Today, thousands of people paid tribute to the century mark of the Negro Leagues being formed. From generational athletes like Ken Griffey Jr and Michael Jordan to former presidents Barack Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton to late night host Conan O'Brien and many many more celebrities across Twitter their caps were tipped for the Negro Leagues using the #TipYourCap2020
Andrew McCutchen began tipping his cap to his wife Maria after every homerun he hits because he saw it in the Jackie Robinson movie, 42.
Topps has captured the moment on the 2018 Series 1 card.
I thought I would show off a trio of cards to reflect on the Negro Leagues that were created and that helped pave the way for Jackie Robinson to eventually break the color barrier and started what should have been equal rights for people of all races.
Jackie was the first black player to play in MLB and suffered a lot of backlash and animosity in his playing career.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech he made a comment that he would be most happy when he could eventually see a black person managing a team.
It was clear that the Negro Leagues paved the way for Jackie and Jackie paved the way for managers like Frank Robinson and Dusty Baker.
It is also clear that in today's world there is still negative racism and we must work together to end it.
We can be the change we wish to see in the world, but it starts with all colors uniting.
I am not sure what the rest of the world is doing in this concept of isolation, but I have been rewatching some of my favorite shows I haven't seen in nearly a decade. From Veronica Mars to Lost to The Simpsons, I am on an endless assault of streaming.
One of my favorite shows ever produced is the TV Series Lost. I made sure to watch every single episode each week. The show became a mainstream success and one of the best "water cooler" shows to talk about each week.
Without giving away any spoilers, the show focused on a group of plane crash survivors and how their lives connected before the crash. There were many great characters featured in the show, but one of the most polarizing figures was that of John Locke played brillaintly by Terry O'Quinn.
In the shows fifth season, Locke was revealed to be named another character, Jeremy Bentham.
To create a Lost style post I decided to make a connection to Locke/Bentham's birthday.
February 15, 1948
There is likely only one blogger I know of who can immediately recognize what baseball player was born on that day.
If you knew it was Ron Cey, congratulations. I'm sure the Night Owl is happy that the former Dodgers 3rd Baseman got a mention on my blog.
Coincidence or maybe it's "The Island's way of controlling things" I sent Night Owl an autograph card of Ron Cey on Mr. Bentham's expired passport (December 17, 2017) date and he received it a few days later.
He posted about it here as it was his Secret Santa package for 2017.
It should be noted that Ron Cey was nicknamed "The Penguin" by his former teammates for the way he waddled around the bases.
On June 13th, 2017 Andrew McCutchen hit a homerun against the Rockies with the recent Stanley Cup Champions, Pittsburgh Penguins, in attendance. The Penguins who clinched the cup just 2 days earlier were there to celebrate with the rest of the city.
Cutch made sure to step up for the celebration.
The image of Cutch looked familar in the final clips of the MLB video so I decided to do some research about the game and see what Getty Images had to offer.
Well that looks familiar...
That homerun was used for Cutch's swansong flagship Pirates card in 2018 Topps Series 1.
Here are 9 of Cutch's 2018 Topps Flagship Series 1 parallels.
Negative, Base, Purple (TRU exclusive)
Vintage /99, Father's Day Blue /50. Mother's Day Pink /50
Independence Day /76, Black /67, Gold /2018
Sorry for scanning them all grouped together and not following social distance rules.
So just as the great show Lost connected a sequence of completely ordinary events and showed how they all connect together, I was able to do the same via CollectingCutch.
Did you watch Lost when it aired?
Have you ever gone down an internet rabbit hole and tried to connect it to a baseball card?
It was announced today that Josh Harrison will take the place of injured Cardinal Matt Carpenter on the Team USA WBC games. He will join Pirates teammate Andrew McCutchen on Monday.
Today seems like a good day to show off my Cutch cards I have pairing up with the runner-up for the 2014 NL Batting Title.
Since I just mentioned that JHay was a runner up for the 2014 NL Batting Title, I will just redirect you to where I showcased all the parallels I have of the NL League Leaders 2015 Topps card #127. You can see the 3 printing plates, silver framed, and other parallels by clicking here.
I showed the limited Glossy and Pink/50 yesterday which you can see here as part of my big COMC order bringing my Cutch PC over 1,500 unique cards.
Above is the Heritage League Leaders card from 2015 Topps Heritage.
Cutch and JHay have been the focus of team cards since Harrison had his 2014 breakout season.
They've been dubbed
Pittsburgh Pirates Clubbers.
And River City Rakers
And Pirates Mateys.
They've also appeared on a few relic cards together. The first of these cards was an All-Star triple jersey that also featured Yasiel Puig.
Triple Threads has recently had a large amount of Josh Harrison cards in it's release.
To this point though only one pairing has been made of Cutch and JHay.
The rarest of them is my 1/1 triple jersey which has a 2014 Postseason patch of JHay on it.
I am really excited to watch the WBC especially when the Dominican Republic plays team USA. Lots of Pirates will appear in that game.
I have trusted Neal Huntington since he took over a team with nearly two decades long of losing in addition to one of the worse farm systems in the league. He had a five year plan to get the Pirates relevant and in 2013 they were.
It was largely due in part though to one of the most exciting players in the game emerging as a consensus top 5 talent.
That player was Andrew McCutchen.
I have changed my cardboard collection to strongly emphasis becoming a super collector of Cutch over the past year.
Without question he is my favorite player of the past two decades.
He wants to stay a Pirate for his entire career.
The question will be, if he bounces back to his MVP numbers and the Pirates are within contention, what would GM Neal do? I guess if both those things are in place, it will be a great season for the Buccos and Cutch.
I was very happy to add the Black and White "Negative" version of the Pirates' Mateys card featuring Cutch and JHay. Even when the team is struggling and losing, these guys know how to have fun.
Here's the regular version and card back.
On a side note I have a game used Josh Harrison Bible armband similar to the one he is wearing in the picture.
