Love My Dad

Today is my dad's birthday.  He will be 59 years old today and has lived an amazing life albeit a small and humble one.  Never to do anything famous or travel the world or anything of that magnitude, he has always kept his roots at home...where his heart is.  I love him for that and respect him for that.  He is currently living in a house on a road that he grew up in.  He's incredible in every sense of the word.  I know I have told stories of how much he has influenced my life, but here is one more.

Back when I was a teenager, I was involved in several bands ranging from punk to metal to nu-metal (rap/hardcore/metal). We would play a bunch of small gigs as favors to one of my friends as a way to make extra money.  There was a local firehouse who would rent out their space to us and we would pack it FULL!!!  Well, one night some fans got a little reckless and in the middle of the set someone punched a hole while the mosh pit and crowd surfing got out of hand.

My band, myself, and my friend who was promoting the show were like WTF!!!????

My dad is a painter/wallpaper hanger and does some general small contracting stuff.  At around 11:30pm I called him up telling him what happened and how we would likely lose the venue as a place for future shows if we couldn't fix it.  He said not to worry and that he would swing by in the morning and fix it up.

I told my buddy Richie who was the promoter to let the fire chief know we would have it fixed in the morning.

After a 1am diner run (New Jersey is known for their 24 hour diners) we finally went to my friend Kyle's house and crashed for a few hours.  At around 9am my bandmates, myself, Kyle, Richie, and Mel all got up and went to the firehouse to meet my dad for 10am when he said he would be there.

He was already there in his work van ready to get to work.

My dad hated the music we played, but loved the message as we were a positive youth hardcore/punk band.  He greeted all my friends most of whom had tattoos and piercings and crazy colored hair.  He offered us doughnuts that he picked up on the way then proceeded to get to work.

Once inside he kept insisting that "you kids don't need to stay here and watch me do this. Go to the mall or something."

What's funny is that even though we were all 17 to 22 years old we wanted to hang out with the old balding dude and watch him gut the wall, spackle it up, expediate drying it, and eventually paint it.  We wanted to hear stories of how he would ride his dirt bike around the farm he grew up on when he was our age.  We wanted to just spend time with him.

After a few hours of watching him work he ordered pizza for us and by 2pmish the job was complete.  He had fixed the giant hole and literally made it look brand new.

I wish I had more of the pictures from that day, but sadly that was before smart phones and I could only find this one actual picture of me and my dad as he was drying the spackel.

I wish I had the picture of all of us in front of the hole in wall doing the metal sign and my dad attempting to do it (If memory serves correctly he did the hang loose sign instead).

Such a fun day!!!

The previous night was pretty fun too...but I won't get into all that.

Looking back at some of the pictures from those days was a lot of fun.  Oh 1999 and early 2000s you were so kind to my hairline. Lol!!! Maybe I shouldn't have ruined you with blonde hair dye, giant spiked hair, bandanas and beanies.

I was thinking about not showing any baseball cards today, but to tie in with my story about my dad is this Crawdad 25 year anniversary card from last year.  Last year the Hickory Crawdads (now a Texas Rangers affiliate) released a 25 card set showing off the best players to come through the Crawdads over the team's existence.  Included were a bunch of Pirates and Rangers and of course Cutch made the cut.

The front of the card is a throwback image to when the player was a member of the Crawdads.

The back features the stats of the player while a Crawdad along with what the player accomplished in the majors.

The set has a border that features the multiple logos the team has used during it's history.

Happy Father's Day

I want to say Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.

I know that the greatest influence on my life is my own father.

He was there for me while growing up.

I still go and visit him once a week and enjoy catching up with him about whatever life is throwing his way.

As someone who is self employed I am continuously impressed with the hard work and ethics he has and how he instilled them i to me.

One of my favorite moments of my childhood was when I was 12 years old in little league. Unlike now where there are pitch limits, all my league had was 6 innings limit for a 7 day period.  My dad was the head coach and I was one of our team's all stars.  I however wasn't our best pitcher.  I was the second best pitcher on the team.  

Our star pitcher had been used for 1 inning against what equates to this year's MLB version of the Reds.  They were called the Yankees and the team stunk.  Sean, the stud pitcher, had to be used though because of other inning limits for myself and our third best pitcher, Dave, the previous seven days.

I was cruising through 5 innings of no hit ball striking out 11.  I walked 4, but my Kent Tekulve sidearm pitching style was nasty that day.  

My dad told me he was going to take me out since we had a 7-1 lead (few wild pitches caused a walk to turn into a run). 

I remember looking at him with determinition saying "I want to finish this".  

He then said "I'm probably going to need you for an inning against the Giants," the best team in the league.  

While not as firm I remember getting upset knowing that I probably wouldn't win the battle, I looked and said "please Dad".

I went out for the sixth and final inning getting one more strikeout and getting the next two guys to hit groundballs to Sean at shortstop.  

We won the game and I pitched a no hitter.  

My arm is still fine.

I didn't need Tommy John surgery despite throwing over 100 pitches.

Rain engulfed NJ for the next week so we had to reschedule the game.

Sean was allowed to pitch all six innings against the Giants, which we also won by a score of 1-0.  I got the team's only hit off their ridiculously good pitcher "Woody". I stole second and third, then came home on a sac fly.  

Those memories of my dad coaching the team, having my best friend on my team and his dad being so close with my dad are amazing memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

After the game we celebrated with icecream and a trip to Sports Authority.  There I got a pack of Donruss Studio 1993 and a Florida Marlins tshirt.  I remember pulling one of those throwback Will Clark cards and thinking how cool it was.

So again Thank You Dad!!!!

Thank you for inspiring me and believing in me!!!

Now here are some Cutch Father's Day released cards and parallels.

I will start with an unofficial Father's Day card.
This 2011 Bowman and it's Chrome counterparts features an image of Cutch from Father's Day June 20, 2010.  The blue armband and headband combined with the Sunday alternative pinstripe uniforms give the game away.  Cutch would go and help lead the Pirates to a victory ending their 12 game losing streak.

I have 6 of the paper parallels

And 4 of the Chrome parallels

Moving on to 2013 we have the begining of a 4 year stretch that Cutch appeared in Panini's annual Father's Day release.
Meant to look like Donruss Studio 1993 is the 20 year retro look at that classic set.  I have both the lava flow and regular versions in addition to a Cracked Ice autograph version and two production proofs.

The back features the exact same concept as the 93 version...

The 2014 Father's Day release is an extremely boring lackluster design both on the front

and the back.

I need a bunch of parallels to this set, but am in no rush to get them.  At least begining in 2014 they designated this as an official set and made it a little easier to catalog.

2015 Father's Day by Panini brought one of my favorite images of Cutch to appear on cardboard

and a reference to one of my favorite super heroes.  This card is awesome!!!  There may be an autographed version of this card as the checklist states some of the Elements photos have autograph parallels, but I can't find any additional information to confirm who got the autograph treatment.

2016 would be the last year that Cutch appears in the Father's Day yearly release.  The design is nice and there are so many parallels that I still need for both the regular stock and thick stock versions.  I currently only have this thick stock base version /50. There are hyperplaid and cracked ice for both regular and thick stock if I remember correctly.  I need that base version too.

Even though it is the same image on the back, it is nice to get an image on the back of this year's product.

I love the design of this card.

2018 Donruss provided fans with a new parallel to chase down...Father's Day blue ribbon /49.

Begining in 2017, Topps started to call their powder blue parallels a Father's Day parallel and numbered them to 50 just like the Mother's Day parallels.  I currently have both the 2017 and 2018 cards, but need the Allegheny Armada with John Jaso from 2017.