National Sunglasses Day

Since breaking into the league in 2009, Cutch has always had a sense of joy and swag wherever he played.

Here are a few cards featuring Cutch wearing sunglasses.

First I am going to show off an original piece of artwork by the extremely talented artist Josh Trout

2022 has seen my favorite low budget insert in a long time. Check out those shades!

2021 had an insert set called Stars in Service showing athletes in the community.

It also had a base card featuring Cutch sliding to make a catch for his base card in Series 2.

2020 introduced the world to a worldwide pandemic and the coolest sports card ever produced.

2019 Stadium Club had a photo variant of Cutch 

2016 Topps Triple Threads featured images of Cutch at the 2015 All Star Game

This is an original art card by Brian Kong and was used to produce the Museum Canvas Collection reprints from this original artwork. 

2014 Topps Archives 

2013 Topps Archives All Stars

2013 had photo variants of the top stars sporting their sunglasses.  The most famous is the Yu Darvish card featuring a pair of sunglasses that should be sent back in time.

2012 had a photo variant of Cutch at the All Star Game

2011 Tier One had an autograph with Adam Jones where Cutch is sporting shades atop his cap.

2005 Bowman Heritage saw him sport a pair of shades on his cap for the base, mini, and mahogany parallels.  It is strange That the photo variant doesn't feature sunglasses on the cap as it was likely from the same photo shoot.

It also saw the 2005 Bowman Heritage Signs of Greatness autographs to feature the sunglasses on the hat.

2005 Topps Chrome saw Cutch wearing the shades atop his head.

Do you have any sunglasses cards to show off? We could do a blog bat around if so.

Serial History: Reflecting on getting old

As I was going through my boxes of Cutch cards I discovered a bunch of low numbered autographs that I never showed off.  Trust me when I say there's a lot that still need to be shown here (literally over a hundred autographs of Cutch have never been shown on this blog before)

The card dated below is dated with today's date (2/25), but it also made me realize that I am getting old as it features a familar Topps design, one that I was very excited about when it first debuted.

It's hard to believe that this card design for Stadium Club is now over 3 decades old (31 years old).  I'm getting old!!!!

Let's reflect back on the world of 1991

Barry Bonds had only hit 142 of his 762 career homeruns* This past December, he reached his final 10th year of eligibility on the Hall of Fame ballot.

The United States was in the middle of Operation Desert Storm/Shield by fighting in the Gulf War.

OJ Simpson was a broadcaster for football games

Pogs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were popular among boy's toys. 

Only the 3rd season of The Simpsons was starting (33 previous episodes existed of the 700+ currently produced)

The Florida/Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, Tampa Bay Devil Rays all hadn't come to exist yet.

Do you feel old yet? 

What other memories do you have of 1991?

Down for the count...

Everything happens for a reason.

That's what I always say.  Well, I don't always say it, but I am a strong believer of it.

I enjoy working and I enjoy overtime and I enjoy spending my overtime money on baseball cards.

Unfortunately what I don't enjoy doing anymore is rummaging through the collection and I certainly don't enjoy updating my spreadsheet with my Cutch cards I own.

That may all change as I recently injured my achilles and am awaiting to see a orthopedic to find out if its a tear or just strained. I'm out of work for at least two weeks and will be having a lot of free time on my hands with limited mobility.

This seems like a good time to get those spreadsheets updated.

I should also be able to take some pictures of my cards that I've acquired over the past year(s) that I never showed off here.  

One such card is this 2021 Topps Stadium Club image variation.  I picked this up late summer and it is an absolutely fantastic image variant action shot of Cutch sliding into a base.

The Cutch Cave will have to be put on hold due to my limited availability of walking and using tools. I will at the very least try to take a picture of the progress with it. 

New Year, New 1\1, New Contest!

Since yesterday was 1/1, I thought it would be appropriate to show off one of my latest 1/1s in the collection and compare the image to another 1/1 that I've had in my collection for a few years.

Above is my 4th Yankees 1/1 of Cutch.

