Let The Purple Rain begin

I have been showing off some of my cards limited to only 250 copies in celebration of Andrew McCutchen's 250 career home runs.

Below you will see three more cards limited to 250 copies.  

They are all from 2015 and this year really put into place the purple parallel as being the standard limited to 250 copies.

2015 Topps Chrome Purple Refractor

2015 Bowman Purple

2015 Triple Threads Emerald

As stated, Cutch had hit his 250th career homer last Wednesday.  Of his 250 career homers here is a list of the players Cutch has launched off the most against

There are two pitchers that Cutch has hit 4 homers against: Mike Fiers and J.A. Happ.

Fiers of course is famous for bringing attention to the Astros cheating scandal and one of the most unique facial hair cuts ever. 4 of Cutch's 6 career hits versus Fiers have found themselves on the other side of the fence.

Cutch's brief Pirates teammate J.A. Happ has also surrendered the most homers to Cutch with four in 33 plate appearances.  Cutch has a .862 slugging percentage against the former Bucco.  His OPS is 1.347

As impressive as that OPS is, Cutch has actually fared better against another pitcher who briefly played with the Pirates (in spring training).  Clayton Richard, like Happ, is a journeyman southpaw. Cutch has reached base 63% of the time he has faced off Richard and has a career OPS of 1.625 with 3 homers in 17 plate appearances.  

In terms of pitchers who have surrendered multiple homers to Cutch with the fewest plate appearances the list starts with Jose Torres who has given up 2 longballs in 3 plate appearances.  

The most recent pitcher to surrender multiple homers to Cutch is Trevor Rodgers of the Miami Marlins who has given up 2 round trippers in 5 at bats.  With an additional walk and double to his credit versus the Marlins pitcher, Cutch has elevated himself into Barry Bonds territory with a 2.200 OPS.  

Collecting Mistakes

I recently watched a video on YouTube where an adult toy collector discusses some mistakes he has made over his 20 years of collecting action figures.  He prefaced the video by saying it was about his experiences with toy collecting, but can (and should) relate to any form of collection (sports cards, stamps, comic books, physical media, etc).

It was a fun video and he went on to discuss how buying Star Wars cereal didn't make much sense looking back, but at the time he was trying to be a completionist and collect everything relating to Star Wars Episode 2.  If you want to watch the video by Nerdzoic you can click here.

I related to the video, not because I bought Star Wars cereal and party cups, but I had made some of the same collector mistakes.

This collection of the above 3 cards describes many of the mistakes made.

It is a 2018 Panini Chronicles Classics partial rainbow.  As you can see this parallel has very subtle color differences.  The Classics logo is a different color and there is a foil stamp with a serial number.  The gold is limited to 99 copies.

The purple is limited to 10 copies.

The base isn't numbered.

This card, in it's base form, brings me joy as it is a nice design and shows Cutch in his San Francisco uniform.

The back is nice as well.

The problem is with the color parallels.

The gold does nothing to quickly identify itself as a parallel despite being limited to only 99 copies.  

It is almost like those old Highlights magazines with the "Spot the difference" feature.

The purple parallel is just as bad as the gold, but with the added pressure of being limited to only 10 copies and costing significant more than the base.  For the very subtle difference of a purple Classics logo instead of the standard, fans can expect to pay 10x or more the base price.  A Ronald Acuna /10 PSA9  is currently listed for nearly $700, but the base PSA10 recently sold for $70-$110.

I'll admit that I was lucky in that I didnt have to pay for the gold as I got it in a group break, but I did seek out the purple and paid just over $10 for the card.  

And it doesn't bring me anymore joy to the collection than the base.  

I have really cut back on adding new cards to the collection over the past month and it feels awesome to go through my binders and enjoy what I have instead of constantly focusing on what I don't have.  

Have you made any collecting mistakes that you really regret?

Do you watch any YouTube videos or listen to any podcasts about collecting?  If so, please recommend some channels to me. 

ICYMI : The Magic of 250

In case you missed it, Andrew McCutchen hit his 250th Career Home Run on Wednesday night.  

Here is a breakdown of his 250 HR by team

203 Pirates

15 Giants

5 Yankees

27 Phillies

I wanted to show off a few of my cards that were serial numbered to only 250 copies and decided to start with 2016 and 2017.  

My reason for those years?

