Serial History: Unlucky 13

It has been a long time since I did a Serial History

As part of the move I have thrown out my old scanner and trying to "scan" my cards just using my phone.  I still have lots and lots of boxes in storage and am only in a temporary landing spot with the inlaws until our new home is settled upon. 

I think the camera scan above came out pretty cool.  It shows off the shine of this

2018 Donruss Optic Carolina Blue

very well.

The back as you can see is serially numbered 13/50

Since it is a Carolina Blue card let's look at some Carolina teams and see who has worn "unlucky" thirteen.

Let's begin with the Carolina Panthers

For the Carolina Panthers there has been only three players to wear #13.  This article discusses Kelvin Benjamin and Ken Walter (punter 1997-2000) and was written in 2017, prior to Jarius Wright playing for the team.  Kelvin Benjamin is eighth all time on the Panthers all time records for receiving yards despite just playing 40 games with the team.  He connected for a touchdown 18 times and had a 53.5% reception rate.

Moving on to the basketball side of things, we have the complicated history of the Charlotte Hornets.  The Charlotte Hornets eventually moved to New Orleans and a new team took over in Charlotte, owned by Michael Jordan.  The team went by the name of the Bobcats until the New Orleans Hornets became the Pelicans.  The Charlotte Bobcats changed their name back to the Charlotte Hornets following the name change started in New Orleans.  The original Charlotte Hornets had some pretty good players on their team and two of them became famous in the original Space Jam (Muggsy Bogues and Larry Johnson).  You can't talk about the original Hornets teams without mentioning Alonzo Mourning, Dell Curry (father of Steph), and Kendall Gill.  

Gill came onto the season in a big way after being drafted 5th overall by the Hornets in 1990.  He made the All NBA Rookie 1st Team and averaged nearly 20ppg as a sophomore.  He would go on to play for several teams over his career including stops in New Jersey, Seattle, Charlotte (twice), Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Miami.  He was named to the Charlotte Hornets 30th Anniversary team in 2018.

Another Hornets player to wear number 13 is Bobby Phills.  Phills was the first player to have his number retired by the organization. It was due to tragedy that Phills had his number retired when he crashed his Porsche while driving recklessly over 100MPH.  He was pronounced deceased at the scene and the other party involved in the accident was fortunately able to survive.  In 1996 Phills was named to the NBA All Defense Second Team.  He averaged 11ppg, but was known for his defense.  In 1996, Michael Jordan claimed that Phills was the toughest defender he faced.  Following his death, the Hornets retired number 13.  

Moving to the collegiate side of things we have the North Carolina Tar Heels.  This is the team most likely associated with "Carolina Blue".  Like thr Hornets, the Tar Heels have honored number 13 in the rafters.  However, the jersey number hasn't been retired.  

John "Hook" Dillon was the shooting guard on the team's first Final Four appearance.  He played for the Tar Heels from 1944 to 1948.  He was twice an All-American.

One of the most recent and successful players to wear #13 is Cameron Johnson, currently a member of the Phoenix Suns.

Johnson is a stud! He played only two years at UNC after transferring from Pittsburgh and had the second most three pointers in a season and ranks 18th all time in threes.  He is a versatile defender and can match up against any position.

It doesn't have to have ties to the Carolinas, but who are the players you think about first when you see number 13?  

Last year of dreads, last year of prepurple

It was a week ago that Andrew McCutchen hit his 250th career homer.  I've shown off a few of my cards limited to 250 copies in celebration of this event.  

Today I will look at my 2014 cards limited to 250 copies.

2014 was the last year of Cutch having dreadlocks during a season and it would also be the last year before things were getting purply by Topps.

2014 Bowman Orange

2014 Triple Threads Emerald

2014 Bowman Chrome Blue refractor

I love that Homerun chart above.  I wish more cards had unique backs like that on a regular basis.

I have been dropping some trivia while looking at Cutch's career homeruns, but I think this next bit of trivia is awesome and really shows the power/speed combination that Cutch has shown over his 13 year career.

Since Cutch's 2009 debut there has only been 1 player in Baseball with 250 homeruns and 200 stolen bases.  His name is Mike Trout.  Cutch currently sits on 194 career stolen bases and 250 homers.  It is likely Cutch joins this generation's greatest player before the season is up. Granted Trout did all that before his 30th birthday, but who's keeping track of that?

Let The Purple Rain begin

I have been showing off some of my cards limited to only 250 copies in celebration of Andrew McCutchen's 250 career home runs.

Below you will see three more cards limited to 250 copies.  

They are all from 2015 and this year really put into place the purple parallel as being the standard limited to 250 copies.

