This Day In Cutchstory

Let's hop in that Delorean and travel back to August 1st, 2009

The Pittsburgh Pirates hadn't had a winning season record since 1992.

They were hosting the Washington Nationals, who hadn't had a winning season since they left Montreal when they were formally called the Expos.

The Pirates best player was rookie Andrew McCutchen, who the Pirates drafted in 2005 with the 11th overall selection.

The Nationals best player was Ryan Zimmerman, who the Nationals used their first ever franchise selection with the 4th overall selection in the 2005 draft.

Yes the 2005 draft was loaded with future Face of the Franchise players!

The Pirates entered the game 44-58.  This made them the worst team in the very mediocre NL Central.  The Cardinals lead the division with 52 wins entering the day.

The Nationals entered the game at 32-71, nearly 40 games under .500 and the worse team in baseball.

PNC Park packed in 26,855 fans to support the last place Pittsburgh Pirates, excited for the young Pirates that were playing well after the team was gutted at the trade deadline just the day before.

What the fans got to witness was the very first Pirates rookie to home three times in a single game.

Andrew McCutchen, in less than 50 games had made Pirates history by homering three times in a game versus the Washington Nationals.

Over the years, there have been a few baseball cards recognizing Cutch's rookie year performance including the oversized 2010 Allen & Ginter cabinet card.

2017 Honus Bonus Partners made a lot of 1/1 cards similar to what Topps Moments & Milestones did.  It took a few players are recognized their home run logs with a 1/1 for each homer.  Above is a card recognizing Cutch's 5th career homerun and his 2nd of the day.

The backs all featured the same backs.

The 2021 Topps Silver Packs feature a retro 1986 design and all have the mojo refractor look

The back of this card notes Cutch's first three Home Run game.

The Pirates are looking for a sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies today.  I would love to see the Phillies not only win today so they can get back in the division race, but Also want to see Cutch launch a few homers into the stands for the fans today.

This Day in Cutchstory: Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there reading this!!!

Today's card is the 2011 Bowman Chrome blue parallel.

I chose this card because it features an image of Cutch wearing the blue wristbands from a Father's Day game played in 2010 against the Cleveland Indians.  

Coincidently Father's Day in 2010 was also on June 20th.  

The Pirates defeated the Cleveland Indians 5-3 at PNC Park.  Cutch scored the go ahead run in the 8th inning when he walked to lead off the inning and came around to score on a Pedro Alvarez sacrifice fly.  

At the plate, Cutch went 0 for 3 with a walk, run scored, and RBI.  

He finished the day with his triple slash line being .315/.392/.479.  It's a shame that Evan Meek was the Pirates lone representative at the 2010 All Star Game and that Cutch was snubbed from the game. 

This day in Cutchstory, 1st MLB HR

As you may be aware I own the lineup card from Cutch's 1st MLB HR

I have shown it off last year upon receipt from Goldin Auctions.  It is one of my favorite items in my collection.

Topps has supplied card collectors with a few insert sets over the years that discuss player's first MLB homers.  

Of course there were parallels to collect as well, which you can see above.

Have you witnessed any player's first MLB Homeruns in person at the ballpark?  

I was witness to Pedro Alvarez's 2nd career homerun (4th of July 2010), but can't think of anyone 1st HR.

Keeping it streaky

There's still time to enter my contest for the Kelly Brook Autograph.  

On this day in 2013, Cutch began an on base streak in the Queen City, Cincinnati.

The streak also includes the 2015 All Star Game, where Cutch launched a home run.

Some people complain when a printing plate isn't in immaculate condition because it's a 1/1 and hate having a streaky plate.  Personally, I like seeing the wears and tears of a plate.  I don't understand why Immaculate contains the actual card backs on their plates or what happens to the printing plates used for card backs, but I am always happy to add a new 1/1 Cutch to the collection.  

