6th Day of Christmas: All Access

Field Acess was an insert set in the 2014 Stadium Club offering that gave collectors several parallels to chase.

The front of the cards resemble a ticket stub.

The back give some insight to the player and some "behind the curtain" access to stats not found on the back of most baseball cards.  For instance we learn about Cutch's durability and approaches versus southpaws.

Because I work in the Philly market, I can listen to Philly sports radio on my way home until I approach the New York market border and the signal starts to fade.

While I was driving home yesterday, 94.1 had Cutch join the crew and he discussed his reasons for coming to Philly, his relationship with Gabe Kappler thus far, his one year old son, his high school football career, and of course a little bit of baseball.

Prior to leaving he was asked by the marketing department about his onelce famous dreads.

He joked around that the main reason he,chopped them was because he,had just gotten married and wanted to start a family.  He jokingly said when you get older and married you lose your hair and that he wanted to be the one who chose when he loses it.  He also said that he wanted to make sure that as he begins to have a family that his kid doesn't all of a sudden have to be like "who's this dude" once he chops the hair eventually.

He then went on to reference that it took him 9 years to get them to the length they were prior to being cut and that he does have some smaller dreads going now.

We all know that Cutch is a big Black Panther fan and said he is trying to make his hair look like Kilmonger

Looks like it was off to a good start when in San Francisco.

At the press release yesterday you can see that Cutch's hair is going full Kilmonger style.

Manager Gabe Kappler chose to give his number 22 so that Cutch can wear it again.

5th Day of Christmas: Now That's a Diamond King!

Yesterday I showed a black Optic Diamond King numbered 12/25.  It was nice and all, but when I think of Diamond Kings I think of paintings.

Now that's a Diamond King.

Simple elegant design on the front and back.

4th Day of Christmas: black is back

Black chrome cards for Pirates players always look awesome even without logos.
Black Optic is no exception.

Numbered To only 25 copies on the back

Christmas Eve is a week away.  It's hard to believe the year has gone by that quickly.

3rd Day of Christmas: Orange You Glad, it's another autograph?

So I have shown the red numbered to 5 and the superfractor numbered to 1.

Today I will show off the orange numbered to 25.  It's not just any 25 though, it's 12/25.

2nd Day of Christmas: Pink!!!

Continuing the theme started yesterday is a card that has been shown twice on the blog already.

This might give you a hint as to what kind of card you will see.

Why, yes...
It's a pink Christmas card.

Notice that 12/25?  It's like the Where's Waldo game.

Speaking of Waldo, anyone else ever think he was always in the Christmas spirit?

Christmas time is wonderful, isn't it?

1st Day of Christmas: 2011 Tier 1 Auto

2 posts, 1 day?
Why not?

My family always managed to screw up what I thought was reality.  ALWAYS!

It wasn't until this year that I discovered the 12 days of Christmas began on Christmas day.

My family managed to convince me it started 12 days before Christmas.

History proves it's not.

So in the tradition of my family's backwards ways of doing things I will be showing off an Andrew McCutchen card numbered 12/25 beginning today through Christmas.

Here we have a 2011 Topps Tier 1 On The Rise on card autograph gold parallel.

The On The Rise autographs featured many of the young players in 2011 that were on the verge of breakout seasons and careers.  Of course there were a few duds in there too.  The checklist has names ranging from Madison Bumgarner, Brandon Crawford, Mike Giancarlo Stanton, Zach Britton, Max Scherzer, Freddie Freeman, Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel, and Anthony Rizzo.  It also has names like Alexi Ogando, David Cooper, and Tyler Colvin.

They were right in that Cutch holds the Pirates record for most consecutive 20-20 seasons.  He also has hit 20 or more Homeruns since 2010.  No other active player can claim that same mark.  It mentions his back to back seasons of .286 and Cutch's current blcareer batting average after 10 years in the bigs is .287.

Cutch has displayed a model level of consistency since breaking into the big leagues and I think he may return to an All-Star level this year.

Are you down with SCC?

Ever since I made that post about DMX and the limited number of rap songs I like, I have found myself listening to more of the popular rap songs from my youth.

Sport Card Collector aka SCC got me thinking of the OPP.

My brain works in the most bizarre ways.

Matt sent me an unexpected PWE featuring 2 Ke'Bryan Hayes 2018 Heritage Minors cards along with a 2018 Topps Update base and 2018 Topps Archives base of my main PC, Andrew McCutchen.

I am hoping to see Ke'Bryan get a call up in the 2019 season.  He's our top position prospect heading into the season.