What killed the dinosaurs?

Continuing my posts about Arnold Schwarzenegger we have a line from Batman & Robin where Arnold played the villain, Mr. Freeze.

What killed the dinosaurs?

The Ice Age

Above are my Bowman Platinum silver ice parallels of Cutch 2016-2019. 

What are some other great Arnold one liners you'd like to see?

#CutchsCrew: Zero Year Teammate

Andrew McCutchen made 5 straight All Star seasons from 2011-2015.  He debuted with the Pirates in 2009.  

Josh Harrison was traded from the Cubs to the Pirates organization in 2009.  He made his MLB debut in 2011.  He didn't become an everyday player in the lineup until 2014 when he made his first All Star game.  

The two would go on to form a great friendship on the field and be two of Pittsburgh fan favorites in recent years both receiving everything from T-shirts to bobbleheads to garden gnome giveaways. 

It could be argued that Cutch was more deserving of being named to the 2017 All Star Game than Josh Harrison as you can see in the comparison below.

Cutch lead JHay in every offensive category except Stolen Bases.  Joe Maddon, the NL ASG manager, felt differently though and liked JHays versatility. 

After Cutch got traded in 2018 Josh Harrison made statements that he too wanted to be traded seeing two franchise favorites (Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole) get traded within days of each other. 

JHay played one more season with the Pirates in 2018 before going to join the Tigers for the 2019 season.  

Cutch joined the Phillies in 2019 and it looked like he was trying to get "the band back together" for the 2020 season as the Phillies had signed both Neil Walker and Josh Harrison to minor league contracts with spring training invites. 

The 2020 season was put on pause due to the Coronavirus and Topps had to alter their production and distribution of sets because of it.  There were a few guys who got cards in 2020 but didn't make appearances with the teams featured when the regular season came around.  

One such card was Josh Harrison's 2020 Topps Update card which features Harrison in a Phillies Spring Training uniform even though the Phillies would not bring him north and he would play the 2020 season with the Washington Nationals. 

He also got the Topps Heritage treatment for a Phillies card.

I would have loved to seen Walker, Harrison, and Cutch all make meaningful contributions to the 2020 Phillies team and get a triple relic of those 3 Pirates fan favorites on a Phillies card.  That would have been cool. 

On a completely side not, Josh Harrison has had some amazing Topps Flagship cards over the years that show how fun and scrappy he is as a player. 

What are some of your favorite cards featuring an athlete that never played an actual game for the franchise?

What former All Stars have played together on different teams that you're a fan of?

Let's Celebrate our Independence

The 4th of July is meant to celebrate our independence as a free country.  

With all the flaws our country may have, let's celebrate the great things that our country has provided.

Leave a comment below why you love America.

You like metal?

I've been showing off a bunch of Allen & Ginter cards lately and this will be my last A&G post for awhile.

I thought it would be fun to show off all my metal cards from Allen & Ginter

This is the only non Pirates metal mini I have. It's from 2019 and features him in a Phillies uniform. Strangely enough the 2019 versions didn't have the standard hand numbering that others have.

Above is the 2015 version. The 2015 Rip Cards weren't coated inside with the proper wax sealant which caused all the metal and art cards to get EXTREMELY scratched up.

This is the 2016 extended SP mini metal

And here is the base of which I own all 3 of the print run.

I've talked about being a metalhead on here a few times sighting bands like Vision of Disorder (V.O.D.) and Pantera being two of my favorite bands of all time.  

I am not up with bands post 2005 though.  I don't really have the time now to listen to music other than driving home from work on occasion. 

Having been in a teenage metal band, I think the sounds of guitars shredding, double bass pedal drumming, and deep bass lines will always be in my blood. 

Do you listen to any metal bands? 

National Sunglasses Day

Since breaking into the league in 2009, Cutch has always had a sense of joy and swag wherever he played.

Here are a few cards featuring Cutch wearing sunglasses.

First I am going to show off an original piece of artwork by the extremely talented artist Josh Trout

2022 has seen my favorite low budget insert in a long time. Check out those shades!

2021 had an insert set called Stars in Service showing athletes in the community.

It also had a base card featuring Cutch sliding to make a catch for his base card in Series 2.

2020 introduced the world to a worldwide pandemic and the coolest sports card ever produced.

2019 Stadium Club had a photo variant of Cutch 

2016 Topps Triple Threads featured images of Cutch at the 2015 All Star Game

This is an original art card by Brian Kong and was used to produce the Museum Canvas Collection reprints from this original artwork. 

2014 Topps Archives 

2013 Topps Archives All Stars

2013 had photo variants of the top stars sporting their sunglasses.  The most famous is the Yu Darvish card featuring a pair of sunglasses that should be sent back in time.

2012 had a photo variant of Cutch at the All Star Game

2011 Tier One had an autograph with Adam Jones where Cutch is sporting shades atop his cap.

2005 Bowman Heritage saw him sport a pair of shades on his cap for the base, mini, and mahogany parallels.  It is strange That the photo variant doesn't feature sunglasses on the cap as it was likely from the same photo shoot.

It also saw the 2005 Bowman Heritage Signs of Greatness autographs to feature the sunglasses on the hat.

2005 Topps Chrome saw Cutch wearing the shades atop his head.

Do you have any sunglasses cards to show off? We could do a blog bat around if so.

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? 

Punk Rock Princess

Each year during the month of October, I show off only pink (and shades of pink like magenta, peach, etc) to help raise awareness of Breast Cancer, a leading cause of death for females in the United States.  

Due to my own financial situation this year I will not be able to make a donation for each (meaningful, non spam) comment left by those that follow the blog.  Once things settle down on the home front though I will be looking to make a donation in 2022 based on the comments left during this year's event.  Hopefully together we can help at least one woman get a much needed mammogram.  Early detection is key!!!

If you want to make your own private donation please visit the National Breast Cancer Foundation.  There is a donate button on the main page and it only takes a minute of your time.  Every little bit helps.

I have focused primarily on cards that only feature Andrew McCutchen on the card, but in recent years have also featured cards with a cameo appearance (either being seen on the card or as a name cameo on the back of the card).  In 2019, I created Falco Files which discussed players that replaced (Shane Falco Replacements movie reference) on an active roster, number worn, or trade.  I will also be showing some Cutch's Crew cards that show pink cards of players that have played with Cutch on multiple teams. I will continue to utilize these styles of posts as we celebrate the 5th Collecting Cutch Save Second Base event (I am no longer counting my first run on the Pirates Treasure Room I did back in 2014).

I am always looking for new ways to incorporate new celebrities into the event so today I am presenting

Yesterday John had suggested the Punk Rock Princess, Avril Lavigne, so I thought I would honor his request.

One of my favorite YouTube channels, PunkRockMBA, recently did a video about Avril where he looked at why the scene hates on Avril.  The channel's host, Finn McKenty, goes into a deep dive discussing her hustle and the amount of shows she did at a young age to become the star that she is today and how he absolutely respects her for that.

In the video he discussed how she helped influence an entire generation of young women with her look and attitude.

Lavigne had appeared on stage with country music artist Shania Twain when she was only 15 years old.  This lead to a 2 album recording contract. 

Some of her hit singles include Sk8er Boi, Complicated, and Girlfriend.

It looks like she may have gotten some plastic surgery.

Lavigne was born in 1984 and celebrated her birthday just a few weeks ago.

This 2019 Topps Mini pink parallel is based on the 1984 design and limited to only 25 copies, with this one being numbered 7/25.

Do you have a favorite punk band?

Have you ever tried skateboarding?