239,659?

I've talked on here about not purchasing many cards over the past year (at least in comparison to previous years) because of moving.  Now that things have settled down I finally requested shipment for my COMC inventory over the past two years.

Of course as soon as I submitted my order for shipping, the next day a /10 clear acetate League Leaders popped up.

2015 Topps - [Base] - Clear #127 - League Leaders - Justin Morneau, Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen /10

I wish I could have gotten this in hand with my recent order, but considering how far back my COMC order is in the waiting line, I'm hesitant to tempt fate and email them to ask if they can add this to my order. 

Yikes!

I find it hard to believe that they'll have my order ready in a month with that que level.

For those of you that have purchased from COMC in recent months have you seen hundreds of thousands orders ahead of you? 

Have you ever asked COMC to add cards to an existing order?

Rediscovering The Hobby Fun

So I did a thing while still (temporarily) living with the in laws.

I dug out some of my boxes of Cutch cards that I never scanned or sorted or entered into my spreadsheet.

This is just one of the five boxes of relics, autos, printing plates, and manufactured relics boxes I have to go through.

I am certain that there will be cards in here that I forgot about and I am certain I will find cards that I scanned but never entered into my spreadsheet and vice versa. 

I found so many awesome cards just hanging out in these boxes.

My goal is to knock out one of these boxes every ten days to sort, enter into my spreadsheet, and maybe even find some gems to blog about.

One card that caught my eye was this 2015 Topps silver frame league leaders card.

The 2015 silver frame cards were limited to only 20 copies and followed the success of the 2014 Topps Gold Label framed inserts.

The fronts and backs are identical to the standard base card, but they have a very heavy and sturdy silver frame outlining the card along with a serial number marking on the front of the card.

If you were playing NL Batting Title Bingo at the begining of the season and you had Ben Revere, Jonathan Lucroy, Josh Harrison, Denard Span, and Jayson Werth you just might have won.  

It's always fun to look back at some of the stat leaders and who were the guys you wouldn't expect to be in competition for that stat leader.

Cutch finished third in the batting title race in 2014 behind teammate Josh Harrison and former teammate Justin Morneau.

I thought it would be fun to look back at that 2014 batting title race between three guys who finished the 2013 season with the Pirates.

By the rules to qualify for a batting title, a player must have 3.1 at bats per game in a 162 game season.  This equates to 502 at bats to qualify for a batting title in a standard season.

Coincidently Justin Morneau had exactly 502 at bats in the 2014 Season and played in only 135 games.  On September 26th, Justin Morneau had his 501st at bat of the season and was substituted out of the game after a 2 for 3 performance at the plate and raising his average to .319.  The 4th place Rockies chose not to play Morneau in the second to last game of the season and would use him as a pinch hitter in the 7th inning to close out the season.  He got out, but kept his batting average at .319 if you round it up from it's original .318725 mark.  This pinch hit at bat on the final game of the season gave Morneau the opportunity to clinch a batting title.  If he had walked or gotten injured before completing this pinch hit at bat, Morneau would not have qualified for the batting title and the Rockies who finished the season with a 66-96 record would have one less thing to celebrate in a pretty forgettable season.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were battling for their second straight postseason push and were within a few games reach of winning the division heading into the final week.  

The Pirates had to play their stars to continue to make the push for their best shot at the postseason.  

In the final four games of the season, Cutch went 4 for 12 with an additional 4 walks.  Had Cutch gotten 3 more hits over the course of the season while maintaining his 548 at bats, Cutch would have won the batting title with a .319343 mark.  

The last Pirates player to win a batting title was Freddy Sanchez in 2006.  

Do you remember these silver frame parallels?

Who was the last player on your favorite team to win a batting title?

A Perfect Canadian Pair

Today we will look at someone more known for their voice then their face.

Tara Strong is the subject today.

You may not recognize her name (or face for that matter) unless you're into nerdy things like I am.  So let me introduce you to who this beautiful actress is.

Tara is a Canadian actress born in 1973.

She appeared in the 1995 teen comedy National Lampoon's Senior Trip

She has always been a bit of a tease for nerds everywhere whether it is her acting

Or getting into arguments about superheroes

Or playing the role of one as her day job

Yes, Tara Strong is a voice actor and has voiced heroic roles like Raven (Teen Titans), Batgirl (Batman: Killing Joke), Harley Quinn (numerous video games and tv series), Bubbles (Powerpuff Girls), Ben 10 (numerous Ben 10 series) among many others

She also voice acts many characters in a show, Rick and Morty, I just started watching.  

She has on card autographs in the Rick & Morty trading card set and they can be had fairly cheap too (under $20).

Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Deathstroke and Harley Quinn walk into a Comic Con together...
(Oh wait. No that's not how it went)

Sabretooth walks into a con with Harley...
(Oh never mind)

How about the story of how Spongebob Squarepants teamed up with Timmy Turner?

Two years ago during my Save Second Base Event I showed a manufactured bat relic and showed some Harley Quinn inspiration.  I failed to mention Tara in that post which you can revisit here.  My goal was to one day find a way to make a post focusing on just her.

Tara is Harley Quinn.  She has lent her voice talents to Harley's character more than any other voice actress.

She even cosplayed as Harley Quinn at Comic Con....and it was awesome!

Last year I highlighted a magenta printing plate of a former Canadian born teammate (Justin Morneau) of Cutch.  I tied that printing plate to a certain Gotham actress here.  The same week I created that post I won a pair of printing plates that popped up for sale and I was very interested in one of them.  The other one was a magenta printing plate of a former Blue Jays prospect (also born in Canada) that I had zero interest in.

With the purchase of this black printing plate featuring Josh Harrison, Justin Morneau, and Andrew McCutchen I have now completed my SECOND group of all 4 printing plates. 