2015 Topps Chrome Purple Refractor

2015 Bowman Purple

2015 Triple Threads Emerald

As stated, Cutch had hit his 250th career homer last Wednesday.  Of his 250 career homers here is a list of the players Cutch has launched off the most against

There are two pitchers that Cutch has hit 4 homers against: Mike Fiers and J.A. Happ.

Fiers of course is famous for bringing attention to the Astros cheating scandal and one of the most unique facial hair cuts ever. 4 of Cutch's 6 career hits versus Fiers have found themselves on the other side of the fence.

Cutch's brief Pirates teammate J.A. Happ has also surrendered the most homers to Cutch with four in 33 plate appearances.  Cutch has a .862 slugging percentage against the former Bucco.  His OPS is 1.347

As impressive as that OPS is, Cutch has actually fared better against another pitcher who briefly played with the Pirates (in spring training).  Clayton Richard, like Happ, is a journeyman southpaw. Cutch has reached base 63% of the time he has faced off Richard and has a career OPS of 1.625 with 3 homers in 17 plate appearances.  

In terms of pitchers who have surrendered multiple homers to Cutch with the fewest plate appearances the list starts with Jose Torres who has given up 2 longballs in 3 plate appearances.  

The most recent pitcher to surrender multiple homers to Cutch is Trevor Rodgers of the Miami Marlins who has given up 2 round trippers in 5 at bats.  With an additional walk and double to his credit versus the Marlins pitcher, Cutch has elevated himself into Barry Bonds territory with a 2.200 OPS.  

Collecting Mistakes

I recently watched a video on YouTube where an adult toy collector discusses some mistakes he has made over his 20 years of collecting action figures.  He prefaced the video by saying it was about his experiences with toy collecting, but can (and should) relate to any form of collection (sports cards, stamps, comic books, physical media, etc).

It was a fun video and he went on to discuss how buying Star Wars cereal didn't make much sense looking back, but at the time he was trying to be a completionist and collect everything relating to Star Wars Episode 2.  If you want to watch the video by Nerdzoic you can click here.

I related to the video, not because I bought Star Wars cereal and party cups, but I had made some of the same collector mistakes.

This collection of the above 3 cards describes many of the mistakes made.

It is a 2018 Panini Chronicles Classics partial rainbow.  As you can see this parallel has very subtle color differences.  The Classics logo is a different color and there is a foil stamp with a serial number.  The gold is limited to 99 copies.

The purple is limited to 10 copies.

The base isn't numbered.

This card, in it's base form, brings me joy as it is a nice design and shows Cutch in his San Francisco uniform.

The back is nice as well.

The problem is with the color parallels.

The gold does nothing to quickly identify itself as a parallel despite being limited to only 99 copies.  

It is almost like those old Highlights magazines with the "Spot the difference" feature.

The purple parallel is just as bad as the gold, but with the added pressure of being limited to only 10 copies and costing significant more than the base.  For the very subtle difference of a purple Classics logo instead of the standard, fans can expect to pay 10x or more the base price.  A Ronald Acuna /10 PSA9  is currently listed for nearly $700, but the base PSA10 recently sold for $70-$110.

I'll admit that I was lucky in that I didnt have to pay for the gold as I got it in a group break, but I did seek out the purple and paid just over $10 for the card.  

And it doesn't bring me anymore joy to the collection than the base.  

I have really cut back on adding new cards to the collection over the past month and it feels awesome to go through my binders and enjoy what I have instead of constantly focusing on what I don't have.  

Have you made any collecting mistakes that you really regret?

Do you watch any YouTube videos or listen to any podcasts about collecting?  If so, please recommend some channels to me. 

The Sheff's Menu: 1989 Topps

By now you all should know my appreciation for Gary Sheffield and how he was a favorite player of mine growing up.  The bat speed, strong arm, and angry swagger made me really like him in my little league days and early teen years at high school.  I only got to see him play a few times as a member of the Florida Marlins when the fish came to visit Philadelphia.

I took a long break from baseball and got back into the game in 2005 when the Pirates drafted a highschooler named Andrew McCutchen.

My all time favorite player is obviously Andrew McCutchen.

I am going to try to show off a card of Gary Sheffield that has also had the design used for an Andrew McCutchen card.  You can view all items on the Sheff's Menu by clicking here.  (Title for this subject to change)

My very first Gary Sheffield card was 1989 Topps.  1987 Topps was the first set I collected and my dad and I put together the set.  My grandfather helped me build the 1989 set and one of my favorites was Gary Sheffield.

The gold chain, the "grill" with his initials, the Future Star logo, the pin stripe jersey

This card was cool!!!

