A New Game In Town

I doubt kids across the globe will be having tournaments for these any time soon like they do for Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic the Gathering, but for us card collectors this gives us a unique oddball set to track down and chase.

Produced by Honus Bonus Partners, this game card seems to be a cardboard version of fantasy baseball.  More information about the release can be seen here.

The cards feature a simple design with black and white player photos despite colored backgrounds.  It makes a nice contrast and even without the team logos the card looks legit.  I will probably seek out a few other players to add to my collection.

The backs of the cards feature Cutch's 2016 stats along with a scratch off code to use Cutch on your fantasy team.

Any player collectors going to try and add these to your PC?

PWE from the Lost Collector

AJ from the Lost Collector sent me an email with a picture of a 2017 retro McCutchen base card, wondering if I already had it.  I told him that I had a few of the parallels, but not the base.

A few days later I received this along with a 2017 Donruss Starling Marte.

This card goes nicely with my other parallels

From left to right
Season Statline (HRs)/24, Aqueous Test Back /49,Gold Press Proof /99
Silver border/199, Career Statline(OBP) /381, Pink Back

Thank you so much for contributing to the Cutch PC, AJ.  I have several packages going out this week and yours is one of them.

Diamond In The Rough

I was recently asked by my girlfriend what my favorite Disney movie.  It was an easy no thought answer.

Aladdin.

The story of a poor boy falling in love with a princess to become a prince, having a talking monkey for a best friend, and a magical carpet as your ride of choice?  Sign me up!

I bring this story up because today's card ties in perfectly with Aladdin.

The Diamond in the Rough

It's numbered 1/1 and features an actual diamond in the card.
While it is not technically an Andrew McCutchen, it does feature Cutch, Ryan Doumit, and Garrett Jones.

The back of the card features the Pirates team leaders of the 2010 season.  A look at their leaders will quickly show why they were granted the 1st overall pick in 2011.

The Pirates best pitcher was Paul Maholm who won 9 games, had an ERA of 5.10 and barely struck out over 100 batters.

An Unknown Error

The Pirates 2017 season began yesterday and sadly despite looking like a great pitching duel was about to occur at Fenway Park, the official score keepers saw things differently.

Gerrit Cole was cruising through the first four innings facing the minimum.

With two outs in the fifth inning, Jackie Bradley hit a ball to right field that should have been just a double but Cutch misplayed it and it became a triple.  That was followed by the Kung Fu Panda Pablo Sandoval hitting an infield "single."  Jordy didn't make a perfect throw and it was a difficult play, but well I digress.  Next up came a bunt against the shift that Cole couldn't quite handle cause he was rushing to make the throw.  His facial expressions clearly showed that he was getting frustrated with the defensive alignment and the shifts were causing him to have to throw extra pitches and his time on the mound would be shortened for his first Opening Day start.  A Pedroia single and Benintendi HomeRun later and the game was 5-0 thanks to some errors (physical and mental) that weren't accounted for.

Game 1 of 162 is in the books.
The Pirates are 1 games out of first.
They have the same record as the Cubs.

Today's card is an older card from 2013 with roots in the Red Sox and no one even knew it.

The front of the card features Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen as Franchise Forerunners.

The back of the card was supposed to discuss what Gerrit Cole was supposed to mean to the Pirates and how Andrew McCutchen had changed the Pirates into a winning team again after 20 straight losing seasons.

Instead it discussed Pedro Martinez and Allen Webster, who was a highly regarded prospect for the Red Sox at the time.

WEBSTER UPDATE: After being traded to the Diamondbacks he was released and picked up by the Pirates for 21 days during the 2015 offseason.  He is currently signed to a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers.

#capson your heart variant

The 2017 Topps Opening Day release had one of the best insert sets in a long time when they had the game's elite players shown during the National Anthem.

Of course I had to add the Andrew McCutchen to my collection.  

I love the image of Cutch and think this is a great insert set.  I gave 3 problems with the inserts though.

1)They don't feature the player's name on front, only the team

2)They are extremely rare for a budget set, often falling one per case.

3)The backs of the cards (excluding the numbering) have the same writeup and stats as the regular Topps/Opening Day release.  

The third issue I have might be the most frustrating for me.  You created a great looking set on the front and numbered them differently to distinguish that they are NOT photo variants.  Wouldn't it have been cooler if Topps did some research on the player about pregame rituals or if he had anybody he pays tribute to while the National Anthem is being sung.  Cutch's card back could have talked about his mom singing the National Anthem before the 2013 "Blackout" Wild Card Game and how he went 2 for 3 in the game.  That would have been much better than just a standard "reprint the same back" approach. 

Opening Day!!! #capson (or off)

Today is one of my favorite days of the year.

OPENING DAY!!!

The Pirates season won't begin until tomorrow when they face one of the League's bests teams, the Boston Red Sox.  Many early predictions for the 2017 season have the Red Sox as the American League Pennant Winners.  It won't be easy for the Pirates to start their season as they'll be facing last year's AL Cy Young Winner Rick Porcello and newly acquired Chris Sale to start the season.

To celebrate the start of the 2017 Season, I wanted to show off my Photo Variant from 2017 Opening Day.  MLB is doing a major marketing push for the #capson on Social Media today.
Cutch must not have gotten the memo.

I am looking for the base and foil of the 2017 Opening Day series.  If you have them, hit me up for a trade.

Gypsy Queen Parallels

Over the years Gypsy Queen has produced framed border parallels for the series.  These are my favorite parallels of all Topps releases to chase.  They are beautiful and bring about a sense of class that other Topps products don't have.  While most chrome parallels seem forced and look more of an after thought gimmick parallel, Gypsy Queen parallels look like they were part of the set's design.  The blue, white, green, silver, parallels all look like they could be their own release without feeling like a forced new product.

Here's my parallels by year starting with the debut of Gypsy Queen

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

In case you missed it yesterday I also have the 1/1 Black from 2016 and 1/1 Silver from 2013.  You can see them by clicking here.

What color parallel of Gypsy Queen is your favorite over the years?