Remembering Memorial Day

Today is a day to remember those who lost their lives while serving our country in the military.

The Pirates have honored the military with military camo jerseys over the years and I am fortunate to own a few cards of Cutch featuring swatches of these camo jerseys.

Panini has used many of these jersey swatches over the years, but they look best in the brand National Treasures.

Growing up I never understood the meaning of Memorial Day.  I always viewed it as a way to welcome the summer, have a BBQ with friends and family, and if chose to work to get double time and half.  

It's not that I didn't know what the actual holiday's intended purpose was, it was just that it had escaped "hitting home" with me.  A few years ago I stated Happy Memorial Day and someone from the blogging community reached out to me reminding me that the holiday should never be viewed as Happy and that it is a day of somber to remember the fallen.

Since that email, I have always viewed the holiday differently and have never said have a happy Memorial Day again.  I have completely changed my viewpoint on the holiday and try to use my new found understanding of the holiday to share with others.  

So for those of you who are celebrating the holiday in the traditional BBQ and family party mindset, please take a few moments to remember those who lost their lives serving this country to allow us the freedom for such events. 

The Meaning of Memorial Day

Here is a card with a piece of camo jersey worn by Cutch.

Memorial Day is often the kick start of the unofficial celebration to the summer, but it's true meaning rests in remembering those that lost their lives serving in the US Military.

Thank you to those that served and prayers to the families who lost someone in the call of duty. 

The Pirates began wearing a camo jersey in the 2015 season to honor the military.

It is nice to see that the camo swatch (and the really nice home white jersey patch) are in fact game used jersey swatches.

Diamond Kings is a fantastic product and the way that art based products could be,done correctly.  It is my favorite Panini product each year.

This particular dual jersey card is the blue foil parallel numbered 4/5.


I hope everyone had a safe Memorial Day.

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.

I Read it Cover to Cover

My attention span isn't very good.  I tend to lose focus fairly quickly.  It happens in all forms of entertainment.  I tend to lose focus with TV shows after a few seasons.  The same can be said for books.  On the rare occasion I do read a book cover to cover (and it isn't a comic book graphic novel), it usually involves an athlete I loved to learn about.

Below you can see the latest book(let) I read cover to cover.  There wasn't much to read, but it definitely grabbed my attention from the moment I opened the cover.

An on card autograph in big blue bold pen complete with a jumbo camo swatch from a Pirates Thursday alternate uniform.

Yeah, I am interested.

It's true what they say.  You can't judge a book by it's cover.

As a reminder, I will be showing more of my Pirates (and "Pittsburgh baseball club") cards that I have neglected to highlight on this blog. 

Dated Material 5-7-15

Something about being able to determine what game a particular relic is used in always makes me believe the authenticity more.

Years ago Donruss used to picture the relic they cut up on the back, but today we are often stuck with the phrase "This relic is not from any particular game, season, or event"

Panini had a subset in their National Treasures release where they tell you exactly when the material is from.  It was called Dated Material.

This is my Cutch card numbered 10/25

How did Cutch do for the day?

Looks like he did pretty well.

Time to do some Laundry

I hate doing laundry. It's a fairly simple process. Put clothes. Put detergent in. Press button. Walk away.

Not that complicated.

But for some reason I despise it.

And yet, I love getting cardboard laundry tags of my favorite athlete, Andrew McCutchen.

National Treasures typically cuts up the tags into smaller pieces unlike Topps which keeps them whole as 1/1s.

I will continue to seek out the other 2 copies of this card.

Sorry Nic Cage, you're not in this National Treasures sequel

National Treasures, despite the lack of logos, is traditionally my favorite high end release each year. I have been fortunate to grab some nice buttons, patches, and laundry tags in past releases.

When Panini showed their designs for the 2016 version, I initially thought "meh". As the cards started to appear in my mailbox due to an uncontrollable nature of Pokemon style baseball card collecting (gotta catch them all) I began to warm up to them.

One card that caught my attention was the camo jersey & (sticker) autograph booklets numbered to 5.

The reason why I was so excited about this card in particular is that at best Cutch will have 20 autographs hit the market each year.  I'm not talking about different releases, I'm talking TOTAL autographs.  Since 2014 Cutch just doesn't sign anymore. A few sticker autographs numbered to /10 or less is the best you can hope for.

Well, I snagged the above booklet auto....

Then got this because I had placed a bid on it the same time as the best offer was submitted...

So now I have 2 of the 5 printed.  I am willing to trade one or can seek out the remaining 3.