It hails from 2021 Topps Dynasty and features Cutch in his clean shaven September 2018 look along with a nice laundry tag patch from the on base machine.

The back discusses how Cutch lead the Yankees in on base percentage (albeit small sample size) in 2018 with a .421 OBP.

The image used for the 2021 Dynasty Yankees card looks a lot like a 2019 Stadium Club card I have.

When this card was released I had a feeling it was photoshopped as there were only 30 games in Cutch's career that sported a clean shave look and they were all in New York.  The problem is I cant determine what game this is from.

As you can see from the back the Stadium Club Chrome card is a superfractor 1/1.  

I have a major problem with Superfractors in Stadium Club because a lot of times the image is a darker image used and the champagne circles used don't look good for Stadium Club cards.  The autograph Superfractor has been on eBay for over a year, but the price is too high.

If anyone is good at reverse image look ups and can identify what game this image was taken from I will give the first correct answer a prize (hint: it's a Hall of Fame autograph and he played on the Phillies).  Please provide source for the image so I can verify that it is in fact from that game.

Beavis & Butterfly Effects

So yesterday as I was watching the Field of Dreams game I got quick flashes of nostalgia.  I remembered about my friend who was a White Sox fan and remembering when we used to trade baseball cards.  I remembered the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Astros.  

It brought back memories of the two team's franchise icons in Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas.  

My brain was going through years of memories all because of one memory.  

Those classic White Sox uniforms.  

I remember collecting cards that featured those amazing Sox uniforms just so I could trade them to my friend Jimmy.  

He was a big Frank Thomas fan, but liked all the White Sox, especially if the card featured the throwback uniforms.  This was before the internet and things couldn't be confirmed with just a Google search.  

I remember I traded a 1991 Robin Ventura Stadium Club for a Jeff Bagwell Stadium Club.  I got the better end of that trade for sure, but I convinced him that the Ventura was an error because of the uniform.  When you're 10 years old it's ok to lie to get what you want.

And I wanted that Jeff Bagwell Stadium Club card.

During the summer we went to our local mall card show and I saw another of the Jeff Bagwell Stadium Club cards.  I picked it up for about $15.  I remember thinking that was such a great deal and that I wanted to own as many Jeff Bagwell 1991 Stadium Club cards as I could.  My uncle was friends with Ken Caminiti and I was a mild Astros fan because of it.

Whenever I think of 1991 Stadium Club, the first thing I think of is the Jeff Bagwell rookie card.

It was such an odd looking card with him leaning on a piece of equipment.  As a kid I thought it was a diving board...which makes zero sense to me now, but hey I was only 10.  My imagination was wild.

I loved the backs of the 1991 Stadium Club cards.  It featured more in depth statistics AND showed the player's 1st Topps card.

Remember when Topps actually put effort into their card backs?

I guess today Topps would only choose to use their flagship set as defining rookie cards.  If that was the case we probably would have gotten the 1991 Topps Traded on the back.

Remember how I said I had a wild imagination as a ten year old?

It holds true to this day.

Everytime I see this card it kind of reminds me of Beavis from Beavis & Butthead, the Mike Judge MTV show that made MTV animation famous in the 1990s.

Do you see the resemblance?

Anyway, I have gotten way off track with my thoughts.

Here is a 2021 1991 Stadium Club retro card of Cutch.

These 1991 designs fall 1:179 packs so they are pretty rare.

And here is the back

which unfortunately doesn't show his rookie card or any 1991 design contributions.

Do you have any memories from 1991 Stadium Club?

Have you ever gone down a rabbit hole of nostalgia because of watching a baseball game?  

Die cut cards are awesome!

I love die cut cards

2021 Stadium Club finally provided me with a new die cut card of Cutch to add to the collection.  There were no die cuts of Cutch (to the best of my knowledge) produced in 2020.  Of course there are a few parallels to chase after.  So far I have gotten only the red parallel.  

I wish there were some sort of technology involved with the design.  I seem to recall the Triumvirates in the past having some sort of holofoil technology, but maybe I'm thinking of something else. 