 I discussed needing this plate back in June 2019 which you can revisit here.

The "bonus" plate for me was this plate is pictured as a Toronto Blue Jay, but was also born in Canada, much like Tara Strong.

I have no interest in this plate so if you want it just leave a comment below who your favorite Canadian born celebrity is.  I will random it off after 4 clicks and the person on top wins.  Entries close Sunday October 18th 1am EST.  Anyone leaving a comment below will automatically be entered unless you put "DO NOT WANT PLATE"

Happy Belated Hammerin'

Hank Aaron recently celebrated his 86th birthday.  In addition to his birthday making National headlines he stated that any players involved in the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal should receive a lifetime ban from baseball.

This is a radical idea, but at the root of it falls in line with similar bans.  Chris Correa, former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals was permanently banned for having the scouting database of the Houston Astros.  That ban was deemed necessary because it ultimately jeapordized the integrity of the game.

Hank Aaron, the former Home Run King, was the league's first 3,000 hit and 500 HR member.  He was one of the greatest players of all-time.

I remember doing a project in 5th grade where I had to write about and present a person for Black History Month.  I chose Hank Aaron.

I will not go into his accomplishments as they are long and plentiful.

I've done a few Heritage Comparisons of the League Leaders cards you see on this post. They can be viewed here.

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

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.

Heritage Comparisons pt4

If you haven't seen my Heritage Comparisons before, I encourage you check them out.

Today I am going to be looking at the 2015 Heritage release which is based on the 1966 design.

Before we look at Cutch's solo card, let's first take note that he appeared on card #214 for being a League Leader in Batting Average.  It features Cutch as coming in 3rd place for the 2014 batting title. In 2014 former Pirate Justin Morneau won his 1st NL batting title ahead of Pirates All-Stars Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen.

Card #214 for the 1966 release shows the top three finishers of the 1965 batting title.  Pretty amazing card as it has three of the game's greatest National League outfielders of all time on the card.
In 1965 Roberto Clemente won his 3rd batting title ahead of Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.

The back of the card shows that 10 players hit above .300 in 1965 and only 7 hit above .300 in 2014.

Now to the breakdown for these Heritage Comparisons, the solo cards of Cutch.

The 2015 Heritage card for Cutch was #300, the same as (drumroll please......) Roberto Clemente in 1966 Topps.

Let's compare how Cutch's MVP followup season compared to Roberto Clemente's age 30 season when he won his 3rd Batting Title.

All stats provided by Baseball-Reference

As is the case for all the previous Heritage Comparisons I am not stating that Cutch is better or on the same path as the great Roberto Clemente.  I am merely comparing cardboard because Cutch's Heritage card appears with the same numbering as Roberto Clemente's original release.

Approach at the Plate:
In 1965 Clemente put up a triple slash line of .329/.378/.463 for an .842 OPS
Cutch's 2014 season slash line was .314/.410/.542 for a .952 OPS
Advantage Cutch
Despite the higher batting average and winning the batting title, I have to give the advantage to Cutch.  He drew more walks and hit for more power as you can see in the 45 Clemente XBH vs 69 Cutch XBH.

Baserunning
Never known as a burner or stolen base threat, Clemente swiped 7 bags compared to Cutch 18.
Advantage Cutch

Team Dependant Manufactured Runs
So much of Runs scored and Runs Batted In is based on who hits ahead and behind you.
Clemente had only 65 RBI with 91 Runs scored.
Cutch drove in 83 and scored 89 times.
Advantage Cutch


The winner of this Heritage Comparisons battle goes to Cutch.  His age 27 season was better than Clemente's age 30 season.

Here are my other parallels from 2015 Heritage

Color Swap, Gum Stain Back, Action Variant

Gold Refractor /5

Refractor, Chrome
Hot Pack Purple, Black Refractor

The Network

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Visit the official site here.

Breast Cancer will be detected in one of eight women in the US each year.
It is the second leading cause of cancer death among women each year.
On average every 2 minutes a woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer and every 13 minutes one person will die from breast cancer.
There are currently 33 million breast cancer survivors in the USA.

It's important to support the research for cancer.  Breast Cancer is often associated with the color pink so I will be showing off some pink Cutch cards.

In addition, you can expect to see some boobs with each post.  Who doesn't love boobs?

So let's start with what we're hoping to save!

Heidi Watney is my favorite MLB Network hostess.  No offense to Lauren Shahaddi or Kelly Nash, but Heidi Watney is more fun to look at.

Her brother was a professional golfer and she grew up a sports fan.

She has hosted shows such as The Rundown and Quick Pitch on MLB Network.

You may recognize Jenny Dell alongside Watney above.  She might be appearing this month also.

Here is an interview Heidi did in 2013 with Cutch during their first playoff run in 20 years.  A screenshot of it can be seen above.

The 2013 season was a magical time for Pirates fans.  They were pushing for their first postseason appearance in 20 years.  Just before the waiver trade deadline the Bucs had acquired Justin Morneau and Marlon Byrd to help the playoff push.  Both players left for free agency after season's end.

Morneau won the batting title in 2014 just a few points above former Pirates teammates Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen.

Who are some of your favorite female sports reporters?

The COMC Big Ones

A few days ago I showed off the lot of cards I purchased on COMC to boost my Cutch total to over 1,500 unique cards.  I left off the oversized cards when I initially posted.

Here are the remaining 3 cards I acquired.

A 5x7 Topps Bunt Gold /10

Side by side with standard version

Next up a pair of 2015 Topps Heritage boxtoppers.

It's nice to get another Kershaw/Cutch combo card.  I wonder if Greg has that one yet.

The back is standard for all the boxtoppers.