Drawing Inspiration

I haven't been in the blogging mood much since New Year's Eve mostly because my grandfather on my mom's side of family had a stroke.  This came shortly after my mom had a stroke a few weeks ago.

I try not to get too personal on the blog, but please keep my family in your prayers.

I am going to show off a one of a kind sketch I received just before the holidays.
The original art has been in draft mode for awhile and I am trying to draw some inspiration for staying upbeat.

Brad Utterstrom who you may remember from drawing a pair of commissioned Topps Museum Masterpieces sketch cards here and here recently pulled a 1/1 of Andrew McCutchen and reached out to me.

He recorded the box opening on YouTube which you can view here.

A few days after reaching out, I had the oversized box topper original art in my possession.

It is pretty awesome in person.

I don't have any of the produced cards yet.
They'll be on my list one day, some day, just not today.

Growth as a collector

What defines someone Supercollecting a player? 

Is it a percentage of total cards produced?
In this overproduced era of parallel options it is nearly impossible to collect ALL the cards of a modern player.  Prior to 2015, I was pretty successful with supercollecting Charlie Morton.  I had 1 of every card produced (including parallels) except 1/1 printing plates.  Of course the number of releases (and thus the parallels) that Charlie has appeared in since 2015 has basically tripled. 

Is it having a certain number of cards of a player?  It is far easier to amass 500 unique cards of Ken Griffey Jr than it is Ken Griffey Sr. based solely on the number of unique cards produced of Griffey Jr vs Sr.

I still consider myself a supercollector of Andrew McCutchen and yet I only have half of the cards produced due to all the parallels and printing plates out there. 

I never considered myself a supercollector of Gerrit Cole, but I do have 300 unique cards of the former Pirates ace.

I still consider myself a supercollector of Charlie Morton and yet I have only sought out base cards since his departure from Pittsburgh.

With the 2019 year coming to a close and 2020 quickly approaching I have decided that I am NOT going after every parallel produced of Cutch.  Similar to my stance I took with Charlie Morton, I will always like cards of Cutch and Ground Chuck more in Pirates uniforms, but not put premiums on seeking out cards of my 2 favorite modern athletes in Astros, Rays, Phillies, Giants, or Yankees uniforms. 

This will hopefully allow others to help out with needs for my PC too as very often I hear "don't you have every McCutchen card?" or "what are your needs?"

I am growing as a collector and in doing so I am shrinking my immediate mindset upon a new release of "get them all immediately".

I chose to show off this trio of 2019 1984 cards to show my transition.
Pictured are the box topper, base, and mini.

Despite not being numbered, the minis have a print run of only 13 copies.

So while I will be growing as a collector, future releases will be shrinking.

Stay tuned as I show off some of the craziness I picked up this year that has been drafted in blogging limbo for months.

Wow! The Marlins Are Bad!!!!

I was doing some early season All-Star predictions with a friend at work the other day and was looking at some of the bad teams to figure out who could represent their team at the midsummer classic.

 I was shocked that there isn't even a middle reliever on that team with an ERA in the 3s who could make a case to be included.  Former Pittsburgh Pirate Neil Walker looks like the most productive position player, but he plays the same position as two guys who are making MVP cases (Cody Bellinger and Josh Bell).  Former Pirate Prospect Harold Ramirez may make a case if he continues to rake at the plate, but with less than 30 major league at bats it may be too soon to announce he is the Marlins team All-Star rep.  I guess at this point, the only logical choice (if every team needs a representative) is pitcher Caleb Smith.  He has an ERA under 4 and a winning record for a team nearly 20 games under .500 in May.  He has to be the representative, right?

I mean it's not like the Marlins didn't get great value when they traded away guys like Christian Yellich, Dee Gordon, Giancarlo Stanton, JT Realmuto, Chris Paddack, Trevor Williams, Luis Castillo, Marcell Ozuna, Domingo German, Derek Dietrech, etc.  Oh wait, they're still a bottom third farm system after gutting their team?

Not every team wins every trade.
Then again not every team loses every trade either.

Unless you're the Marlins.

Had they kept their team they would be on pace for 102 Wins and only $110 million payroll.  Details of this super team can be found at The Athletic.

Wow! Are they a bad team!!!!

Above you can see a pair of box toppers that I have featuring Andrew McCutchen historic walk off homerun six hit game versus the Dodgers last year.

Both these feature the same box number.

The Stripling/Tomlinson/Musgrave is the rarer of the two versions.  To date I have only seen 2 sell since it's release.

Each player featured on the box topper back has two versions.  The rarer ones tend to sell for 5x the standard version.

And for those voting for the 2019 ASG, vote for Cutch!

Cutch's New Phillie Phriends

Topps Heritage is good for making box toppers combining players that often wouldn't get paired up together.

This box topper combines the National League Batting Leaders card #215 with Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons number 279
along with 2015 Rookie Pitchers Hector Neris and Chris Heston number 401.

Gibbons retired.
Morneau retired.
Harrison left for Detroit.
Heston hasn't appeared in the majors since 2017.