The Sheffield has been used in several other releases over the years as both a reprint and buyback formats.

Here is the Sheff on top of a 2014 mini of Andrew McCutchen

As you can see by the size of the card, the mini is also a die cut format as the white border of the card has been completely removed.

The back of the minis are slightly different as well.

The pink is more pronounced on the mini back

The stats for the mini contain only the most recent season and major league totals while the original contains more in depth stat totals

The monthly scoreboard on the original is completely gone from the mini

There were two different minis produced of Cutch in 2014

The 1989 design was also used for a Chrome version in 2014

The backs as you can see feature the same problems as the mini

Interesting to see that MLB Network's Dan Duquette signed Gary Sheffield.

I also have the Superfractor of the Chrome version which I have shown off a few times.

I also have a stunning patch card of Cutch produced using the 1989 Topps design

It is limited to only 25 copies and is also a die cut

Do you have a favorite 1989 Topps card or any memories from the set?

ICYMI : The Magic of 250

In case you missed it, Andrew McCutchen hit his 250th Career Home Run on Wednesday night.  

Here is a breakdown of his 250 HR by team

203 Pirates

15 Giants

5 Yankees

27 Phillies

I wanted to show off a few of my cards that were serial numbered to only 250 copies and decided to start with 2016 and 2017.  

My reason for those years?

Well, that's around the time I changed my focus from collecting all things Pittsburgh to be mostly just CollectingCutch

So without further ado, here are a few of my serially numbered cards to 250 copies

Now I should warn you all that if you have allergic reactions to the color purple, it is best to change the general direction of your eye gazing.

Let's begin with the year 2017

Bowman Platinum purple holofoil

Bowman's Best purple refractor

Topps Gallery 1951 Bowman Heritage green

Gypsy Queen purple border

⚾ ⚾ ⚾ 

Now we will travel back to 2016

Bowman Chrome purple Refractor

Bowman purple

Bowman Platinum purple

Bowman's Best Blue

Topps Finest purple

Gypsy Queen purple

Triple Threads Emerald

I do plan to make more posts celebrating Cutch's 250th career Homerun and will be taking a deeper dive into his homers.

Don't forget to head over to topps.com and purchase yourself a copy of the Topps Now card. I secured myself a copy of the base and the red parallel autograph limited to 10 copies.

A Top 10 List Part 2: Rookie Year cards

I promised that every 10th day or so, I would reveal one of ten categories I want to add to my Cutch collection.  These 10 posts will become a map for where I want my collection to go and help keep the collection focused.  

Over the years I have had a Pokemon "gotta catch em all" type mentality when it came to my Andrew McCutchen collection.

With the current baseball card market and Cutch not playing for my favorite team anymore, I am now looking towards the past to focus on the future of the collection.

Today, I am going to have this post focus on the "rookie year" Cutch.

He made his MLB debut in 2009.

I showed off a 2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic silver foil card limited to only 59 copies recently and it is one of my favorite pickups of the year.  I love that it is a rare rookie card of my favorite athlete and would love to grab some more rare rookie cards of Cutch.  

The majority of Cutch rookie debut cards I need are mostly limited to serial number cards /50 or less with the majority being 1/1s.  

Something about having those rare rookie year cards brings great joy to my collection.

Like the above 2009 Bowman Chrome Superfractor or the Orange /25

or the Logoman from the 2008 Futures Game Jersey found on the below 2009 Topps Unique 1/1

Here is a list of cards I need 

2009 Bowman Chrome #178

/50 Gold

/5 Red

1/1 Printing Plates: Cyan, Magenta, Black, Yellow

2009 Bowman Sterling #BS-AM

1/1 Printing Plates: Cyan, Magenta, Black

Need the base, have all color parallels

2009 Topps T206 #10

1/1 printing plates: cyan, magenta, black, yellow

2009 Topps T206 Mini #10

/99 Cycle Back

1/1 printing plates: cyan, magenta, black, yellow

1/1 Carolina Brights Back

2009 Topps Update

1/1 printing plates: black, cyan, yellow

1/1 platinum

Target Throwback Logo and back

2009 Topps Unique #196

1/1 unique

2009 Topps Unique Uniform #UU04

/25 Gold

1/1 Platinum

2009 Topps Chrome #213

1/1 printing plates: cyan, magenta, black, yellow

2009 Tristar Projections #74

/50 Green

/25 Yellow

/5 Orange

1/1 Purple

2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic #132

/19 Titanium

So there's a list of my 2009 McCutchen needs

Cutch was such a breath of fresh air for a team that was on the verge of two decades of losing records