Well, that's around the time I changed my focus from collecting all things Pittsburgh to be mostly just CollectingCutch

So without further ado, here are a few of my serially numbered cards to 250 copies

Now I should warn you all that if you have allergic reactions to the color purple, it is best to change the general direction of your eye gazing.

Let's begin with the year 2017

Bowman Platinum purple holofoil

Bowman's Best purple refractor

Topps Gallery 1951 Bowman Heritage green

Gypsy Queen purple border

⚾ ⚾ ⚾ 

Now we will travel back to 2016

Bowman Chrome purple Refractor

Bowman purple

Bowman Platinum purple

Bowman's Best Blue

Topps Finest purple

Gypsy Queen purple

Triple Threads Emerald

I do plan to make more posts celebrating Cutch's 250th career Homerun and will be taking a deeper dive into his homers.

Don't forget to head over to topps.com and purchase yourself a copy of the Topps Now card. I secured myself a copy of the base and the red parallel autograph limited to 10 copies.

Purple Ice Ice Baby

I love getting Cutch cards from his Pirates playing days.  Prime Cutch is the best!!!

It's why I made it one of my goals this year to add 50 new Cutch cards to the collection from 2005-2017.  

I am keeping pace with adding roughly 1 new Cutch card to the collection from that era and it has been an absolute blast getting some of these rarer cards. 

Case in point is the exhibit above. 

2014 Bowman Purple Ice.  

For being a "paper" Bowman card, this card pops and shines almost like a chrome card.

The purple ice parallels were limited to only 10 copies.  Odds for pulling one of these aren't available, but they were hobby pack exclusives. 

The Final Countdown

I am already hard at work getting posts ready to go for the next month.  I have almost the first week of posts written with images and we are ready to roll...

This will be my last non pink (and various shades) card I show off before my annual Save Second Base event kicks in for the next 31 days. 

So let's get this out of the way, shall we?

I recently picked up a purple 2018 Bowman Best with an Andrew McCutchen Yankees Jersey Serial Number (26/250) to pair up with my blue jersey serial number (26/150) I got a long time ago.  There are only 2 other parallels that I could attempt to get the actual jersey number serial for of Cutch in a Yankees uniform.  They are the green/99 and gold/50.  If an opportunity opens up for me to get either one you bet your butt I'm gonna "upgrade" the serial numbers I have to do it.   Already upgraded the purple from this.

And in case you're wondering either 1)I don't remember Cutch on the Yankees or 2)I don't remember him having any other number besides 22 let me give you a history lesson.  Late in August of 2018, the San Francisco Giants were clearly no longer in the playoff picture and Aaron Judge was nursing an injury that made the Yankees not comfortable heading into September without upgrading their already injury plagued outfield.  They made a trade with the Giants while the Giants were already in NY playing the Mets and Cutch was traded to the Bronx Bombers.  Cutch was given number 26 because Jacoby Ellsbury was still technically on the roster despite not playing for over a year.

Now for details about the next month as a reminder for how things will go.

I want to hear your suggestions.

I want to read blogs about 3D (DDD) cards before tomorrow because my contest ends for the Kelly Brook autograph in only a few hours.

And I want a lot of activity on the blogosphere over the month showing pink cards.  For every post you share in the comments that features a pink card I will match my $1 per comment donation to Save Second Base for every comment made on YOUR BLOG with a pink card shown and link in the comments below.  The more blogs that show off pink cards and the more comments (no spam) the more money I am donating.

Together, we can all raise awareness and that is why I am offering up a really cool card for my final post before we get rolling.

If you make a post with a pink card leave a comment below with the link and you will be entered in a random drawing for this Babe Ruth Yankees Stadium Seat relic numbered to only 6 copies.  Did I mention it's pink????  

How cool is that card?

You want to win it? Make a post with pink cards (or shades of pink or hell...any card with pink on the card) and leave a comment below with the link.  

The contest will end on the day when the ALCS ends.  

The randomizer will go off 3 times (Ruth's jersey number) and the blogger on top, wins.

Let's #SAVESECONDBASE!!!

🔥 I Need The Fire 🔥

For the past few years Topps has been offering an exclusive product at Target called Topps Fire.  Some years have been better than others and their initial online set still ranks among my favorite insert cards to feature Cutch.  You can click here to see it.  

As for this years Topps Fire design, it is pure 🔥 fire 🔥!

I LOVE the look of this year's Topps Fire design.  It has a retro 80s style lettering (it looks just like Transformers or Thundercats if you ask me) along with fun futuristic backgrounds.