I like the image chosen for Cutch and when you collect the Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm you can interlock them all together.

The back discusses that only 5 active players have gotten more than Cutch's career offensive WAR.  

Awesome!

Mike Trout is the only outfielder among the five.  His career offensive WAR is 73.7.

The others include three first basemen

Joey Votto 55.9 oWAR

Miguel Cabrera 79.2 oWAR

Albert Pujols 85.5 oWAR

Do you have a favorite die cut card in your collection? 

What are some of your favorite die cut designs?

Who are the Magnificent Seven Members?

So I recently got in an Andrew McCutchen 2021 Stadium Club Members Only card which has an estimated print run of 30 copies.

The design this year follows expectations for what you'd expect from Stadium Club.  Full bleed photos ✔

Players name in small print ✔

Team name or city in smaller print ✔

The back follows the model that we have come to expect from Stadium Club as well.

It gives a brief look at the player (birth date, bats/throws, height/weight, and how they became a member of the team)

It also has the standard "counting stats" for both the most recent year and career stats.

What I found most interesting was the writeup on the back.  

With a HR on Sept 26, 2020 Cutch joined only 7 other National League players IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME to have double digit homerun totals in each year since they debuted.  The list of players to play in the National League to begin their careers and be thought of as power hitters is an impressive bunch.  

Hall of Famers like Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Andre Dawson, Chipper Jones, Willie Stargell all came to mind first.

I immediately wanted to know who the other 7 players were.

It would have to be someone to play a long time in the National League and they would have to begin their career in the NL.

Let's start with the NL East

Braves

The Braves have had a lot of power hitters over their cross country travels from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta.  

The most notable of course is the former HR King

Hank Aaron ✔

Hammerin' Hank began his career with 21 straight seasons in the National League hitting 10+ HR in a season

Aaron's long time protection at the plate was Eddie Matthew's who clubbed 493 homers for the Braves to begin his career over 15 seasons.

Eddie Matthews ✔

So here we are on the first team and already have 2 of the 7 established just by thinking of Braves All Time Greats.

Speaking of All Time Greats, how about Dale Murphy?  Well he unfortunately fell short in collecting 12 seasons to begin his career with 10+HR as he came up as a catcher and smacked only 2 homers in 37 games as a backstop.

Many people forget that before Chipper Jones was the runner up for Rookie of Year in 1995 he made his debut in 1993 before an ACL tear ruined his next 2 seasons.

Andruw Jones, who broke into the majors as a 19 year old only played in less than a quarter season which didn't lend him to enough at bats to start his career with 10+ HR per season.

Marlins

The Marlins aren't known for keeping their players for 12+ years, but they certainly have had some notable power sluggers play in their franchise history.  Gary Sheffield and Giancarlo Stanton both stand out and both failed to 1)even play 12 consecutive seasons for a National League team to start their career and 2)collect 10+HR in each season to begin their career

Mets

Darry Strawberry and David Wright only had 9 seasons of 10+HR to begin their careers before substance abuse and injuries derailed their careers.

Mike Piazza, another famous Mets slugger, debuted in 1992 with only 1 HR in 21 games.  He would win Rookie of Year award the following season as a member of the Dodgers.

Phillies

Michael Jack Schmidt, Ryan Howard, Dick Allen all went on to have impressive power numbers over their careers, but none of them hit 10+HR in their debut season.

Nationals

Ryan Zimmerman was the Nationals first draft pick, but didn't hit his first homerun until his second season.  He rattled off 8 consecutive seasons beginning in his sophmore season. 

Bryce Harper, another famous player for the Nationals and current teammate of Cutch, has only played for 10 seasons thus far.

