FLAWLESS VICTORY!!!!

You may recall that I ran a contest and had a blog post with this exact title just over two years ago. 

Well after watching the 2021 Mortal Kombat film on HBO Max last night, it's time to bring back the Flawless Victory!!!

Here are some of my favorite Panini Flawless cards in my collection

Team USA is represented from Cutch's 18U days.  These Flawless cards feature either on card signatures or actual gems (diamond, ruby, sapphire) inside.

Another pair of on card signatures, both limited to under 10 copies

A nice patch and on card autograph from his Pirates days

How about that sleeve patch of the Jolly Roger?!!!!

And these team up????

Starling and Cutch made for one of the best offensive/defensive outfields in baseball from 2012-2015.

No spoilers on the movie here, but the fact it was an R rated film really made this Mortal Kombat movie 10x better than the others.  I loved the introduction of so many familar Mortal Kombat faces.  

The battle of Scorpion and Sub Zero is epic.

Sonya Blade is a badass and hot!!!

Kano is a d**kbag just as you would expect.

The whole movie was great. It was a perfect video game movie.  There, I said it!

Did you ever play Mortal Kombat?  What were some of your favorite characters to play as?

Team WBC pickup

In addition to binge watching a bunch of TV shows over the past few weeks I also rewatched a lot of the Team USA games for the 2017 World Baseball Classic. 

Christian Yelich made himself known to the nation by batting in the two hole and being a main catalyst for the offense.  Adam Jones and Eric Hosmer were absolute studs for Team USA and Marcus Stroman pitched a masterpiece in the final game vs Puerto Rico. 

Cutch batted in the six spot for all the games he played and had a miniscule .559 OPS, but he did hit a few clutch hits including the go ahead RBI in the semifinals vs Japan. 

I had a lot of WBC cards already, but when I saw this card available for a very reasonable price,

well I just had to do a little dance

 and celebrate adding it to the collection.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Crisis Week: Batwoman

Last night's Crisis event kicked off with an incredible ending that will lead to many more questions in the Arrowverse to come.  I won't reveal any spoilers, but Kevin Smith said it best when he compared the event to what happened in "the other universe" referring to what happened in the MCU's Avengers: Endgame heroics.

All I can say is more Kat McNamara is a good thing for the Arrowverse.

The event continues tonight on Batwoman at 8pm.

Batwoman is a show I haven't gotten into yet.  I am hoping that this Crisis on Infinite Earths event leads me to become a bigger fan of Batwoman.

Batwoman tells the story of Bruce Wayne's cousin who takes up the mantle of the caped crusader and protector of Gotham after Bruce has been missing for three years.  The character of Batwoman (Kate Kane) is portrayed on screen by Ruby Rose.  I have always liked Ruby Rose as an actress and model.  I featured a bit about her a few years ago during Shark Week when her movie, The Meg, was coming out.  You can revisit that post here.

Any girl with a tattoo of a Ninja Turtle on her arm is cool in my book.

For those that don't remember Ruby before her Justin Bieber style haircut, she used to have long blonde hair

Since Topps created their Triple Threads brand, Topps has always used their 1/1 base cards and even relic cards to have a red parallel they call Ruby.

Panini uses rubies in their products as well.  They use not only the name, but actual rubies in their Flawless product (along with Diamonds, Emeralds, and Sapphires)

The red parallel has 2 Rubies and a Diamond inserted.

The blue parallel has a Ruby, Diamond, and Sapphire.

Hopefully tonight's Batwoman episode is a real gem (pun intended).

Memorial Day

Millions and millions of Americans will celebrate Memorial Day today.

Sadly, the true meaning of the National holiday has been forgotten and it has unofficially become the start of the summer.  For me it means relaxing by a pool or the shore and/or watching a baseball game while drinking beers and grilling some hotdogs and burgers.

Here are a pair of 2018 Flawless National Team USA cards I have.  Cutch didn't receive the Ruby parallel.  He is only listed for the Gold and Blue as seen in the picture above along with a black (never seen it available)

The back discusses how Cutch lead Team USA 18 under squad with the most walks and scored the second most runs for the team.  These traits remain active as he leads all National League players in walks, hits, and runs scored since his 2009 MLB debut.

What are some of your Memorial Day traditions?

Did You Survive The Purge?

For those that aren't familar with the Purge movies, last night to this morning at 7am was the time slot that the Purge movies allow all crime.  I hope this country never does something like that as it completely contradicts my beliefs.

I would like to see our great country fall in love with baseball more.  It is clear that Football is the number one sport.  All the games are meaningful and have implications on the playoff picture.

Baseball is a long season and the games dont seem as meaningful.

That is why I absolutely love the World Baseball Classic every four years.  Meaningful games with a sense of pride for each team.

Andrew McCutchen participated in the 2017 WBC tournament.  He was second on the team with RBI batting predominantly out of the six hole for the tournament.

Juan Rosales has contributed a bunch of 1/1 sketch cards to this blog over the past few years.  The sketch of Cutch taking batting practice in his Team USA gear is one of my favorites, especially with the red and blue background.

Two years ago Team USA defeated Team Puerto Rico 8-0 to capture the Gold Medal.  It marked the first time that Team USA won the tournament.

Getting Ridiculous!!!

There was a three week period where I didn't purchase anything cardboard related.  That was followed by a few days of some of the most expensive cards I have ever purchased.

This 1/1 from 2009 Topps Unique leads the charge of being one of those expensive purchases.  The logoman from Cutch's Futures Game jersey along with one of his earlier, full signatures make this card move into a Top 10 of my collection. 

