These are not the racks you are looking for

I missed an opportunity to highlight women this month so with only a day left in Women's History Month I present to you the history of the celebs I have had a crush on since my childhood. 

A top 10 if you will... (Listed in alphabetical order by first name)

Alexandra Daddario

Alison Brie

Evangeline Lilly

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jessica Alba

Jessica Biel

Kat Dennings

Kate Upton

Milana Vayntrub

Olivia Taylor Dudley

Now with all those great images of those beautiful women with the assets only slightly showing, but mostly sealed I thought I could show a recent sealed pack of cards with Andrew McCutchen on the cover.

Since rack packs don't exist in the traditional sense anymore, this is the closest I can come up with.

Above is the 2006 sealed set of Altoona Curve featuring Andrew McCutchen on the front and

Neil Walker on the back.

Do you miss rack packs?  Would the current hobby craze make rack packs impossible to keep sealed if Tatis, Acuna, or Trout were on the cover?

Love My Dad

Today is my dad's birthday.  He will be 59 years old today and has lived an amazing life albeit a small and humble one.  Never to do anything famous or travel the world or anything of that magnitude, he has always kept his roots at home...where his heart is.  I love him for that and respect him for that.  He is currently living in a house on a road that he grew up in.  He's incredible in every sense of the word.  I know I have told stories of how much he has influenced my life, but here is one more.

Back when I was a teenager, I was involved in several bands ranging from punk to metal to nu-metal (rap/hardcore/metal). We would play a bunch of small gigs as favors to one of my friends as a way to make extra money.  There was a local firehouse who would rent out their space to us and we would pack it FULL!!!  Well, one night some fans got a little reckless and in the middle of the set someone punched a hole while the mosh pit and crowd surfing got out of hand.

My band, myself, and my friend who was promoting the show were like WTF!!!????

My dad is a painter/wallpaper hanger and does some general small contracting stuff.  At around 11:30pm I called him up telling him what happened and how we would likely lose the venue as a place for future shows if we couldn't fix it.  He said not to worry and that he would swing by in the morning and fix it up.

I told my buddy Richie who was the promoter to let the fire chief know we would have it fixed in the morning.

After a 1am diner run (New Jersey is known for their 24 hour diners) we finally went to my friend Kyle's house and crashed for a few hours.  At around 9am my bandmates, myself, Kyle, Richie, and Mel all got up and went to the firehouse to meet my dad for 10am when he said he would be there.

He was already there in his work van ready to get to work.

My dad hated the music we played, but loved the message as we were a positive youth hardcore/punk band.  He greeted all my friends most of whom had tattoos and piercings and crazy colored hair.  He offered us doughnuts that he picked up on the way then proceeded to get to work.

Once inside he kept insisting that "you kids don't need to stay here and watch me do this. Go to the mall or something."

What's funny is that even though we were all 17 to 22 years old we wanted to hang out with the old balding dude and watch him gut the wall, spackle it up, expediate drying it, and eventually paint it.  We wanted to hear stories of how he would ride his dirt bike around the farm he grew up on when he was our age.  We wanted to just spend time with him.

After a few hours of watching him work he ordered pizza for us and by 2pmish the job was complete.  He had fixed the giant hole and literally made it look brand new.

I wish I had more of the pictures from that day, but sadly that was before smart phones and I could only find this one actual picture of me and my dad as he was drying the spackel.

I wish I had the picture of all of us in front of the hole in wall doing the metal sign and my dad attempting to do it (If memory serves correctly he did the hang loose sign instead).

Such a fun day!!!

The previous night was pretty fun too...but I won't get into all that.

Looking back at some of the pictures from those days was a lot of fun.  Oh 1999 and early 2000s you were so kind to my hairline. Lol!!! Maybe I shouldn't have ruined you with blonde hair dye, giant spiked hair, bandanas and beanies.