The Lineup Card from McCutchen's 1st HR

Today I am not going to show off a baseball card.  Instead it is a piece of game used memorabilia, but not just any boring item.  This is probably one of the coolest items I have added to my collection this year and I have already shown off some pretty awesome pieces to the collection like the foul ball Cutch hit before his 12 pitch walk off homer vs the Dodgers on April 7, 2018.

I've shown some nice cards over the years that discuss McCutchen's first homerun.

Topps produced a manurelic medallion for player's 1st Home Runs and an insert set (with three parallels to chase).  I showed those cards off back in 2017, which you can revisit by clicking here.

Last year I showed off a card that Topps produced for 2015 Topps Tribute called Milestone Materials.  In that post, I showed a card that includes a swatch of a baseball used in a game with historic significance.  The ball is from a game between the Twins and Pirates on June 17, 2009 when Andrew McCutchen hit his first homerun.  It is likely that the ball is just a ball thrown in the dirt by Francisco Liriano to Eric Hinske (who was DHing for the Pirates that day), but it is certified as a ball used in that game.  Pretty cool piece of cardboard if I must say  And only 10 were produced so that's even cooler.

But, what I am going to show off today takes that volume button and cranks it up to 11 (I'm sure some of you will get that reference)

Above is the actual lineup card used by John Russell for the Pirates visiting the Twins on June 17th, 2009.

I won it on the 2020 Spring Premium Goldin Auctions.  Here is the original listing.

It is certified by JSA on the back.

This is the same auction house that sold a Mike Trout Bowman Red auto for nearly a million dollars ($900K). That card made national headlines for selling for so much money.  The card was talked about a lot here locally here in NJ, but also was discussed on Good Morning America, MLB Network, ESPN, among others.  The auction house also sold NBA Finals memorabilia of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

I can't roll with those types of auctions.

It may not make National Headlines, but this unique piece of memorabilia is perfect for my collection.

Even if it only earned 0.01% of the final price of THE BIG TICKET ITEM that made those headlines, I am very happy to have snagged this for $100.  I think the mistyped auction description (listed as 2019 in title instead of 2009) definitely helped.  The fact the 2009 Pirates were terrible and had an unknown manager like Russell helped too.

I plan to get it framed and am looking for a photo of the game to use with it.

If you had an item like this for your favorite player, how would you display it?

This Day In Cutchstory, Cutch's Only 2019 Triple

Something I have been obsessing over is the research of matching an image used for a Topps product to an actual at bat.

The 2019 Heritage High Numbers action variant is from a game played April 14, 2019 where the Phillies beat the Marlins in a 3-1 contest in 14 innings.

Highlights of the game can be seen in the video below.  Head to 3:50 mark to see the (slightly foul) absolute bomb that Cutch hit off Wei-Yin Chen.

You can see the image used for the card directly from the Getty Images screenshot above, but the near homerun shot would have been a cooler "action shot" mainly for the fan jumping up precelebrating.

Despite just missing the go ahead homer, in typical Cutch form he put everything he had in to the next pitch to leg out a triple to give his team a chance to take the lead.  Fortunately Jean Segura hit a homer that put the Phillies up 3-1 and improved their record to 9-5 on the very young season.



Which of the three images below do you think would have been better for an action variant?

Do you ever research the images on Topps cards?

EPIC!!!

I missed an opportunity to add some of the other color parallels of this rainbow to my collection recently, but have had the "base" version numbered to 15 copies for many months sitting around.

2019 Luminaries features on card autographs (for the most part) inside 1 touch mag cases and sealed with a security sticker on top.

The set focuses on Hit Kings, Home Run Kings, and Masters of the Mound.  While not known as a Home Run hitter, Cutch got the HR treatment for his entry into the set.

On the front of the card you will notice that it says 6HR.  Surely Cutch has more than 6HR in his career.  But, if you flip the card over...

you will notice it talks about Cutch's walkoff homers.

Among active players, Cutch has the third most walkoff homers trailing only Albert Pujols (12) and Ryan Zimmerman (11).

