Monsters of Baseball?

I was going through some old articles I had bookmarked just in case there were ever a need to show off some cards relating to it and stumbled across a little gem about the Philadelphia Phillies.

Wow, have things changed a lot in 5 years.

Look at this article from 2016.

It discusses how the Phillies will again become a juggernaut in Major League Baseball with a monster payroll supporting home grown stars like Mikael Franco, Odubel Herrera, Jerad Eickoff, Vince Velasquez, and Aaron Nola.  

Well they were right about Nola.

It also mentioned the Phillies flexibility to add talent to the "historic free agent class" of 2018 when guys like Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez will be available along with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.

The article goes on to talk about their farm system and the expectation of JP Crawford "becoming a star" and Cornelius Randolph being the best prep bat in the previous year's draft.  

It wasn't too long ago that I did a post about the Pirates fall from success and how only 1 player remains with the team that won 98 games in 2015 (Gregory Polanco) and many of their top prospects coming out of that season have all been traded and are no longer a part of the organization (Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon, Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, Harold Ramirez, Reese McGuire, Nick Kingham).

Monsters of baseball?

I think not.

Good start to the 2021 season for the Phillies by sweeping by the Braves?  

Yes I think so.

I really like the Bryce Harper card above from 2020 Topps.  I may seek out some of it's parallels to chase.  

To wrap things up I will show 3 cards of Cutch in a Phillies uniform.

2019 Topps Fire Dual Auto with Rhys Hoskins limited to 20 copies

2019 Allen & Ginter Double Rip with Rhys Hoskins limited to 25 copies

2019 Topps Museum bat barrel nameplate 1/1

Each Phillies sweep this year will be followed up with a post featuring Cutch in Phillies gear.  Among the cards posted will be at least 1/1 during each sweep. 

Give Me Ideas

In the past I have reached out to try and connect a random thought to an Andrew McCutchen card I own.  I've done this with everything from chimichangas, butterscotch pudding and quotes from Elf, with my favorite of that group being "Six Inch Ribbon Curls"

Give me some ideas to write about.

If not, I'll be forced to show cards like this

I am sure not everyone wants to read about a triple patch card of three Philadelphia Phillies.  I mean it does have the 2013 and 2015 NL MVPs on it and it is numbered to only 9 copies.  The foil pops brightly and the patch on the Cutch portion has nice color breaks, but who wants to read about the Phillies? Anyone? 

If you don't want to read about upper middle tier cards like the above 2020 Triple Threads card, leave a comment below something you want me to relate to something in my collection.  

I will choose a comment at random and if you can stump me, you will win a random prize.

Let's keep it PG13 by the way. 

Need a Forest to Finish the Rainbow

To follow up on my Earth Day post, I am once again looking for help.

This time I am not asking you to save the forests, rather I am asking you to help me find one.

I am extremely close to completing the rainbow for the 2017 Chronicles Triple Threat relic set.

I recently added the 1 of 1 Nebula parallel.

I am not sure where this parallel got it's name, but it looks nothing like Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Then again maybe the color scheme is comparable.  There's purple hues and teal hues in the Nebula parallel to match the daughter of the Mad Titan, Thanos.

By the way, if you don't like the Avengers movies or the Marvel Cinematic Universe there is a good chance you have no idea what I am talking about.

It's ok.....

Let's get back on track just from a baseball card standpoint.

With my recent addition of the 1 of 1 Nebula parallel

I now have 6 of the (possible) 7 parallels.

Top Row: Nebula, Gold, Neon Green
Bottom Row: Pink, Neon Blue, Base

They are numbered to the following quantities:
Top Row: 1, 10, 25
Bottom Row: 49, 99, 149

Here are scans of each of the other cards individually

The one card I am missing to complete the rainbow?

There is a forest green numbered to 3 or 5 for certain players.  However according to the information I have found not all players received a green.  According to Worthpoint, none have sold on eBay so I am stuck wondering if this card actually exists.

New Home

There is something about Triple Threads printing plates that I love.  I have held off on buying lots more because of a mutual understanding I have with another Cutch collector. He likes them more than me so I target one of the parallels and go for all the colors.  In this case it's the "New Home" parallel.

I have a few other Triple Threads printing plate autographs I have snagged, but will show them off later in the year.  This particular example is AM4.

This post has been saved since January 2019, but knowing what I have saved to show in October I had to get this one posted.