The only drawback I have towards the card is the sticker auto, but there aren't that many on card autographs of Cutch out there to be honest.  A few recent releases from Panini and a few Heritage releases to go along with one year of Tier 1 and Museum are about all you will find of the former NL MVP.

Remember The Past, Honor The Living

Remember The Past,
Honor The Living!

Today many Americans will welcome in the summer with parties and bbqs, but it's important to remember what this holiday truly means.

Alejandro Villanueva did a segment for Sportscenter that summarized it perfectly.  Click here for the article and video.

TEAM USA RELICS!

It's Memorial Day weekend and to celebrate I will be showing off some cards that represent the holiday in my eyes.

Up first is a blue parallel from 2017 Triple Threads numbered 3/3 (eBay 1/1)

I have previously shown off some of the other parallels on this blog, but the blue (sapphire) parallel really brings home the Americana feel to the cardboard.

Gold numbered 2/9

Emerald numbered 4/18


I still need the ruby 1/1 along with the /27 and /36 parallels for this particular rainbow.

Going Green : USA USA USA

Trying to find actresses with deep Irish roots is actually a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Anne Hathaway, a former NJ native, is of Irish ancestry as both her parents are Irish.

This beautiful American woman may not look Irish, but I don't mind looking at her.

Decked in all green, makes me forget this post is more about USA than Ireland.

Happy Monday everyone!

USA Pride!!!

With the winter Olympics fully underway now, it's time for our nation to take pride in our countrymen as we watch them compete in sports we didn't know we cared to root for.

USA Pride!!!!

Here's an old photo of Cutch in his early teen years playing for Team USA.  I purchased the signed photo from eBay.

WBC Memories

I enjoyed the heck out of last year's World Baseball Classic.

It was awesome to see some of my favorite current players (Cutch, Arenado, Bregman, Adam Jones) all compete on the same team.

It was also awesome to snag all these Triple Threads relics from Probstein around Christmas.

I'm thinking that Cutch is going to have a monster season this year with San Francisco, batting atop that lineup and playing in stadiums he has had success in before (AT&T, Petco, Coors).

In the deciding game of the WBC tournament at Dodgers Stadium, Cutch went 2 for 4 with 2 ribbys.

Showing off some customs

Occassionally I will come across some custom cards for sale that strike my fancy.  I'm not a huge supporter of these kinds of cards, but if it features an old Topps design I liked or a unique moment I usually pull the trigger.

Recently I came across this custom

I picked up his "team set" of Team USA.

I loved this year's WBC and rooting for Team USA.  I have to hand it to Jim Leyland for winning the tournament and sticking with his core guys.  I felt like the team lacked the "Superstar" and "Hobby star" names, but as a team they did an incredible job.

When you think of the big names in the card collecting world, who on Team USA draws the most attention?
Buster Posey, probably.
All their other guys play on small market teams.  Miami, Kansas City, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Colorado, Baltimore.  Most are low revenue teams.
Again kudos and Jim Leyland and the team.

I have also picked up a few other customs over the years.

This was a hand drawn sketch card that I thought looked really good so I had to pick it up.

These two were random impulse buys.

And to finish things off is this really sweet looking T206 Style Piedmont card.

The Mauer was a freebie the seller provided.
If anyone wants the Mauer let me know.

I'm clean!

Matt from Bob Walk the Plank showed off a WBC base relic featuring Cutch a few days ago.  I had purchased a similar item, but mine took a few extra days to arrive.

Normally I can count on Topps Now arriving 2-3 days after Topps confirms it's on the road.

I was starting to worry, but when I got home today I noticed that I had received the long awaited relic.

Lifted out of the dirty ground of Dodgers Stadium on 3/21/17 hails this base relic (my very first one) of Team USA advancing to the WBC finals.

The front of the card features a super pumped up Cutch getting ready to do a secret handshake with Christian Yelich.

The back of the card discusses Cutch's clutch RBI to advance the team past Team Japan in a 2-1 victory.

Unlike BWTP's base relic, my relic looks surprisingly clean for being a base on a rainy day.

A simple entry into the MLB Authenticator reveals this base was in fact used for Team USA's victory.

Further research shows that this was 2nd Base for innings 1-4.

Yelich scored the game's first run from 2nd base when Cutch hit a clutch RBI single in the 4th inning.

This base was a part of history!

All the other Team USA Cutch cards

Last weekend I had been showing off a bunch of Team USA pairings with Cutch.

Now it's time to just show off my solo Cutch cards wearing USA across his uniform.

Last night Cutch knocked his first WBC hit, but also squared up two balls that went into the warning track that just died in the heavy San Diego air.

Some of these you may have seen in the past when Cutch announced he would play for Team USA, but I will show them again.

To start us off,

A manufactured relic which is extremely hard to find these days.  The most recent has sold for over $40.

Next up a very unique Negative Test Proof.  It's basically a reverse film like proof used to make Prizm.

Your standard Prizm card is pictured next to it.  I need Prizm (refractor like version) that says Prizm in the back corner.

I have previously shown off these Team USA autographs back in January, but think I will show them off again.

These Futures Games pins were randomly inserted in 2016 Topps Series 2.

Finally a few Futures Games cards from 2008 Bowman.  While not your standard Team USA cards, these cards represent the Team USA prospects used every year in the All-Star Game when Team USA faces off against the World's best prospects.

I have a few of these as you can see.
From 2008 Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects.

The Red Chrome is very rare and sells for big bucks since it's numbered to only 5.

The Magenta Plate is obviously a 1/1.

To close things out, I have a pair of Flawless Gems numbered to 10 and 15 respectively.

These are beautiful cards, but this post won't be the last time you see real gems on this blog.