Do You Have Any More Gum For Me?

One of my favorite movies of my youthful early teen days is Billy Madison.

I loved all things Adam Sandler.

I have mentioned a few times about my love for Billy Madison on this blog.

I discussed the cursive Phil Rizzuto line here.
"Rizzuto's not a word.  He's a baseball player"
"Perhaps you'd like to try the word BUZZ?"

And I talked about the complexed egos of shampoo and conditioner here.
"I go on first and make the hair silky and smooth. Shampoo is better. Conditioner is better....stop looking at me swan"


The movie has so many over the top zany moments and unforgettable quotes.  Literally I wish I could come up with a week long post schedule trying to tie in the quotes to my Andrew McCutchen card collection like what I did with Elf last year when counting down to Christmas.  You can revisit those posts here if you forgot about them.

For inspiration of future posts, I will start things off with the closing lines of the impromptu song and dance number that saw a clown get resurrected, Veronica Vaughn asking Billy if she has a nice rack, and closing out with everyone asking

"Do you have any more gum?"

Well one guy who always has gum on his mind is Matthew Lee Rosen.
He has made an art of designing cards to look like they have gum stains in the shape of items associated with that player.

You can visit his page here or find him on Twitter @MatthewLeeRosen

I set up a commission with Matt to do a few Andrew McCutchen gum back cards and they came out unbelievably awesome.

I will show each card in detail in a future post as I have a plan to include these as part of my Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Month of posts which I am sure you are all very familar with.

The detail used in creating this "gum stain" creations on the back of vintage style cards is truly incredible.

Please check out Matthew's site.  He has a few of the Simpsons character cards from the famous Homer At The Bat episode.

Some of his other cards that are available are this Ryne Sandberg 1986 card with Save Ferris on the back an obvious reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off which came out in 1986 and saw the lead character head to Wrigley Field while skipping school.

Once again, check out his Gum Art baseballcard.art.

If you set up a commission or buy one of his originals he's already created, let him know that Brian of Collecting Cutch sent you his way.




What are some of your favorite Billy Madison quotes?

What pop culture references would you want to see on the back of a baseball card?

Serial History: Legendary Yankees?

I have a ridiculous amount of Andrew McCutchen baseball cards.  Sometimes I get writer's block and can't think of things to write about regarding a one time perennial MVP candidate who is having declining years ahead of him.

However....

I discovered something while looking at this incredible on card autograph of Cutch from 2019 Inception.

Not only is it just one of a handful of Cutch autographs featured in a short lived Yankees uniform, but it is very low numbered.

The serial number on this card is 6/10.

Anyone who knows anything about Yankees baseball knows the Yankees have retired numbers 1-10 from being worn in the future. 

Number 6 was worn by Hall of Fame manager, Joe Torre

Torre famously managed the Yankees for a decade and won the World Series four times in that period.  He collected 2,342 hits as a player for the Braves, Cardinals, and Mets.

Torre is a baseball lifer having worked in many aspects of the business.  As a player he is often forgotten for having a great career.  A 9 time All-Star, Torre won the National League MVP, batting title, and RBI crown in 1971.  In addition to those accomplishments he won a gold glove in 1965.

Number 10 was worn by Hall of Famer, Phil Rizzuto. 

Prior to the outcry of Harold Baines being the worse player inducted into the Hall of Fame, many felt Phil Rizzuto was the worse.

His career WAR was just over 40 wins above replacement which is 4 wins less than Troy Tulowitzki.  He missed three of his prime years due to service in the Navy, but finished with only a .706 career OPS.
SEVEN ZERO SIX!!!

Still with an MVP, 6 All-Star appearances, and 7 World Championships he is a legendary Yankee.  Prior to Derek Jeter, he was often considered the greatest Yankees shortstop of all-time despite amassing less than 1,600 career hits.

My only memory of Phil Rizzuto comes from the movie Billy Madison when Adam Sandler's titular character can't write Rizzuto in cursive.

This idea of looking at serial numbers for inspiration is something I will be doing at least once a month going forward.  It will be a segment I call Serial History where I look at the serial numbers and discuss them.  

A 2015 card of Cutch in a Pirates uniform may be numbered 19/25 so I may look at the Pirates team from the year 1925 or I may look at how many winning seasons the Pirates had since 1925 or maybe the Pirates players who wore 19 and 25 or maybe what pop culture things were happening in 1925 and how relevant was that to 2015.  

The possibilities with over 1,500 serially numbered cards of Cutch are almost endless regarding what I can come up with.

Stop looking at me Swan

I love the older Adam Sandler movies from the 90s.  Movies like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Little Nicky, Waterboy, etc. I can quote nearly every line.

I don't know if it is subliminal messaging to my shaved summer head, but when I got this 2017 Allen & Ginter Silk Framed Parallel numbered to 10, I remember doing the entire bathtub scene from Billy Madison mainly because of the silky and smooth line.

Silky and smooooooooth

I actually broke down and bought a new card (1st in awhile) so that I could continue my A&G Silk collection.  I have shown the 2015 and 2016 versions here.