Clemente won his 2nd Batting Title, 4th straight Gold Glove, and was elected an All-Star
Cutch won the MVP award, his 2nd straight Silver Slugger, and was elected an All-Star
Advantage Cutch


I hope you enjoyed the comparisons made based on the Heritage and original design numbering.  I will continue to do these segments if there is enough interest in them.

Now I will show off the parallels I have for all my 2014 Heritage cards.

First up are the black retail exclusive border with the black chrome /65 border below it.

Now from top row Base & Logo Variation
Middle Row Chrome & Purple Chrome
Bottom Row WalMart Blue & Pittsburfh back

The only variations I need are Superfractor 1/1, Gold Chrome /5, Refractor Chrome /565, and Topps Vault Blank Back 1/1,

Please let meknow what you think of these segments.  Are they are a cool and fun idea to look at cardboard?