Cutch hit 5 walk off homers with the Pirates tying him for second place on the franchise all time records.  He also hit one as a member of the San Francisco Giants.

It happened 2 years ago when Cutch hit his 6th All Time Walkoff Homerun April 7th, 2018.

Back to back days of This Day In Cutchstory? 

Yup.

As I predict I will do every April 7th due to Cutch's epic day at the plate of Game 7 of the 2018 season, I will show off a card that discusses his 6 hit performance that was capped off with a walk off homerun in the 14th inning.

Here are some fascinating facts about that epic at bat:

This was Cutch's 1st SIX hit game of his career and the first time he collected FIVE hits in a game since 2010.

Cutch hit SEVEN 2 strike foul balls to stay alive in the 12 pitch at bat.

Cutch was the first player since 1969 to collect six hits and a walk off homerun in the same game.  Jim Northrup and Cutch are the only players from 1900 to do such feats.

Andrew McCutchen became the first player to hit a walk off homer in the 14th inning or later with his team losing since July 11, 2015.  The player that did that?

Andrew McCutchen versus the St. Louis Cardinals.

It was the 3rd time in 4 games of only a 7 game season that the Giants had beaten the Dodgers decided because of a homerun.


Do you remember Cutch's walkoff for the Giants?

Never Trust A Man With Two First Names

It's been awhile since I have done a This Day in Cutchstory.

This Honus Bonus 1/1 commemorates Andrew McCutchen hitting a homerun off Kevin Gregg.  It was his career 129th homerun.

It was opening day 2015.  Johnny Cueto had been dealing zeroes through the first 7 innings, but the Pirates elelvated his pitch count.  The Reds brought in Kevin Gregg who was able to get two quick outs in only 4 pitches.  The Pirates were down 2-0 heading into the top of the 8th inning and former MVP Andrew McCutchen came to bat with 2 outs and Josh Harrison on first.

On the first pitch by Kevin Gregg, Cutch sent the ball sailing deep over the centerfield wall to tie the game up.

Gregg would be taken out and Jumbo Diaz would eventually come in to get Starling Marte to strikeout.

The Pirates lost the game 5-2.

I guess the saying of "Never Trust a man with two first names" applies to bullpen pitchers too.

Have you ever used the saying "Never trust a man with two first names?"

Do you know the origin of that saying?

This Day In Cutchstory: 1st HomeRun

Topps Tribute has lost a lot of it's luster as a super high end set over the years in part because more and better high end sets have been released over the years.

2015 Topps Tribute had some issues upon initial release due to lots of autographs bubbling and smearing.  It even lead to a recall of the merchandise.

With all that being said there were some pretty cool relics and the design for 2015 in general was very nice looking.

When I saw that Topps was releasing a set of cards using baseballs from games with milestone moments, I knew I wanted to snag of the very limited cards produced honoring Cutch's 1st career MLB homerun.

The MLB Authentication shows HZ274399

Which shows that it was a swatch removed from ball LH224482

10 years ago today Cutch hit his first career homer off Twins ace Francisco Liriano.

This Day In Cutchstory: 2x2=1/1

I interrupt the weekly Scripture Sunday on May 19th to bring you a "This Day in Cutchstory".

Cutch had quite a performance on May 19th, 2012 when he hit a pair of two-run homers to lead the Pirates to a victory over the Detroit Tigers.

So if you are doing the math on this one it's 2(qty) X 2 (two run homers) = (my latest) 1/1.  Algebra isn't what it used to be when I was going to school.

This Day in Cutchstory: Not Giving Up VS. Trevor Cahill

Following a 97 win season in 2015, the Pirates front office made some moves during the 2015 off-season that didn't sit too well with fans (or players).

The Pirates had the second best record in baseball for 2015.  Unfortunately the best record belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals and the 4th best record belonged to the Chicago Cubs.  Both are division rivals of the Pirates and both teams looked to improve their rosters heading into 2016.

