Is it Christmas yet?

When I was younger my aunt in California would call us every Christmas Eve and ask "is it Christmas yet?"  This was usually late (8pm or so) and usually lead to the ultimate traditions of setting milk and cookies for Santa, ensuring the stockings were hung, leaving an apple and carrot outside for the reindeer, etc.

I don't have much interaction with my aunt anymore, but every year that it gets closer to Christmas I think of those old phone calls.  

This month I have been showing off some red and green cards and I have a few pairings that could knock your Christmas stockings off.

I want to show off these cards today because they remind me of a funny gift that I received one Christmas from an uncle who has spent his entire life collecting.

Back in the mid 2000s (2003-2005ish?) I was really into the toys from my childhood, specifically Thundercats.  Well, my uncle literally made me cry one year....from laughing at the zany gift he gave me.  

You may recall that I gave up on baseball because of the 1994 strike and that I hadn't attended a baseball game again until 2005.  I told my uncle that I wanted to get back into baseball again, but was so confused with all the card manufacturers and different parallels that were being made at that time.  Boy do those 2005 parallels seem simple compared to,what Topps and Panini are doing now. 

Well on Christmas day 2005 I got a small box with tissue paper and inside was a baseball with a "Lion-O" signature.  Yes, my uncle wrote Lion-O (leader of the 80s cartoon Thundercats) and drew a small paw print on the sweet spot.  Somewhere I think I still have that ball and when I eventually unbox everything from the move, I am sure I will find it again.  Hopefully the signature didn't fade from being in a box for 15 years. 

Card manufacturers have attenpted to make baseballs part of their releases from time to time, the most famous being Sweet Spot signatures. 

Panini used that concept for their 2020 Absolute Baseball product and Cutch was one of the featured signatures.

There were 3 parallels to chase

1/1 Red & Blue stitching

/6 Red

/5 Green

I missed out on the 1/1, but was able to grab both the red and green last year.

I guess it makes sense that the green stitches baseball (/5) would be lower numbered than the red (/6) as I have never seen a baseball with green stitches.

These cards look and feel very much like the Upper Deck Sweet Spot autographs. I have seen many horror stories of those cards fading over time.

What suggestions do you have for displaying the cards while preventing the signature from fading over time?

What are you looking forward to most for Christmas?

Do you have any baseball Christmas memories?

Absolutely!

Sweet Spot autographs from Upper Deck made all collectors nervous of fading autographs in the future.  

Panini has recently tried the same concept. Time will tell how they hold up over the years.

Absolute Baseball recently came out for 2021, but Cutch signed a total of 12 of these baseball themed cards for the 2020 product. Among the 12 are 6 of the red stitch baseballs, 5 of the green stitch baseballs, and 1 of the red/blue stitch baseballs.  That's it! 12 of them total.

Very few active, non rookie, players signed these style cards.  Most of the checklist consists of retired players, many of which were Hall of Famers or dominant players that are borderline Hall of Famers in their day.  The active players checklist contains Cutch, Jordan Hicks, Shohei Otani, Dustin Pedroia (he hadn't officially retired yet), and Dylan Carlson.  

Retired players in the Hall of Fame include Frank Robinson, Chipper Jones, Pedro Martinez, Cal Ripken Jr, Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr, Dave Winfield, Barry Larkin, Don Sutton, Eddie Murray, Jeff Bagwell, Wade Boggs, Reggie Jackson, Mariano Rivera, Ozzie Smith, Vladamir Guerrero Sr, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, and Whitey Ford.  That is a stacked lineup for Hall of Famers.  Print runs range from 10 to 50 depending on the player for the standard red stitch baseballs.

Retired, non Hall of Famers include Paul Konerko, Dwight Gooden, Omar Vizquel, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, and Rafael Palmiero.

There is a video of the 1/1 Cutch being pulled on a YouTube break and I have tried to acquire it to limited response.  I do have the green foil, green stitches also, but will be sharing that off next March.