A Look Back to The Future

Turn on those flex compacitors and travel with me at a fast speed of 88mph cause we are going Back To The Future.

I've mentioned Back To The Future a few times on this blog before. Here. Here. Here.

Let's look back at what the future of the Pirates had to offer.

The Pirates transitioned out of their former management group in 2007 and hired Neal Huntington to be their General Manager for a rebuild in 2008.

The Pirates hadn't had a winning record since 1992, the last year they would make the playoffs too.

The team was focusing on drafting and developing their own players.

Their four previous draft picks prior to Huntington taking over were

(2004) Neil Walker, a switch hitting local product High School catcher in 2004.  He would later be turned into a utility player before settling in as a Silver Slugger second baseman.  He played in the majors with the Pirates from 2009 until 2015.  He was traded prior to the start of the 2016 season for Jon Norse.

(2005) Andrew McCutchen, a toolsy quick handed outfielder from high school in 2005.  He became the face of the franchise of the resurgent years for the Pirates.  He made 5 All-Star teams, won an MVP, won a Gold Glove award, 4 Silver Sluggers, and was the 2015 Roberto Clemente Award recipient for his charitable contributions and work with the community.  He will forever be an All-time Pirates great despite playing with the team for only 2009-2017.

(2006) Brad Lincoln, arguably one of the top college pitchers in the 2006 draft.  He made his debut with the team in 2010 after having multiple injuries in the minor leagues.  He started 22 games for the Pirates from 2010 to 2012 when he was eventually converted to a reliever.  Lincoln thrived in the bullpen for the Pirates that season, appearing as a late inning guy with a K/9 over 10 and an ERA under 2.25.  He was traded to Toronto for Travis Snider.  Pirates fans will forever be upset that Lincoln was selected in front of former Cy Young Winners Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, and Max Scherzer.

(2007) Daniel Moskos, a lefty college arm that the team thought could impact immediately at the professional levels in 2007.  This is arguably one of the most controversial picks in the history of the franchise because Matt Wieters, one of the most coveted catchers in recent memory, was available.

Just Minors is known to have produced A LOT of pairings of autograph subjects for minor league prospects.

This is just one of a dozen printing plates I have of Andrew McCutchen from a Just Minors product.  This pairing features Cutch, Jose Tabata, and Brad Lincoln.

3 out of 4 ain't bad

A few days ago I showed a trio of 1/1 printing plates from the 2012 Archives Cloth Sticker insert.  While sorting through my 99 printing plates I realized I had a few other partial rainbows that I have never shown off before. 

I only have one true complete printing plate rainbow where I have all 4 plates used to create the card.  I also 4 sets where I have 3 of the plates. 

I showed the cloth sticker trio plates here.

And waaaaaay back when I showed another trio of Allen & Ginter plates when I was missing Mandy Moore "like candy" as part of my Save Second Base event.

Here are the other two sets I am trying to complete.
2016 Bowman Chrome missing black plate
2015 Topps League Leaders missing black plate

The Mystery of Dirty Dishes?

The past few days I have been organizing my card collection and it has been a daunting task.  While going through the collection I have found things about the cards I never noticed before.

Take these three printing plates for example.

At first glance they appear to be just three more 1 of 1 printing plates for the collection, but if you look closer you can tell that these plates didn't fully dry prior to being cut up and grouped together.

Now the back of magenta and black plates both show signs of a wet press of cyan ink.  The cyan plate clearly shows signs of a black plate with wet ink on it.

In addition to that there is a clear 001 that appears to the right of Andrew's face on the cyan plate.

I adjusted the color so it can be more visible.

The same numbering appears on the back of the magenta plate in stamped black ink when flipped upside down.

More mystery surrounds these plates when looking at the top right corner of the black plate where there is clearly a banner for First Base.

The black plate in general appears to have finger prints on it.

The magenta plate shows a lot of streaks on the front.

There appears to be some mystery surrounding how these plates were stacked after printing was complete to make the finalized 2012 Archives Cloth Sticker

As you can see from the image above, Cutch's face got the same treatment as that "other guy" on Frank Thomas' 1990 Topps card.  His face appears to have been airbrushed.

The Blue Man who Bows

Bowman...

What if Bowman weren't a card release focusing on prospects and veterans, but it actually referred to a superhero?

Would Bowman be wearing one of these?

Or using one of these?

Or crazier yet, would he greet his enemies with one of these?

That's where the English language can get a little confusing I suppose.

Just like if I were to say I am feeling blue.

Does that mean I am depressed and bummed?

Or does it mean I am feeling like wearing nothing but the color blue.

Thank goodness this blog generally only focuses about baseball cards, eh?

We all know what Bowman means to the hobby.

And we all know a printing plate is called cyan, not blue.

Phew.

This is entry two in my week long devotion to only showing off Andrew McCutchen 1/1s in San Francisco Giants uniforms.