The Pirates traded their long time second baseman (and Pittsburgh native) Neil Walker to the Mets for....Jon Niese?  They cut ties with power slugging Pedro Alvarez.  The loss of AJ Burnett was replaced with Juan Nicasio and the list goes on and on.

Still I remained optimistic about the 2016 season and during the opening weekend the Pirates fans put their doubts aside with a sweep of the defending division winners, Cardinals.  However, the magic of John Jaso at 1st Base, Jon Niese being on the mound, and replacing Walker with Josh Harrison didn't last.  The Pirates found themselves very quickly looking up at the Chicago Cubs who would just keep winning and winning and winning (eventually the World Series too).

On May 13, 2016 the Pirates played the Cubs and by the end of a 9-4 victory by the Cubbies they were already in double digit win totals above the Bucs.

One of the few redeeming moments of that game was Andrew McCutchen who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs and a Run Scored.  One of those hits was a two run homer off Trevor Cahill in the 9th inning with two outs.

It's good to know that with the team losing 9-2 with two outs, Cutch didn't just roll over and play dead.

Cutch raised his average that game to .261, but would finish the season with a career worse average of .256.

This Day in Cutchstory: Quality Control?

Where the heck is the quality control at Topps?

They release a high end set with a suggested retail price of roughly $300 per box and said box contains only 1 card.

The design is awesome.

The box it comes in is equally awesome.

The information about dynastic deeds is awesome.

IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE THOUGH!!!

Look up the boxscore for  April 20th, 2017.  The Diamondbacks played the San Diego Padres and lost easily 4-1.

Was Cutch a member of the Padres then?
Nope!

Ugh....

This Day In Cutchstory: Epic Walk Off Win!

It was early in the 2018 season when San Francisco quickly realized the potential that a 31 year old Andrew McCutchen could bring to the ballclub.  The Giants were opening up their homestand against their rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had gone to game 7 of the previous year's World Series.

The rivalry of the Dodgers and Giants was fairly new to Cutch who had played his entire professional baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

This is my 9th ticket stub I have purchased of a Cutch Home Run.

On the evening of April 7th, 2018, the seventh game of the young season, Cutch showed up in a big way.

He collected 6 hits on the evening and raised his batting average 175 points.  Over the course of the night he saw 32 pitches thrown, but it was during a 12 pitch at bat in the bottom of the 14th inning with two men on and his team trailing by a run, that Cutch battled and fought off pitch after pitch until he finally drilled a homerun in the left field stands to secure the win for the Giants.

The boxtopper pictured above is from 2018 Topps Heritage High Numbers.  I actually have two of them.  The players featured on the front are Austin Gomber, Andrew Romine, and Caleb Smith.

Since today is Sunday, here is a scripture about overcoming anxietity.

1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Topps went crazy talking about Cutch's big day and nearly every 2018 post All-Star Break product (Update, Triple Threads, Heritage High Number, Bowman Best, etc) talked about Cutch's big day.  I will have plenty of cards to discuss This Day In Cutchstory in the future.

They already ate the cake?

In case you may have missed it...

The Dodgers and Giants got into a brawl Tuesday night.

Andrew McCutchen took to instagram Wednesday to describe it.
You can read the article and hear his instagram play by play of the whole thing here.  It's well worth the click to hear Cutch get animated about the event and say things like:

I looked around and it was like a tornado, but it was just the bullpen running in.

I decided to join them and start running.

I thought about doing a karate pose...but I didn't.

Being in the outfield during a brawl is like a kid showing up to a birthday party late.  It's like you're coming in all excited, and they went and already ate all the cake.

Cutch is a funny dude.  I miss his personality in the clubhouse for the pregame and postgame interviews and features.

The only new card to the collection of this bunch is the Big League Caricature.  I got it for $1. The others were all scanned as part of a future post I am working on and they helped tell the story of what Cutch was talking about on instagram.

This Day in Cutchstory: A Day Late, A Buc Short

I made the mistake of not showing this off yesterday as part of my This Day In Cutchstory.

