Enter The Multiverse

Now that Spider-Man: No Way Home is available for digital download I thought it would be fun to discuss the multiverse of card collecting.

If you are into the Marvel movies, go watch Spider-Man: No Way Home!!!

It's Amazing (no pun intended)

It's no secret that Topps and Panini have been pumping out dozens of parallels over the past few years.  Sometimes they may look similar to one another, but very often there are bold enough color changes that you can tell a magenta speckled from the standard pink refractor

 or differiante the lime green donut circles from the forest green flash variants.  

Every now and then though they release these variants (Loki reference) that look a lot like the original.

Right before the holiday season I was able to grab a pair of Superfractors that look nearly identical.

These Superfractors look nearly identical, right?

Well, if you turn them over you will see the only difference of these 1/1s.

One is the standard Topps Chrome Update Superfractor and the other is the Topps Chrome Update Sapphire Superfractor.

We are probably all familar with Topps releasing value boxes that contain a chrome pack with their Update release each year.  These Topps Update Chrome parallels are often very sought after as they were produced in very limited supply.  

Topps has been making a product called Topps Sapphire since 2016 and has recently made a Topps Update Sapphire addition as well.  Oddly enough this Topps Update Sapphire edition doesn't always follow the same numbering as your standard Topps Update set or Topps Update Chrome edition.  

All these parallels and multiple issues are getting tough to keep up with. 

Do you think Fanatics will continue the parallel trend that Topps and Panini has been building upon over the past few years? 

The Christmas Countdown Continues

Christmas is only 11 days away.  

Because I am a big kid at heart I love to countdown with anticipation of Christmas morning.

Today I want to talk about 

2013 Topps Update

We all know how popular the 2011 Topps Update set is, but did you know that the 2013 Topps Update Gold serially numbered to 2013 copies is actually one of the harder color parallels to track down and when found can be worth north of over $100 easily?  I wrote about it here and here.

We are not looking at gold (or silver for that matter) today.

So if your name is Yukon Cornelius, you're out of luck.

No instead I am looking at the red and green parallels that set offered us, which ended this parallels pairing after this release. 

As discussed yesterday, Christmas is often associated with the colors red and green.  The theory of these two colors representing Christmas are because of the reason we celebrate the holiday in the first place.  

It is because of Jesus Christ that we "deck the halls" with red and green.

The green represents Christ's eternal life just as the evergreen trees remain green all winter long.  The red represents his blood shed during the crucifixion.

As we count down the days to Christmas (YES I know you're supposed to begin on the 25th and carry on for 12 days after) I will be looking at a pair of red and green color parallels I have of Cutch.

In 2013 Topps Flagship releases, the company decided to produce a new parallel called Emerald Foil.  It uses a technology design similar to previous years technology like Diamond Anniversary and Cognac parallels.  The Emerald Foil really pops on these cards and if I was an Oakland A's fan I would put the entire team set together.  Sadly, these emerald foils would not carry into their 2014 releases despite being a fan favorite parallel. 

The red represents the traditional Target exclusive cards that came to an end in 2014. 

So sadly this pairing of red borders and green foil was a 1 year option. 

Here are the cards perched on the tree

With a pending snowstorm on the horizon in New Jersey tomorrow, I thought I would share a popular verse that discusses snow in the bible.

Isaiah 1:18

Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they shall be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Shark Week

The 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates was my favorite team I rooted for. (EVER!!!)

They would go on to have their 1st winning season in 20 years.

The bullpen lead by Jason Grilli was dubbed the Shark Tank.  Grilli would even go as far to get the team a shark tank for the clubhouse.  They began to use a 3 headed back of bullpen (Watson-Melancon-Grilli) in the same way that many teams are using bullpens today.

Look up the ERAs of the core members of the Shark Tank in 2013 and you will see that when there was blood in the water, these sharks fed like a frenzy.

Yesterday I used a bible quote involving the fish in the sea trembling at His presence.

For the rest of this week I will look at some cardboard featuring Cutch with members of The Shark Tank and why batters trembled in their presence.

Let's begin with the mastermind behind the Shark Tank, Jason Grilli.  Nicknamed Grill Cheese he would lead the Pirates into the All Star game with over 20 consecutive saves converted.  He lead the NL in saves at the break and even was the cover athlete for Sports Illustrated highlighting the Pirates miraculous season.

Shortly after the SI article, Grilli would land on the DL (thanks Sports Illustrated curse) and hand the reigns of the closing role to Mark "The Shark" Melancon.

The Cardboard Insider: Steve Garvey Edition

I held a contest during spring training for people to suggest names for a series of future posts where I look at comparing Cutch to a player mentioned on the back of his baseball cards.

The sleuth aspect of investigating these players made me choose The Cardboard Insider, submitted by Gavin of   Baseball Card Breadown.

Thanks to everyone who participated.  If you haven't already please make sure to enter my current contest. You can see it by clicking here.  A Craig Biggio Topps Dynasy Patch/Auto is the main prize, but everyone who enters will receive some autos, relics, parallels, etc.

Back to The Cardboard Insider....

Today's card is a 2013 Topps Archives 83 All-Star Insert.

The back of the card features (drumroll please)
Steve Garvey

Steve Garvey is an absolute fan favorite in every sense of the word.  There's even a few bloggers who PC him as one of their main guys.  It's no wonder why fans liked him.  He was elite for his time in the majors.  A 10 time All-Star, MVP, 4x Gold Glove winner and World Series Champion, Garvey deserves some Hall of Fame discussion.

Even with all his hardware and career accomplishments, Garvey never even reached 50% of the required 75% vote.  His highest was 42.6% in 1995.

Garvey's downfall in terms of Hall of Fame debate is his lack of hitting the "magical numbers."
He finished his 19 year career just shy of a .300 batting average (.294), about 400 hits shy of 3,000 and less than 300 career home runs.

Garvey's career WAR over 19 seasons was 37.7 according to Baseball-Reference.com
To put that into perspective, Cutch has the same WAR in only 8 seasons (I''m not counting 2017 since it just started).

Actor and Late Night Host Jimmy Kimmel wrote an excellent article for ESPN a few years back that if you are a fan of the National League's Iron Man you should check out here.

The All-Star voting has begun.  If you haven't already cast your ballots, please vote for Cutch.  I know his stats don't scream early season All-Star, but I would love to add more All-Star cardboard of him to the collection.

The rarest card numbered to 2013 you'll find

I wrote about this card on my old blog last January.  It's believed that only about 100 of these made it into packs after it was discovered so many were off center.

I currently have 8 different variations of US213

They include base, emerald,Wal Mart Blue, Target Red
Photo Variant, Camo, Gold, Hope.

I'm still looking for any of the 1/1s and the black.