These are not the racks you are looking for

I missed an opportunity to highlight women this month so with only a day left in Women's History Month I present to you the history of the celebs I have had a crush on since my childhood. 

A top 10 if you will... (Listed in alphabetical order by first name)

Alexandra Daddario

Alison Brie

Evangeline Lilly

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Jessica Alba

Jessica Biel

Kat Dennings

Kate Upton

Milana Vayntrub

Olivia Taylor Dudley

Now with all those great images of those beautiful women with the assets only slightly showing, but mostly sealed I thought I could show a recent sealed pack of cards with Andrew McCutchen on the cover.

Since rack packs don't exist in the traditional sense anymore, this is the closest I can come up with.

Above is the 2006 sealed set of Altoona Curve featuring Andrew McCutchen on the front and

Neil Walker on the back.

Do you miss rack packs?  Would the current hobby craze make rack packs impossible to keep sealed if Tatis, Acuna, or Trout were on the cover?

McTeammates

One thing that is synonymous with St Patrick's Day is McDonald's Shamrock shake.

The 2012 Pittsburgh Pirates had more members with a surname that began with Mc__ than any other team I have seen before.  

Above is my Pirates country wooden sign I got signed during Spring Training 2012.  Among the names on the sign,are former All-Stars: Andrew McCutchen, Josh Harrison, Pedro Alvarez, Jason Grilli, Starling Marte, Nate McLouth, and Evan Meek.

Also on the sign is Casey McGehee

 and Relief Pitcher Daniel McCutchen

Not on the sign, but eligible to be on it because he played for the 2012 Pirates is Catcher Michael McKenry, Utility Infielder John McDonald, Starting Pitcher James McDonald, and Pitcher Kyle McPherson. 

That's 8 Mcs

National High Five Day

Did you know there was a day dedicated to the art of high fiving?

Me neither.

While it doesn't get the Hallmark treatment of other nationally celebrated days, it is a tradition baseball fans should all celebrate.

During the summer of 1977 Dodgers slugger Dusty Baker celebrated with his teammate Glenn Burke after crushing a homerun.

Today many players have done away with the traditional high five for more show worthy celebrations.

Bryce Harper actually has a different celebration for each of his Phillies teammates.  Harper's celebration with Cutch is much different than this high five he gave him at the 2015 All-Star Game.

Hopefully Topps can release a high end card of Cutch and Harper celebrating post Home run.

I need something to take the place of this 2011 Diamond 1/1 celebration of Cutch, Ryan Doumit, and Garrett Jones.

The card is awesome, but man 2010 was terrible year for the Pirates.  Need proof? Look at the back.

105 losses!!!!
The pitcher with the most strikeouts was Paul Maholm with 102 punchouts.
I'm surprised there was anything worthy of celebration that year.

I have an addiction aka my first 2018 cards

On the way home today I swung by Target to grab a blaster and hanger of 2018 Topps.

Already knowing that my first 2018 (a Transcendent 1/1) was being delivered due to the eBay notification, I still needed to bust some wax.

So what was my first card of 2018?

None other than future Hall of Famer, Miguel Cabrera.

I can live with that.

As I continued to open the packs I was talking to my cat saying "Still no Bucs. F***"
On the sixth pack I said to Kit Kat "this pack is gonna have a Pirates

Who's on the top of the pack?

Boom!

My main player collection.  Btw...I am OVER 2,100 unique cards of Cutch now.  (I will show off #2100 tomorrow)
Yup....it was a good pack.

It also had former Pirate Neil Walker

And two cards of this guy.
He's kind of a big deal, I hear.

The hanger had some nice cards, but the card that stood out to me was this Legends in the Making of Cutch.

The pack also had the same 2 Aaron Judge cards I got in the blaster.

I have a bunch of cards that are targeted (pun intended) to go out to some of you loyal readers.  If anyone is building the set, email me your needs.

Gypsy Queen Photo Variants

Some photo variants can sell for big bucks.  Prior to 2016, the photo variants were EXTREMELY hard to get.  The 2013 variant is by far the hardest to track down.  Often times it will sell for $50+ and has even reached near triple digits.

 The 2013 variant features Cutch celebrating with Neil Walker and Garrett Jones.

The code on the back differentiates the base from the photo variant.

The 2015 is fairly hard to find and is normally a $30+ card

Unlike the 2013 and 2016 variants, the codes match and don't have any distinguishing features on back to signify it's a variant.

Topps has been making more and more photo variants as they realize there is a market for these short prints.  The 2016 version is only a $10 card at best.  The photo used for the variant features the same image as the base Allen & Ginter.

The photo for the variant features the same fielding image used for Allen & Ginter.

The back does have a different code for the variant in 2016.

It hasn't been announced if Cutch will have a Short Print photo variant this year or not.  Early signs point to yes though.