Now because I forgot to mention yesterday that Cutch hit a HR on that date in 2014 (as evidenced by the card below), I will instead focus on his July 6th 2014 performance where Cutch went 2 for 4 at the plate with a triple and RBI.  Following that game, Cutch raised his average to .324.

The Pirates completed a sweep of their state rivals and rose to 6 games over .500 while the Phillies further sunk to 14 games below .500.

These career milestone cards are similar to the Moments and Milestones impossible sets that Topps made a few years ago.  As someone who missed out on the chaos of the M&M set, I like that the concept was reinstated in the form of these cheap 1/1s for the game's top players.

Unfortunately Honus Bonus Partners never really took off so there's probably a bunch of these still sealed in boxes at a warehouse.  I have been able to get a bunch of them for under $10 so hopefully as more become available they can find their way into my collection.

The McCutchenless Pirates are facing one of the best teams in baseball this weekend, the Philadelphia Phillies.  Earlier in the year the Pirates were swept in a four game road trip to Philadelphia.  Hopefully they can start winning some games again soon.  I would love to see some winning baseball in the Steel City.  2013 to 2015 seems so far removed from the current roster.  Only 5 players on the 2015 roster are still with the Pirates (Josh Harrison, Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Francisco Cervelli, and Jordy Mercer).  Only 3 of them played in that series against the Pbillies 4 years ago.  Cervelli is a free agent at the end of the year so it is likely that another fan favorite will leave Pittsburgh for greener pastures.

Bring back the wins in the Steel City!

Let's Go Bucs!!!!!

This Day in Cutchstory: Where we're going we don't need roads

So yesterday was May 17th and I completely forgot to highlight one of those most important events in Cutchstory that can be found on cardboard.

Come with me BACK TO this post where I said in THE FUTURE, I would highlight this card.

Above is a 2018 Donruss 1984 Retro Game Day Stat Line card.  The game day stat lines are incredibly rare as they feature an extremely limited number produced based on a stat line for that game.  In this case, only 2 were produced to highlight Andrew McCutchen's 2 Stolen Bases that day.

I wrote about this great game by Cutch exactly a year ago which you can see here.

The significance of the 1984 design? Back to The Future was being filmed that year for a 1985 release date.

So now that we have traveled to the past and the future, hows the Delorean Doc?

From the back of the card I posted on May 7th 2018 referencing the events of May 17th 2017.

This Day in Cutchstory: game used materials

Topps often reminds us on the back of their cards that the materials used are not from any specific season, game, or event.  While football fans often blast Panini the same way baseball fans blast Topps, my only complaint is the lack of logos.

My favorite release year in and year out is National Treasures.  The effort Panini puts into the product is what a high end release should be.

My favorite new addition was the Dated Materials subset produced where they actually tell you what game the jersey was used and how the player did.  You might have missed my writeup about it last year, but can click here to see the card in question.

Obviously I own a lot of Andrew McCutchen relics as I currently have over 2,200 unique cards of the 2013 NL MVP.

It is safe to assume that my latest pickup (which was free thanks to eBay bucks savings) has a giant swatch from that same jersey worn on May 7th, 2015.
Oh and it's a few days late for Star Wars day as it is another 4/5 card.

On May 7, 2015 Cutch lead the Pirates to a 7-2 victory over the Reds thanks to a 3 for 4 performance and a strong pitching performance by AJ Burnett.

Even with the victory the Pirates were only 13-15 on the young season, 2 games under .500.  They would go on to win 97 that season.

Cutch known for being a slow starter was able to raise his batting average above the Mendoza line creating a slash line of .210/.302/.320 which extends to a .622 OPS.  He would finish the season 5th in NL MVP voting, earn his 5th All-Star appearance, 4th Silver Slugger and a slash line of .295/.401/.488 good for an OPS .889. He had the 4th highest offensive WAR that year in the senior circuit.

The back of the card talks about Cutch's performance on May 17th which I will discuss in a future post.