So off the top of my head for the NL East I have

Hank Aaron ✔

Eddie Matthews ✔

Moving to the current NL Central teams

Brewers

The Brewers used to be an American League team so I am only looking at the NL versions of the franchise.  There were 2 guys that hit a lot of HR for the team in the mid 2000s.  Prince Fielder I knew left for an American League team (Tigers) following his free agency so I'd not have to waste time researching him.  The other guy came up around the same time as Prince and won Rookie of Year and MVP votes his first season, Ryan Braun.  I knew Braun got caught up in the Biogenesis scandal, but wasn't sure if he collected enough HR in 2013 before being suspended the remainder of the season.  He didn't.  Braun hit only 9 HR before serving a suspension for the rest of the year.  That left him with only a stretch of 6 straight seasons to start a career of 10+HR.

Cubs

Billy Williams played in only 30 games over his first two seasons collecting only 2 HR

Ernie Banks collected only 2HR in his 10 game "cup of coffee" stint in 1953.

Ron Santo got close in his debut season by clubbing 9 HRs and would continue 10+HR the rest of his career, but it was his 95 game debut season that prevented him from double digit homers.

Don't forget that before Ryne Sandberg became a "lifelong" Cub, he was actually a member of the Phillies and got only 6 plate appearances in the 1981 season.  It would be difficult to get 10HR in 6 at bats. 

Reds

The Reds were a powerhouse in the 70s and were known as the Big Red Machine.

Tony Perez and Johnny Bench didn't become regulars until their fourth and second seasons respectively.

Frank Robinson collected 11 National League seasons of 10+HR, but they weren't in consecutive years as Frank had gone from the Reds to the American League's Orioles before rejoining the National League with the Dodgers.

The more recent Reds teams like Joey Votto and Jay Bruce also failed to collect 12 straight seasons of 10 or more homeruns.

Cardinals

Can you believe that Albert Pujols spent nearly the same amount of time in LA as he did in St. Louis?  The 3 time MVP did hit 445 career homeruns in the Arch City, but that was only over 11 seasons, not 12.

Johnny Mize spent 3 years of his prime serving the military, but was still able to collect 12 straight seasons playing in the NL from his MLB debut of 10+HR.

Mize ✔

Stan Musial hit a lot of homeruns, but not in his first season.

Jack Clark was the big bopper of the "Whitey ball era", but his career didn't start off with 12 National League seasons of 10+ HR.

Matt Holliday began his MLB career in Colorado and collected a surprising 11 straight seasons of 10+ HR before an All Star campaign in 2015 cut him short for the rest of the season and ending his streak.

Pirates

Willie Stargell, the franchise leader in HR didnt get his 1st homer until his second season after a 10 game debut season

Dave Parker, much like Stargell didn't get started in the power department until his sophomore season.

Ralph Kiner who was one of the premier power hitters in the late 40s and won SEVEN STRAIGHT Homerun titles, unfortunately retired after only 10 seasons in the league.

We know that Andrew McCutchen made the list and stayed in the National League after his trade from the Pirates to the Giants, but what about another guy who left the Steel City to the bay?

The Home Run King * makes the list too.

Barry Bonds ✔

Ok so off the top of my head I have only 4 of the 7 

Hank Aaron

Eddie Matthews

Barry Bonds

Johnny Mize

Who are the other 3?  They must be known for their time in the NL West.

Let's take a look at the NL West

Diamondbacks

Paul Goldschmidt, Luis Gonzalez, and Justin Upton are all guys that are most often thought of as the pop in Arizona's playoff teams, but all of them didn't begin their careers with 10+HR from their debut seasons.

Dodgers

As discussed Piazza didnt collect 10+HR in his debut season.  Eric Karros who won the Rookie of Year the Year after Piazza suffered the "cup of coffee" problem too.

Steve Garvey didn't get 10 on the board until his 5th season.

What about some other guys to collect a lot of homeruns over their Dodgers career?  Were any of these incredible athletes able to hit 10 or more HR to begin their career in the National League?

Duke Snider 👎

Matt Kemp 👎

Jackie Robinson 👎

Ron Cey 👎

Gil Hodges 👎

No no no! 