Hector Neris is now Cutch's teammate on Philadelphia and like the rest of the Phillies bullpen was struggling early in the year.  He hadn't allowed an earned run in four straight outings since a miserable March when he gave up 4 ER in 3 outings.

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.

New Teammate Pairings

Andrew McCutchen has been the leadoff hitter since arriving in Philadelphia. Batting behind him is a two time All-Star and the 2016 National League hits leader, Jean Segura.  Segura has bounced around since making his MLB debut in 2012 with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  He was a key part of the Zack Greinke trade where he went to Milwaukee and flourished as a table setter for a retooling Brewers lineup. 

He was then traded to the Diamondbacks for Aaron Hill and Chase Anderson prior to the 2016 season.  In Arizona he became a hit machine and lead the National League in hits that year.  

Following the 2016 season Segura and Mitch Haniger were traded for Ketel Marte and Taijuan Walker.  

After two seasons and another All-Star appearance, Segura was again traded for a prospect package...this time to Philadelphia.

Above is my only card I have of Cutch with his new teammate, Jean Segura, listed.  It is a 1967 Punch out Box Topper found in 2016 Heritage.

 Today is the last day to post for my contest, so if you want to get a last minute entry in before tomorrow's  before sure to leave a comment here.

N-43 N-43 Hut hut hike

Football is back!!!!

I have no idea what this card has to do with football other than it's name sounds like a play call.

The 2010 Allen & Ginter N-43 play homage to the original oversized N-43 cards.  Back in 1889, the original N-43 cards featured 50 athletes from many different sports including swimmers, oarsmen, walkers/runners, high jumpers, and of course Base Ball players.  Information on the original set can be found here.

The 2010 release also had autographs, relics, and autograph/relic combo cards.  The base set contained 15 players as part of the checklist.  Five of the base players didn't have an autograph or relic version, just the base.  The five guys that didn't get the bigger hit treatmeant included Andre Ethier, Hunter Pence, BJ Upton, Justin Upton, and unfortunately Andrew McCutchen.


For those that are watching, enjoy the return of football.

Needed to recharge the batteries....

I have tried to blog daily, but for the past few weeks I have missed a few days.  Life has just gotten in the way.   On top of that I haven't been buying much in terms of Cutch cards.  I have really enjoyed looking at my collection especially the Heritage cards.  

I have actually bought a few low numbered Pirates Heritage cards recently, one of which I took advantage of some great eBay savings. 

Looking back at my Heritage collection has really recharged the batteries for my collection.

Pardon the pun you are about to see...

Al Kaline (not alkaline) and Cutch on a 1966 style punchboard.  

Topps Heritage is Awesome!

I was looking at some of my non Cutch cards the other day as I try to organize my collection better.  I realized that I should pick up some more Pirates Heritage cards (especially the certified autographs of the players from the 50s and 60s).

I haven't been buying much in terms of cards recently, but there was an eBay promo a few days ago for 15% off a purchase of $25 or more.

I used the code to grab an awesome addition to the Pirates and Cutch Heritage collection.  Expect me to show it off sometime next week when it arrives.

Until that card shows up, here is an awesome box topper relic I have that I completely forgot I owned.

This oversized extremely rare, hand numbered, box topper features a very boring grey swatch.  I haven't seen one of these pop up for nearly 2 years. 

The 2013 card highlights Cutch's multi homer efforts in consecutive days.

This Day In Cutchstory: Cutch Goes Clutch!

The year was 2009.  The Pittsburgh Pirates were on the verge of becoming a franchise with the longest consecutive years of losing streaks in North America.  Things were not looking bright for their immediate future either as they had no pitching help coming up in the minors.

The team had just traded away many of their previous season's All-Stars.  Nate McLouth, Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, and Jason Bay had all been traded in the previous year or through the 2009 trade deadline.

The lone bright spot was the Pirates top prospect (#13 overall) had made his debut in early June and hit the ground running. Literally.  His first at bat was a ground ball up the middle then Cutch had proceeded to steal his first base.

By July he was looking like a contender for the Rookie of the Year.

It wasn't until August 1st that Cutch got some more "National coverage" when he hit 3 HomeRuns against the Nationals, another National League basement dweller team.

There have been numerous cards over the years that Topps has produced referencing Cutch's big day at the plate, but the biggest of them is this 2010 Allen & Ginter Boxtopper.

I think it would be really cool to get custom cards of these "minis" on the card actually made.

The Pirates are playing Cutch's new team, the San Francisco Giants this weekend.  Here's hoping the Pirates can make a serious run in the final two months and pick up some ground for their playoff push.

Glassworks

Awhile back I showed off my Gypsy Queen casebreak I participated in.  I managed to get a nice Glassworks box topper as a result.  I liked it so much I have started to seek out the color parallels.

Here's my latest

The Red /25

Something Big is Coming

I hinted at having acquired a few big Ginter cards when I showed off the SP 2016 Ginter Relic.

Well, here's the lesser of the BIG cards I got.

I am such a sucker for Oversized Relic cards.

This /25 Relic Box Topper was a must have.

I will show off one of my favorite cards in my entire collection in the next few days.