Basketball Diaries

My favorite sport to play and watch has always been baseball, but the sport that got me the most recognition with my friends was basketball.  I was pretty tall in 8th grade and that helped me make the team.  I wasn't very good with the rock, but like Dennis Rodman I could jump and grab those boards.

Some of my favorite players were Reggie Miller, Penny Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, and of course Shaq.  I changed the teams I rooted for fairly regularly going from Bulls to Hornets to Pacers to Magic.

With the basketball playoffs in effect, who are you rooting for?  I'm pulling for OKC Thunder vs Pacers.  I'm tired of the Warriors vs Cavs matchup.

Today's card is 1972 Basketball Design found in 2013 Topps Archives.  The set is 20 cards deep and features players on the 1972 Topps Basketball Design, made famous by the Julius Erving (Dr. J) rookie card.

Make a Wish

Andrew McCutchen has done a lot of work with the Make A Wish foundation over the years.

Here is an extremely touching article from 2015.

Something that I wish could happen is Topps using some of their designs and images from the Topps Bunt app to make actual cards.

This is a card that was available in 2015 only through the app.

This is the 2015 regular issue for flagship

In addition to the obvious picture change (Cutch cut his dreads before spring training 2015) another noticeable difference is Centerfield vs Outfield for the position circle.

I kind of wish Topps would put the player's primary outfield position instead of just outfield.  Do cards say infield or do they say 1B, 2B, SS, 3B?  Why should Rightfield be different than 1B?

Another thing I noticed about the Bunt app digital cards is the "relics" always match the jersey being worn by the player on the digital card.  Below are two examples.

I currently don't have the app, but always see these digital cards listed on eBay (which is where I took the images from).

Do any of you have the Topps Bunt app?  If so have you noticed inserts that look better on the app then actual cards?

Another plain grey swatch

Something that I really hate about getting jersey relics is when they're a plain grey swatch.

Take this card for example.

It's from a high end set (National Treasures
It's low numbered (only 22 copies produced)

On the back it talks about his Homer in the All Star game.

Cards like this should have patches or at least piping from a jersey.

Small world afterall, the details of a cardboard odyssey

On Saturday I went to the CSA show in Virginia with my brother and had an awesome time.

It started out with a bunch of laughs on the 3.5 hour car ride down which lead to breakfast at the BK Lounge (Burger King) before the show started.  That didn't end well as my brother lost a tooth while eating breakfast.

A similar tooth loss happened to me at Texas Roadhouse earlier in the week.  I guess we have sensitive teeth.

The main reason why we went was so he could meet Mark Brunell and Jimmy Smith (he's a Jacksonville Jaguars fan).  There were a bunch of former superstars like Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Dan Marino, Eddie Murray,  Cal Ripken Jr, etc also there.  Most of the guys I would have been interested in meeting were only there Sunday.

While my brother was meeting the former Jags players I was walking the floor looking for trade bait, supplies, and of course any Cutch cards I could find.

The big card I was super stoked to get was this 2009 Topps Black numbered to 58 copies.  Topps Blacks from flagship are always highly sought after.  Topps Blacks from Topps Update are even more sought after.  Topps Black Rookie Cards from Updates, well they are some of the toughest to grab Flagship cards.  Don't believe me?  Try and find a Mike Trout 2011 Black Update.

The back of the card has some specks on it so it won't grade well.  I suspect that it had been placed on other blacks that weren't "dry" from the printing process yet.

To be honest, this great card may have not made its way into my collection had the seller not started small talk about the amount of Pirates I grabbing from his boxes.  He asked how I felt about McCutchen being traded and if I would still collect him.  I informed him that I might have the biggest Andrew McCutchen card collection in the world and told him about my nearly 200 1 of 1s.  Well it turns out that he sold me one of my favorite cards in my collection, a 2005 (draft year 1st licensed card) Topps Update Cyan Printing Plate autograph.  He remembered seeing my collection online and was very impressed with it.  Kevin, if you read this keep in touch and thanks for adding to the collection.

Often times I get the base card of Cutch last as I hope to get them in trades or pick them up at shows or if I absolutely have to get them, add them to my COMC purchases.  Shipping for commons is just too expensive.  I managed to get 5 base cards of Cutch at the show in the 10 cent and 15 cent bins.  So collectively, these 5 cards ran 55 cents (all the 2018 Heritage was in 15 cent bins)

The other Pirates cards I snagged From the 10 cents to 25 cent bins?  Check them out below

Felipe Rivero changed his name yesterday to Felipe Vazquez to honor his sister.  Josh Bell cards for a quarter or less seemed like good value as did the Gerrit Cole UCLA card.

Here's some other Buccos I found that I couldn't pass up

The Stargell is /199.  A New Clemente is always a welcomed addition.  25 cents for a 1st Bowman card of Gregory Polanco? YES!

Some more Polanco cards and a Mitch Keller (Pirates top prospect and MLB #8 overall prospect)

Clay Holmes made his MLB debut a few nights ago.  The Gold Pro Debut is numbered to only 50 copies.  The Polanco Black Friday is also numbered and the Josh Bell green chrome is only 99 copies.

Overall that was a good haul, but the card below got me really excited from a nostalgia standpoint.

Barry Bonds 1986 Sportsflics

The inner child in me couldn't pass this up for a buck.

I got a bunch of other cards, most of which I will be shipping out to some of you, my loyal readers.

Quick post of shinies

I'm very short on time today so here's 3 more cards I got in over the past month, all PSA graded 8.

The black static is /35, orange /25, and shimmer /15.

134 doubles purchased for 1 "NEW" card

Lock me up and throw away the key.

I have legit lost my mind.

I purchased a lot of 135 Andrew McCutchen cards for $25 just so I could get 1 "new" card.

Why the quotes around new?

Well because even though it's new to the spreadsheet, it's just a restamped card I already own.

I have been looking for any and all buybacks of Cutch that I can get my hands on.  There's been a few 65th anniversary cards, Rediscover Topps, Bowman 70th anniversary released in the past few years.  I wish there were actually more to chase down.

The most plentiful are the 2015 10th Anniversary buybacks of Allen & Ginter.  I showed off a post last year begging people to help me locate any of these.  Since that post I have seen only one become available for sale.  Even though they aren't stamped I feel like the print run on these has to be less than 10 as they infrequently hit the market for any particular card more than once.  Hell, they could all be unnumbered 1/1s.

Anyway this new addition to the spreadsheet brings my A&G buyback total to 8.  This is my 4th mini of the bunch.  I like the framed mini buybacks more because they have the A&G 2015 frame around the card making it seem like a new card.

The other 134 Cutch cards?  Well...I'm going to verify that I'm not missing any of them but I am 99% sure I have them all.

This is what I will be cross checking over the next few days.

Should be fun...

Time to get Super!

Cutch had an incredible day at the plate last night going 6 for 7 including a 12 pitch at bat in the 14th inning walk off homerun.  Cutch became the first player in history to hit 2 walk off homers in the 14th or later innings.  He previously hit one against the Cardinals in 2015.

He will certainly get the Topps Now treatment today and it will be the first licensed card of Cutch wearing a Giants uniform. 

Above is another example of taking advantage of 10% or more eBay bucks I did during the month of March. 

The 1989 set was the first set I completed.  I began with 1987 but 89 was the first one I was able to complete. 

Getting the superfractor version of the design of the 1st set I completed with my favorite player seemed like a must have.