I was thinking about not showing any baseball cards today, but to tie in with my story about my dad is this Crawdad 25 year anniversary card from last year.  Last year the Hickory Crawdads (now a Texas Rangers affiliate) released a 25 card set showing off the best players to come through the Crawdads over the team's existence.  Included were a bunch of Pirates and Rangers and of course Cutch made the cut.

The front of the card is a throwback image to when the player was a member of the Crawdads.

The back features the stats of the player while a Crawdad along with what the player accomplished in the majors.

The set has a border that features the multiple logos the team has used during it's history.

Some TriStar parallels

I am having so much fun going back through and looking at all the cards I have in my collection as I am begining to sort and scan and eventually upload to my site.

I completely forgot how many base cards 2005 Topps Update cards I had of Cutch including 4 Golds!

Among all the Bowman Heritage and Topps cards I came across a few TriStar minor league cards.

Cutch was never one of the big hobby names while in the minors despite getting ranked as high as #13 on Baseball America's Top Prospect lists prior to 2007.  While in the minors "prospecters" were going crazy for Brandon Wood, Andy LaRoche, Justin Upton, Travis Snider, and Jay Bruce.  Guys like Cutch and Kershaw were largely ignored.

Back in the mid 2000s the Bowman prospecting craze with 18 different color parallels hadn't started yet.  There was no such thing as a bubble refractor or carbon fiber refractor 1st year Bowman card.

There was a draft pick card in Update, some Bowman Heritage draft pick cards, one Bowman card with only 4 different parallels,  Just Minor, and TriStar products.

More competition and less products.  What a simpler time it was....

I found two TriStar cards I own of Cutch while a member of the A ball affiliate Hickory Crawdads (more on them tomorrow).  They include the green parallel to 50 copies and the base.

I also own a trio of TriStar cards from his days with the Altoona Curve.

These include the Green (/25), Reflective (Foil Refractor not numbered), and base.

These make some pretty unique minor league cards of the player actually wearing their minor league uniform.   I always prefer minor league cards to airbrushed affiliate cards for players who haven't made their debut.

To put into perspective, Charlie Hayes' son Ke'Bryan Hayes, has reached AA Altoona Curve and currently has 409 different cards including 1/1s.  That is a little bit crazy....just a little.

The Learning Curve

I was so happy to read everyone's response and comments about my two most recent posts.  It helped solidify that I am doing the right thing.

There will be a learning curve as I begin to invest my heart and posts into God more on Sundays going forward, but I think the content will be better than just the show and tells I have mostly done since creating the blog.

This Wednesday I will be attending the AA Eastern League All-Star Game in Trenton, NJ.  I am looking forward to it and all the festivities that will be available to enjoy before the game.  Bernie Williams will be playing the National Anthem on his guitar and there is a meet and greet with the All-Stars before the game.  There are a pair of Hall of Famers whose sons were selected as All-Stars (Biggio and Guerrero). 

Cutch made it to AA before turning 20 years old.  This caused him to get ranked 13th best prospect in baseball entering the 2007 season. 

He wasn't selected as an All-Star while in AA because his time was too short there.  If he were selected he would have represented the Altoona Curve. 

I have shown off a few of my minor league cards of Cutch before.

These Are Not The Indians You Seek

As is my customary Wednesday function, I am going to the movies for a $6 matinee.  I might finally see Star Wars, hence the reference in title.

On a completely unrelated note, I am a bit disappointed to hear that Chief Wahoo will no longer be appearing on the Cleveland Indians in future years.  Not that I want to support a politically incorrect baseball cap, but Major League is one of the greatest baseball movies of all time and Chief Wahoo and Wild Thing go together so well.

I wonder if this will ultimately lead to teams changing their names too.  One other not as recognized team called the Indians is the Pirates AAA team who hail from Indianapolis.