Padres

When I think of power hitters in San Diego, there are only a few names that come to mind: Ken Caminiti (who I know struggled early in his career), Adrian Gonzalez (who made his debut as a Ranger), Gary Sheffield (who debuted in the American League as a Brewer, Dave Winfield (who I know didn't play in the NL long enough to qualify), and Willie McCovey who is more well known for his time in San Francisco.

A quick search proves that McCovey did in fact begin his career with enough HR in 12+ consecutive National League seasons to qualify.

Giants

We already know of two names

Willie McCovey ✔

Barry Bonds ✔

Willie Mays began his career with 20HR then connected for only 4 in 1952 before serving the military the following year. 

Will Clark began his career with 8 seasons in San Francisco before heading to an American League team, thus ending the streak.

Orlando Cepeda began his career with a hot streak, but ultimately in 1965 only played in 33 games, collecting only 1 HR ending his 7 year stretch.

Rockies

Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki are the first guys to come to mind.  Helton didn't get more than 5 HR until his second season and only had 10 consecutive years.  Troy didn't play 12 years in the National League, much to my surprise.

So that makes 5 of the 7 and we went through all of the current National League teams, but have their been National League teams in the past that are no longer associated with a current franchise of the same name?

The forgotten NL Teams

Following up from the Rockies, Larry Walker also was unable to collect 10+HR to begin his career in a NL uniform as a member of the Expos.

Andre Dawson didn't collect his first HR until his second season following his debut.

Astros

Before multiple seasons of tanking and trash banging, the Astros had a few power hitters in their franchise. Jeff Bagwell is the only one to make the list of 12 seasons of 10 or more homeruns to begin their career in the National League.  Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence, and Ken Caminiti all fell short.

So here is the list I came up with

Barry Bonds

Hank Aaron

Eddie Matthews

Johnny Mize

Jeff Bagwell

Willie McCovey

That is only 6 players and according to the back of this Stadium Club card there are 7 players to begin their careers in the National League and have 10+ HR in a season for 12 consecutive years.  All six of them would go on to have several more seasons of 10+ HR in their careers and with the exception of a * all are Hall of Famers and All Time Greats.

I began looking at the leaderboards of All Time HR leaders, clicking on ANYONE that may have began their career in the National League.  It wasn't until the player that is 164th All Time that I came across a name I never heard of, Del Ennis.

Del Ennis began his career playing for his hometown Philadelphia Phillies in 1946.  As a 21 year old rookie, Ennis connected for 17HR while batting .313.  He made the All Star team and finished the season with an OPS+ of 144, meaning he was better than 44% of the league.  He played for the Phillies for 11 seasons collecting 259 round trippers. In the 1957 season, Ennis joined the St. Louis Cardinals and hit 24 balls out of the park, marking 12 straight consecutive seasons.  In 1958, Ennis would fail to hit double digit homers for the first time in his career and would retire following the 1959 season.  

Ennis failed to reach 13 seasons of 10+HR in the National League to begin a career.

With Cutch already having collected 15 HR in this half season, he has kept pace with the afformentioned Hall of Famers* as he now has 13 seasons of double digit homers.

Something about 2 Birds, 1 Stone

One of my 2021 goals was to add 50 new Cutch cards from his Pirates playing days (2005-2017).  

I also stated I wanted to grab another rare 1/1 like a Superfractor.

Here is a submission for both those goals.

That is a 2017 Stadium Club Gold Rainbow Foil.  They are a hobby exclusive 1/1, found one in every 1,204 packs.

You probably don't remember, but way back in 2017 I showed a post talking about how hard some of these parallels are to find.

I'm still looking to add another Superfractor this year, but if December rolls around and this is the only 1of1 I add this year, I will say it was a good year. 

Remembering Hank

One of the game's greatest all time passed away today.  

Henry Aaron better known as Hammerin Hank was the All Time Homerun King when he retired.  

When I think of Hank Aaron, I remember doing a report on a significant black person to change history in grade school.  I chose Hank Aaron as my subject.  

I also think about Daniel of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop.  Daniel is a big Hank Aaron fan and has a really nice collection of the true HR king. 

Daniel sent me the card below back in 2017 as part of a trade package.