The backs have a border that mirrors what you see on the front along with some trivia about the player with no stats.

So far I have accumulated 3 of the parallels and am torn for which parallel I like the most.  The green numbered to 199 copies pops with the retro uniform that Cutch is wearing.

The purple looks really good too and is numbered to only 99 copies.

Keep me in mind for all parallels you may come across.

This is the Gold Mint parallel.  I wish the lettering was left alone and not modified.

Card 3,001 is in hand

Yesterday I showed off a card that put me into pretty elite company.  I joined the 3,000 club.  I now own 3,000 unique cards of Andrew McCutchen.  I am starting to slow down a bit since he left the Buccos in 2018, but am still picking up plenty of Phillies, Yankees, Giants cards when they present themselves to me for a fair price or something so unique I have to have it.  

Card 3,001 came to me via a PWE for a cheap price off eBay.  It's the Meijer exclusive purple parallel of 2020 Topps Series 2.

Nothing too fancy, but it was a nice card to grab as I really like the purple parallels as they usually look bolder than many other parallels Topps Flagship uses.

A New Cutch22 and complaint about technology

I haven't posted in a week and am trying to figure out to work around this "upgraded" version of blogger on my phone.  

I am not a fan.

I have no clue how to quickly access drafts using tags or how to add tags to my posts as I am drafting them.  This frustrates me as I have hundreds (Yes you read that correctly) of rough drafts ready to go when an event may pop up.  

This technology is not helping me show off my collection of Cutch.

This 2019 Topps Tek was purchased last November and I have had it saved for awhile as a draft, but I have no idea where it is on the new blogger loading screen.

I rescanned it to show this purple parallel numbered 22/99

Purple Rain is 🔥

Weasy aka @CollectingCardz on Twitter sent me a parallel from 2018 Topps Fire that I didn't have.

This purple parallel was a very welcomed addition to an otherwise gloomy rainy day yesterday.

 Thank you so much for the card.

Jeremy Bentham and the LOST Penguin Connection

I am not sure what the rest of the world is doing in this concept of isolation, but I have been rewatching some of my favorite shows I haven't seen in nearly a decade.  From Veronica Mars to Lost to The Simpsons, I am on an endless assault of streaming.

One of my favorite shows ever produced is the TV Series Lost.  I made sure to watch every single episode each week.  The show became a mainstream success and one of the best "water cooler" shows to talk about each week.

Without giving away any spoilers, the show focused on a group of plane crash survivors and how their lives connected before the crash.  There were many great characters featured in the show, but one of the most polarizing figures was that of John Locke played brillaintly by Terry O'Quinn.

In the shows fifth season, Locke was revealed to be named another character, Jeremy Bentham.

To create a Lost style post I decided to make a connection to Locke/Bentham's birthday.

February 15, 1948

There is likely only one blogger I know of who can immediately recognize what baseball player was born on that day.

If you knew it was Ron Cey, congratulations.  I'm sure the Night Owl is happy that the former Dodgers 3rd Baseman got a mention on my blog.

Coincidence or maybe it's "The Island's way of controlling things" I sent Night Owl an autograph card of Ron Cey on Mr. Bentham's expired passport (December 17, 2017) date and he received it a few days later.

He posted about it here as it was his Secret Santa package for 2017.

It should be noted that Ron Cey was nicknamed "The Penguin" by his former teammates for the way he waddled around the bases.

On June 13th, 2017 Andrew McCutchen hit a homerun against the Rockies with the recent Stanley Cup Champions, Pittsburgh Penguins, in attendance.  The Penguins who clinched the cup just 2 days earlier were there to celebrate with the rest of the city.

Cutch made sure to step up for the celebration.

The image of Cutch looked familar in the final clips of the MLB video so I decided to do some research about the game and see what Getty Images had to offer.

Well that looks familiar...

That homerun was used for Cutch's swansong flagship Pirates card in 2018 Topps Series 1.

Here are 9 of Cutch's 2018 Topps Flagship Series 1 parallels.
Negative, Base, Purple (TRU exclusive)
Vintage /99, Father's Day Blue /50. Mother's Day Pink /50
Independence Day /76, Black /67, Gold /2018

Sorry for scanning them all grouped together and not following social distance rules.

So just as the great show Lost connected a sequence of completely ordinary events and showed how they all connect together, I was able to do the same via CollectingCutch.

Did you watch Lost when it aired?

Have you ever gone down an internet rabbit hole and tried to connect it to a baseball card?