Makes you wonder what else I have saved that I'm not showing off, right?

Serial History: 1925 Pirates

Well...those damn D'Backs beat the heck out of the Bucs again yesterday.  Thankfully we won't have to see them again until 2020 as the Pirates were 1-6 against them this year and got swept by them last year in Pittsburgh.

Moving on......


To formally kick off Serial History, I am going to look at an older Andrew McCutchen on card autograph from 2011 Triple Threads.  There are multiple parallels of this card to track down including the base/99, sepia/75, emerald/50,  sapphire/10, wood/1, and ruby/1.

Sadly the only copy I have is this Gold version numbered 19/25.

I will be looking at the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates team in this segment of Serial History.

The Pirates won the World Series in 1925.  It was their second World Series title, the other being from 1909.  Three more titles would follow in 1960, 1971, and 1979.

The 1925 Pirates had 3 future Hall of Famers on their team: Kiki Cuyler, Pie Traynor, and Max Carey.

Some highlights of the World Series Champions that occurred during the season can be described below.

Hall of Famer, Kiki Cuyler lead the league in triples (26), times on base (291) and runs scored (144).  (Sadly I don't have a single card of Kiki)

Glenn Wright performed an unassisted triple play on May 7th.
I was shocked to see Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts post about Glenn Wright and the 1925 Pirates last week.

This cut auto easily pushes Glenn to be my starting shortstop on my All Autograph Pirates team.  Sorry Jay Bell.

In addition to having a Glenn Wright cut auto, I also have autographs of the following:

Hall of Famer, Max Carey
Max Carey was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1961 by the Veterans Committee.  He was a ten time National League stolen base champion and is 9th All-Time with 738 career stolen bases.  He finished his career with 2,047 singles (47th all time).  He had 290 career sacrifice hits showing his ability to help his team win games selflessly.  That remains 13th best all time.  Despite playing fewer games in left field than center field throughout his career, he still holds the 8th most double plays turned as a left fielder with 30.  As a Centerfielder he appears in the top 20 All-Time for a number of defensive stats including assists (4th most 221 total), putouts (14th most with 4,589), and double plays (4th most with 58).

Hall of Famer, Pie Traynor has been on my want list for an autograph for awhile and I was able to add his 1933 Goudey card and a cut auto just about a month ago.

He is the team's greatest third baseman in the history of the Pirates. The Pirates retired numbered 20 in honor of Pie.

He finished his career with 2,416 hits and a .320 batting average while amassing 1,273 RBI over 1900 career games at the hot corner.  He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1948 on his 5th year on the ballot.

 

Babe Adams may not be a Hall of Famer, but he is one of the greatest Pirates pitchers in their long history.  He holds the team record for wins by a right hander (194), shutouts (47), and lowest walk rate 1 walk per 14+ innings pitched.

One of his most memorable moments was pitching all 21 innings of a pitching dual in 1914.  He didn't allow a walk in all 21 innings.

Rickey To Appear in Toy Story 4

When you think of the greatest Showtime player in sports history, there are probably a few names that pop up because of their larger than life personalities.  Michael Jordan, Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, LeBron James, Muhamed Ali, Babe Ruth, and Rickey Henderson are the ones that quickly come to mind for me.

With that being said, it came as a bit of a surprise to hear that Rickey Henderson will have a bobblehead bear his image in the upcoming Toy Story film. 

I am not sure if he will get a speaking role, but here's hoping for a "but today I am the greatest" line.

Per an article you can hear how the bobblehead came to be featured in the film.

This is my only card I have of Cutch featuring him alongside Rickey.  It was released early on his career when he was stealing nearly 30 bags every season.  After getting beaned in the back as a retaliation pitch in 2014, Cutch never attempted to steal over 20 bags again. 

What are some memorable sports related toys you think could have been featured in the Toy Story franchise?

Ribbit ribbit

When I was younger I used to be fascinated by the metamorphosis of frogs.  I know that ultrasounds of humans show incredible growth and we are amazing stories of survival too, but the idea of so many tiny tadpole eggs and the development of them to one day become a frog is a journey of perseverance that nature can provide.  It absolutely amazes me that any frogs can survive so much.

I bring this up because one of the most interesting and bizarre sets that Panini has used their unlicensed baseball product line over the past few years is a release called Chronicles.  Chronicles basically takes an amalgam of their basketball and football releases and makes mini sets for their baseball release. 

