Playing In a Beer League

Continuing the theme of drinking and St Patrick's Day is a look at the only ballpark currently named after an alcoholic drink. 

I am talking about Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The ballpark is named after the Anheuser-Busch Brewing company from St. Louis Missouri, distributor of such famous brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck's.  Anheiser-Busch also helps to distribute brands like Landshark, Shocktop, and Michelob Ultra.

The Pirates and Cardinals had some pretty memorable games between 2012 to 2015 when both teams were competitive, battling for the NL Central title. Oddly enough the largest attendance for a baseball game played at Busch Stadium was on Mother's Day 2019 when the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates came to town. 

At the forefront of those competitive teams was a perennial MVP candidate, Andrew McCutchen.  

In 66 Games Started at Busch Stadium, Cutch has a .275/.353/.408 triple slash line with 6 HR and 28 RBI over 262 at bats.

The cards pictured above are both short prints from 2013 Topps and 2013 Topps Chrome respectively. 

Here is the original image used for this card, found on getty images

There are also images that Panini used for this attempted catch that were part of Panini's Elements insert set.

🍀 🍺 🍺🍺 🍺 🍺 🍺 🍀

Cutch also played at another ballpark named after an alcoholic beverage, Miller Park.  However, Miller Park in Milwaukee is now called American Family Insurace Field

In 73 games started and one pinch hit appearance, Cutch had a .296/.358/.589 triple slash line good for a .948OPS.  Cutch hit his 100th career Home Run at Miller Park and has collected 22HR over his career thus far.

This video here will show Cutch's mammoth 100th career HR (2:58 mark) along with some really awesome moments of Cutch during his Pirates career.  I encourage you to watch it.

You can revisit my post about this image here, but keep in mind that post was written on 9/11 so there are some September 11th memories on that post.

I have also shown off a few other cards of Cutch over the years that the originally photography was shot at Miller Park.

The image above was used for the 2016 Topps Heritage (and it's many parallels).  Below you will see the black refractor /67 copies.

There is a few other images of Cutch appearing at Miller Park from the 2015 season.

This image was used for Cutch's 2016 Gypsy Queen photo variant card, which you can see below.

The best Pirates alternative road uniforms of the past ten years wwre captured at Miller Park after Cutch had a strikeout.

It is the throwback jersey variation in 2017 Topps Heritage.

If you were to drink a beer, would you choose a Miller or Busch product? 

And Then There Was 1

I made It clear I wasn't interested in overpaying for the Andrew McCutchen SP photo variant found in 2020 Series 2 Topps Flagship.  

The weekend around release the card was selling for as much as $350 and averaged around $250 for about 72 hours.  Talk about insane prices for a card that is only a SP with an insert ratio of 1:7 packs.

I waited.

And spent my money on other things.

And I waited.

And spent more money on other things.

Then I continued to wait...

Until I was able to secure both the SP and SSP photo variants for only $75 combined.

BOOOOOOM!!!!!

I now own the most swaggy card ever made of Andrew McCutchen.

It is just shy of becoming my 3,000th unique card too as these cards bring my total to....

2,998

AND

2,999

Yup!!!

Thanks to this Twitter purchase I am 1 card away from the milestone 3,000 unique Andrew McCutchen cards

Cutch SP Challenge Day 2

I got some more packages in the mail Friday and they all relate to the 2020 SP Frenzy Challenge.

I said I wouldn't go after the SP and pay $275 for one card that on average could be available 1 in every 7 packs.

Nope.

Not gonna do it!

I did grab a foilboard parallel from 2020 Big League release though.

It cost me $3.25

Did you know that only 100 of these Foilboard cards exist? Only 3 have sold.

Did you know that there is likely 2,000+ of the McCutchen SP out there?  87 have already sold on eBay

Which one should have the ridiculous premium attached to it?

I also grabbed the 2020 Topps Finest Bryan Reynolds "The Man" insert.  This insert card has a nice layer of pink which I think could come in handy for October.

It has an Andrew McCutchen cameo on the back.

And...it only cost $2.65 shipped.

I also snagged another 2020 parallel I needed.

This is the gold parallel numbered to 2,020 copies (similar print run as the SP everyone is chasing)

This card cost me only $1.99

Yesterday's mail day cost only $7.89.  I feel like I got better value out of these cards than the father's day and vintage stock from Wednesday.

That brings the total to $44.89 for these 5 cards.  Not great, but the two best cards will really bring the prices down for the wntire project.

2018 Update Photo Variants

2018 Update offered a pair of short print photo variants of Andrew McCutchen.

The rarer of the two was his Yankees trade deadline variant.

The back of the Yankees variant discusses why the Yankees traded for Cutch.

The Giants practice jersey variant is far easier to come by.

The back of the Giants practice variant talks about his early season success and how he quickly won over the Giants fan base with a pair of walk off hits.

Throwback Thursday: 4 Months Late

Sooooooo, back in March I was showcasing all my 2017 Heritage cards I had acquired of Cutch.  I mentioned I didn't like the photo used and that I had a monster case hit card that I would show off in the upcoming days.
4 Months later...
I finally got around to scanning it in.

This extremely short printed Throwback uniform is found 1 per case.  With nearly a dozen different subjects for the Throwback cards, getting a Cutch is not an easy task.

I like the look of this card a lot.  The Jason Kendall era road greys (or grays depending on spelling) look great and are a nice refresher from all the 70s throwbacks the team has worn over the years.

I didn't realize I had never posted about this card until I was putting together a post for my most recent Heritage acquisition recapping all my 2017 Heritage cards.  You will see that post tomorrow.

Here are links to my other 2017 Heritage Cards
Gold Chrome /5
Yellow Back, Astd Chromes, Flip Stock, Color Swap