Alter Egos

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).

With New York Comic Con wrapping up over this past weekend, it seems appropriate to show off

Valerie Perez

If you have ever been to a big comic book convention, you have likely come across Valerie Perez and her incredible cosplay as Wonder Woman, Zatanna, or Paula Peril.

Valerie embraces the geek culture and all things pop culture as she travels from San Diego to New York to WonderCon and all the stops in between.

She has even been a special guest at Heroes Con and has had her likeness portrayed on many comic books.

The most common likeness is Paula Peril

which Valerie also acts as the main character in the feature length movies and episodes.

Paula Peril is an underground reporter that will go to any extreme to get the news, but also finds herself often getting put into rather distressed situations.

Many of the movies and episodes are available to stream on Amazon Prime

They harken back to some film noir style storylines.

So while Valerie Perez now has an alternate identity of Paula Peril, Andrew McCutchen has gotten an alter ego too.

During the 1st Spring Training 2020 (pre pandemic) a Philadelphia reporter referred to Andrew McCutchen as Larry McCutcheon (former NFL running back).  Andrew took it and made the article into an alter ego "Uncle Larry."

The back of this pink 2020 Spectra talks about Andrew's Uncle Larry debut

The card is numbered 10/75

Uncle Larry got an official card in this year's Project 70 by Chuck Styles and also received cards in 2021 Allen & Ginter.

Falco Files: Stoned!

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

Isla Fisher

She first got on my radar when she played a "stoner girlfriend" of Shaggy in the movie Scooby Doo 2.  Oddly enough her name was Mary Jane. Shaggy loved the name if I remember correctly.

As I stated earlier I am ALWAYS trying to think of ways to include the readers in participating in the event.  

The idea for this post has been nearly two years in the making thanks to Johnny's Trading Spot

Fisher also starred in Confessions of a Shopaholic

I think we can all relate to that in some fashion (no pun intended).

She played the "crazy" sister in the Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson comedy Wedding Crashers

One of my favorite movie franchises which Fisher started, but ultimately left was Now You See Me.  

Fisher left the franchise when it was revealed that she almost died while filming.

One of her more recent movies was playing the character Minnie in the 2019 film, The Beach Bum, opposite Matthew McConaughy.  The film focus on the character Moondog (played by McConaughy) who is a stoner, but it also has a cameo of famed smoker, Snoop Dogg.

A part of my CollectingCutch collection is a mini collection of replacement players that have replaced Cutch either on a roster (trade, injury) or jersey number. 

Bryan Reynolds was traded to the Pirates as part of a package that sent Andrew McCutchen to the San Francisco Giants. 

He received a rookie cup card for his performance in 2019 and made the starting lineup in this year's All Star Game.

Bryan Reynolds debuted on 4/20 as revealed on the back of this 2019 Chronicles Spectra Pink Insert.  

420 is slang for getting high off marijuana.  Having never even tried smoking, I had no idea about the origin for this slang.  So I researched it and found this article.

CollectingCutch just isn't a blog for baseball cards and babes, it's a blog for research I never thought I would want to do.

Do you have any suggestions for who could appear this year?

Red & Green Countdown : Christmas Chronicles

Christmas is only 12 days away.  

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

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.

These are the 2020 Chronicles Spectra.  

The green has a more unique design and pops more despite a higher print run.  The red is basically a red superfractor design.

They are numbered to 49 and 25 copies respectively.

Here's the pair of Cards perched on the Christmas tree. 

I will probably watch The Christmas Chronicles tonight with Mrs CollectingCutch.  Each day we try to do something "Christmasy" in December.

Nehemiah 8:10

"Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

A Card from All Cards All The Time

Ray, the host of All Cardinals All The Time sent me a message about a week ago saying he had picked up a McCutchen card at a card show and was wondering if I needed it.  A few days later I had this sweet 2018 Chronicles Spectra Pink in my mailbox.

This isn't a new card to my collection as I had previously shown it off in October 2018 as part of my SaveSecondBaseEvent.  You can revisit that post here.  I featured Hayley Atwell in that post.

While the card isn't new, I am planning on using the card as part of a frankenset I am starting to put together.

The idea came to me when I was looking at all my duplicate serially numbered cards.  I am going to start a binder where the serial number prefix is treated as the card set number.

For example this will be treated as card #21.

Thanks for the push towards my next CollectingCutch goal Ray

More details to come in the coming weeks.

Join me tomorrow for a week long festivity of celebrating one of the best Christmas Movies in my opinion.

Ribbit ribbit

When I was younger I used to be fascinated by the metamorphosis of frogs.  I know that ultrasounds of humans show incredible growth and we are amazing stories of survival too, but the idea of so many tiny tadpole eggs and the development of them to one day become a frog is a journey of perseverance that nature can provide.  It absolutely amazes me that any frogs can survive so much.

I bring this up because one of the most interesting and bizarre sets that Panini has used their unlicensed baseball product line over the past few years is a release called Chronicles.  Chronicles basically takes an amalgam of their basketball and football releases and makes mini sets for their baseball release. 

Spectra Triple Threats is a very popular set that Panini uses much in the same way Topps produces Triple Threats.

The 2018 set was supposed to have a few parallels to chase.  The neon blue would be produced /99, neon pink would be /49, green would be /25, gold to /10, and nebula would be 1/1.

Shortly after release Panini stated that not all players would be featured for all parallels and some players may have less than stated numbers produced. 

Of course I wanted to grab a copy of the 2018 Neon Pink /49 for my Save The Boobies event.  Unfortunately Cutch fell in the "or less" copy. 

The Neon Blue parallel looks like tadpole eggs to me.

And much like the survival rate of a tadpole, much fewer survived than what should have.

In short, Cutch didn't survive the cut for a Neon Pink copy.  Instead his Neon Blue which should have been /99 copies was instead produced as a short print /49 card.

Agent Carter Saves The Day

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Visit the official site here.

Breast Cancer will be detected in one of eight women in the US each year.

It is the second leading cause of cancer death among women each year.

On average every 2 minutes a woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer and every 13 minutes one person will die from breast cancer.
There are currently 33 million breast cancer survivors in the USA.

It's important to support the research for cancer.  Breast Cancer is often associated with the color pink so I will be showing off some pink Cutch cards.

In addition, you can expect to see some boobs with each post.  Who doesn't love boobs?

So let's start with what we're hoping to save!

Hayley Atwell

Atwell has appeared in many different commercials, TV shows, and movies.

Her first break was a Pringles commercial.

She has also appeared as Cinderella's mother in the live action Cinderella movie.

Her biggest role thus far has been,playing Captain America's love interest, Peggy Carter.

While Hayley portrays a love interest of a famous American superhero, Atwell was born in London where the biggest fictional hero is James Bond. 

While Captain America (and Peggy Carter) face off against the terrorist organization Hydra, James Bond faces off against the organization Spectre.

Cutch appeared in this year's Spectra insert set of the 2018 Panini Chronicles release.

The pink parallel is numbered to 75 copies and discusses how Cutch saved the day with his early season heroics against the Dodgers by going 6 for 7 including a walk off extra inning homerun.