Spectra Triple Threats is a very popular set that Panini uses much in the same way Topps produces Triple Threats.

The 2018 set was supposed to have a few parallels to chase.  The neon blue would be produced /99, neon pink would be /49, green would be /25, gold to /10, and nebula would be 1/1.

Shortly after release Panini stated that not all players would be featured for all parallels and some players may have less than stated numbers produced. 

Of course I wanted to grab a copy of the 2018 Neon Pink /49 for my Save The Boobies event.  Unfortunately Cutch fell in the "or less" copy. 

The Neon Blue parallel looks like tadpole eggs to me.

And much like the survival rate of a tadpole, much fewer survived than what should have.

In short, Cutch didn't survive the cut for a Neon Pink copy.  Instead his Neon Blue which should have been /99 copies was instead produced as a short print /49 card.

Arg!

I stated a few months ago that I may have acquired the best Andrew McCutchen Giants card.

Well...

I may have out done myself when I snagged this one.  After continuous discussions to acquire this behemoth of a card and having to wait out a 7 day auction, I am super stoked that I am now the proud owner of a Brandon Crawford sleeve patch with a big ol' A on it.

Wait, what?
There's more to the card?

Buster Posey, letter "R" from San Francisco visitors jersey

Sweeeeeeeet! This is my first 1/1 Buster Posey too.

And to top it off, an Andrew McCutchen "G" from a home GIANTS jersey

THIS CARD IS AWESOME!!!

ARG!!!!!
Yup.  This may be a Giant card (literally on two fronts), but it definitely has some Pirates roots to it.

ARG!!!!

Thank you again to the father/son combo who ultimately decided to part with it to me.  It went to a good home.

It marked my 222nd Andrew McCutchen 1/1. That's a pretty sweet number.

Quite Possibly the Best McCutchen Giants Card Produced

Andrew McCutchen played roughly only 5 months of his career with the San Francisco Giants. 

In those few months Cutch received a lot of autograph love from Topps.  More autographs were produced of Cutch in a Giants uniform in those 5 months than in the previous 4 years wearing a Pirates uniform.

I have picked up a bunch of sweet autographs in the recent months of Cutch and will likely have to show them off next year.

Among all the sticker autographs and framed autographs of Cutch in the Giants uniform, I have picked up a few relics too. 

Only Topps Triple Threads produced a jersey relic of Cutch thus far wearing the orange and black.

This mammoth triple booklet numbered 1/1 takes the award for best Cutch relic in a Giants uniform. 

Boom!!! 

A nice letter "M" from an Arizona Spring Training game starts off the craziness of this cardboard juggernaut.

Check out the 60th Anniversary patch in the center.  It commemorates the move from New York to San Francisco for the Giants organization.

The massive number patch helps bring closure to it.

Not much else to say about it besides this is my favorite Cutch Giants relic I own.

Shark Week

The 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates was my favorite team I rooted for. (EVER!!!)

They would go on to have their 1st winning season in 20 years.

The bullpen lead by Jason Grilli was dubbed the Shark Tank.  Grilli would even go as far to get the team a shark tank for the clubhouse.  They began to use a 3 headed back of bullpen (Watson-Melancon-Grilli) in the same way that many teams are using bullpens today.

Look up the ERAs of the core members of the Shark Tank in 2013 and you will see that when there was blood in the water, these sharks fed like a frenzy.

Yesterday I used a bible quote involving the fish in the sea trembling at His presence.

For the rest of this week I will look at some cardboard featuring Cutch with members of The Shark Tank and why batters trembled in their presence.

Let's begin with the mastermind behind the Shark Tank, Jason Grilli.  Nicknamed Grill Cheese he would lead the Pirates into the All Star game with over 20 consecutive saves converted.  He lead the NL in saves at the break and even was the cover athlete for Sports Illustrated highlighting the Pirates miraculous season.

Shortly after the SI article, Grilli would land on the DL (thanks Sports Illustrated curse) and hand the reigns of the closing role to Mark "The Shark" Melancon.

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.

Lernn 2 spehl

Sometimes great deals just present themselves to me.

Deals like this...

What's a palonco or mccuthen?
I have no idea, but I know that this card features Polanco and McCutchen and Marte and for a winning bid of $1.90, I thought "why not?"

I was happy to see the players names were spelled correctly when it arrived.