This card is the gold parallel /25 copies from 2015 Stadium Club Instavision.  

It captures my favorite homerun in recent Pirates history.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had made it to the post season in 2013 and 2014.  The team was surging just before the 2015 All Star Break, but so were the St. Louis Cardinals.  The two teams had the two best records in the league.  

On July 11th the Cardinals came to Pittsburgh and faced AJ Burnett and the Pirates.

Highlights of the game can be found here.

The complete game can be found here.

The Pirates truly were the Battlin Bucs as they battled back from being behind after the 8th inning THREE TIMES that game.

It culminated in a walkoff homer by the Pirates star centerfielder, Andrew McCutchen.

Cutch has hit six walk off homers over his 12 year career.

Hank Aaron hit nine over 23 seasons.

R.I.P. Hammer

Wave(ing) Goodbye To 2020

2020 is close to an end and I can't wait to wrap this year up.

From a personal level, the year sucked.

From a collecting perspective, the prices elevated to insane levels...which sucked.

From a new product release by Topps, wait...Topps produced some cool new products?

Ok so Stadium Club Chrome isn't exactly new.  It first appeared in the early 2000s, but then went on hiatus for nearly a few decades before being resurrected in 2018 Stadium Club as part of their parallels.

In 2020, Topps released a product using great photography of Stadium Club with the well known chrome technology and it was amazing!!!

Above is the wave parallel from 2020 Topps Stadium Club.  

It features a different picture than the traditional image used in Stadium Club.  The foil and etching on this product might be the nicest thing Topps produced all year and is very under the radar if you ask me.

The back features the same writeup as the standard Topps Stadium Club cards released earlier in the year.  Fun fact: the Phillies were 5 games above .500 when Cutch was batting leadoff before his season ending injury in 2019.  The team played 5 games below .500 without him, thus enduring their stretch of not having a winning season since 2011 (longest in majors).

This Post is for Members Only

Prices have started to "go down" on the McCutchen 2020 Series 2 SP that the hobby went nuts over during the weekend.  I'm still going to hold out for one in the typical $10-$20 range that it belongs in.  Prices reached highs of nearly $400 with most selling in the $250-$300 range after ESPN's tweet.

I decided I was going to make a game of it and see what else I could purchase for my collection instead of buying one of those cards at the avg price of $275.

I made a bunch of purchases over the weekend and can't wait to start getting them in to show off.  The COMC purchases will be downloaded with the COMC watermark since shipping is still ridiculous for them.  Keep an eye open for all the cards I bought instead of the McCutchen swag photo variant.

On a completely unrelated note, today's card post I purchased back in May and I feared would be lost due to the early June protests and nearly 3 weeks of idle movement.  It did eventually show up last week unharmed.

2017 Topps Stadium Club offered the Members Only parallel at a 1:256 packs.  No official print run has ever been announced, but the 1st Day Issue cards were slated to have a print run of only 10 copies and fell at a similar rate of 1:239 packs.

In theory this means that the Members Only cards are likely in the print run of 8 to 10 copies per player.

It can quickly be said that many of these don't exist as it has taken me 3 years to get one.

Snagging a card this rare for only $12.50 was totally worth the hunt though.

A Cameo Like No Other

It should be no surprise that I like to collect Pittsburgh Pirates cards especially those that have a cameo of Andrew McCutchen.

While going through some cards to send Nate for our recent trade I discovered I had this 2014 Stadium Club card of Gregory Polanco.  There is an Andrew McCutchen siting in the dugout of this rookie card of "El Coffe"

This is the base version, but I am looking for the rainbow foil (/25), electric foil, gold foil, and members only parallels.  If you come across any, keep me in mind.



And in case you don't follow me on Twitter I got a Cameo message from Andrew McCutchen sent to my team that have been working 50-60 hours a week trying to restock our shelves during this global pandemic.

Now I'm secretly hoping someone books a cameo appearance of Cutch for me.  My name is Brian and my birthday is in September.  Please and thank you 😂