The team was formed in 1902 and has served as the farm system for the Expos, Brewers, Reds, Pirates, White Sox, Phillies, Braves (Boston) and of course Indians.  The Pirates have held the rights to the club since 2005 and it was in 2009 that the team saw it's most prized prospect get promoted to the majors.

There's not a lot of Cutch cards with the Indians as he was there for only about 200 games.  Many criticize the Pirates for not promoting him until 2009 after he put up a triple slash line of .283./.372/.398 in 2008 as a 21 year old.  He also would go on to steal over 30 bags that season in AAA.

The reality that many forget is that the Pirates had an All-star centerfielder named Nate McLouth who was posting a .276/.356/.478 line while playing gold glove defense.  The next year Nate would be traded for Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke, and Gorkys Hernandez to make a spot available for Cutch.

Andrew sometimes gets credited as being Daniel McCutchen, the losing pitcher of the Jerry Meals July 26th 2011 game.

I believe that I may have shown the ones above off already, but here is the only other Cutch card I have with the Indians.

How do you all feel about Chief Wahoo being removed?
Do you think other Indians logos and maybe even names will be changed?

Trouble with the Curve?

Congratulations to the Pirates AA team, Altoona Curve on their Eastern League Championship.  Top prospect Mitch Keller dominated the playoffs.

I wasn't able to see any of the playoffs games this year, but vividly remember the Curve winning the Championship in 2010.  I was in Trenton when they won the Championship lead by efforts of Justin Wilson, Rudy Owens, Josh Harrison, Chase d'Arnaud, and Andrew Lambo.

The young group of men playing for the Curve look like future big leaguers and should make the Pirates position depth very good beginning as early as next year and beyond.

Of all the players on the team I am pulling for the most is former 1st Round Pick, Cole Tucker.  If anyone has some Tucker cards they wouldn't mind giving up, I will happily take them off your hands.

I love to chase down early Cutch minor league cards.  I have quite a few and would like to add some more.

Above are all my Andrew McCutchen cards in an Altoona Curve outfit.

Here are a few of the Curve Stadium Give away figures and bobbleheads I have gotten over the years.

Out of this World Bobblehead

MVP bobblehead

OYO figure

There is one more Cutch Curve bobblehead that I need in a standard batting pose.

Here's a few others I have though

Tony "Elementary" Watson bobblehead

Starling "Martay Partay" bobblehead

The Shark Tank Bullpen (Hughes, Watson, Wilson)

The Curve's marketing department has really upped their game in terms of SGAs over the past few seasons.  Other notable figures include a Gerrit Cole Garden Gnome (on my desk at work)
Along with these that I don't own
 Jordy Mercer "Lloyd Christmas"
Jameson get your "Suit and Taillon"
Josh "Need more cow-" Bell
Gregory "El Coffee Barista" Polanco

A Class Act

I was picking up a pair of minor league releases of Cutch via eBay and got the most welcomed surprise when the cards arrived.

Inside was a not saying "Brian-We had a mistake in listing. 2008 International Top Prospecting listing showed a picture of 2008 International All Star (a common Ebay malfunction).  To avoid a problem, I included both cards."

Upon scanning the cards and getting ready to file them, I realized I actually needed both.  My minor league release cards now appear closer to being complete.  I was amazed at the generosity and will always support JS Sports Cards for any minor league releases I may need in the future.  If you are in search of some cardboard check out JS Sports Cards

Here's my Cutch minor league releases (excluding all the Just Minors cards as I am saving them for a future post).

Starting off with the Low A affiliate, Williamsport Crosscutters

Then High A, Hickory Crawdads

AA Altoona Curve

And a Top Prospect for AAA, Indianapolis Indians

I will show off my Tristar and Just Minors cards in a future post, but I believe my Minor League card collection to be almost complete.
There is a 2006 Hickory Crawdad card available at Stadiums for a team set release that I am still looking to add.  There is currently one listed on eBay for $75, but I am determined to find one under $20.  That card is Cutch's first team issued card.