Wear That Green!!!

It's St Patrick's Day!

Today I'm going to just stick with showing off some green cards.

2020 Absolute Baseball Sweet Spot green stitches Auto /5

2018 Transcendent Vertical Frame green parallel Autograph /15

2017 Definitive Jumbo Patch green /15

2017 Triple Threads Wold Baseball Classic USA green parallel triple relic /18

2020 Triple Threads Jumbo jersey green parallel /18

2020 Triple Threads "Leadoff Dividends" green parallel triple relic /18

2020 Chronicles Spectra Green /75

2020 Topps Gallery green

2020 Triple Threads green /275

2019 Prizm Forest Green /5

2020 Topps Update Chrome green /45

2021 Topps Hanger 1986 green exclusive on top

Murphys, Bailey's, and Guiness

There are three drinks that come to mind when I think of Irish beer: Murphy's, Baileys, and Guiness.

Let's run through that list and see if there are any McCutchen references hidden in my collection.

When I think of Murphy and baseball, I immediately think of Dale Murphy.

Being a supercollector I have come across many other player collectors over the years.  While many have bigger collections of certain players, no other collector has more artistic talent than Daniel Jacob Horine and his popflypopshop 

Daniel is a big time Dale Murphy collector and recently released another limited Dale Murphy art print based on the reverse negative Upper Deck card.

I've talked about his work in the past and tried to get you all on board for his extremely affordable and limited prints back when I was doing my Cobra Kai week and discussing the Dave Parker print he did.  He currently has a fantastic Billy Ripken "F face" print available. 

He has also done a limited gold sticker print run (only 50) of the Andrew McCutchen 2 cups swag image.  You can revisit my post about this here.

I also think of Dropkick Murphy, a Boston band, that requested former Red Sox closer not to use their song, Shipping up to Boston, when Jonathan Papelbon left Boston to join the Philadelphia Phillies for the 2012 season. 

In 4 career plate appearances, Cutch went 0 for 3 with a walk versus Papelbon.

I don't have any Cutch related items, but Papelbon's 2014 Bowman card is taken from a game that he got Andrew McCutchen to pop out to the catcher and eventually recorded the save when he got Pedro Alvarez to strike out looking.

No for the best option of the Irish drinks: Baileys

The 2009 AL Rookie of Year, Andrew Bailey faced Andrew McCutchen only one time in his career and Cutch went 0 for 1.

Homer Bailey

Because of the rivalry between the Reds and Pirates, Cutch has faced Homer Bailey more than just a small sample size.  

Bailey does have the rare feat of throwing a no hitter against the Pirates.  It occurred on September 28th, 2012.  The only base runner that was Bailey's doing was a walk to Andrew McCutchen.

In 54 at bats, Cutch managed to get 16 hits while also piling on 11 walks.  While not getting many extra base hits, Cutch was still able to get on base at a .424 clip versus the Christian Bale doppelganger. 

While on base, Cutch also swiped four bags. 

Guiness...

Well I got nothing, but think if there was a category for Guiness record for most Andrew McCutchen items, I might be in the discussion for holding that record.

Playing In a Beer League

Continuing the theme of drinking and St Patrick's Day is a look at the only ballpark currently named after an alcoholic drink. 

I am talking about Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The ballpark is named after the Anheuser-Busch Brewing company from St. Louis Missouri, distributor of such famous brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck's.  Anheiser-Busch also helps to distribute brands like Landshark, Shocktop, and Michelob Ultra.

The Pirates and Cardinals had some pretty memorable games between 2012 to 2015 when both teams were competitive, battling for the NL Central title. Oddly enough the largest attendance for a baseball game played at Busch Stadium was on Mother's Day 2019 when the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates came to town. 

At the forefront of those competitive teams was a perennial MVP candidate, Andrew McCutchen.  

In 66 Games Started at Busch Stadium, Cutch has a .275/.353/.408 triple slash line with 6 HR and 28 RBI over 262 at bats.

The cards pictured above are both short prints from 2013 Topps and 2013 Topps Chrome respectively. 

Here is the original image used for this card, found on getty images

There are also images that Panini used for this attempted catch that were part of Panini's Elements insert set.

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Cutch also played at another ballpark named after an alcoholic beverage, Miller Park.  However, Miller Park in Milwaukee is now called American Family Insurace Field

In 73 games started and one pinch hit appearance, Cutch had a .296/.358/.589 triple slash line good for a .948OPS.  Cutch hit his 100th career Home Run at Miller Park and has collected 22HR over his career thus far.

This video here will show Cutch's mammoth 100th career HR (2:58 mark) along with some really awesome moments of Cutch during his Pirates career.  I encourage you to watch it.

You can revisit my post about this image here, but keep in mind that post was written on 9/11 so there are some September 11th memories on that post.

I have also shown off a few other cards of Cutch over the years that the originally photography was shot at Miller Park.

The image above was used for the 2016 Topps Heritage (and it's many parallels).  Below you will see the black refractor /67 copies.

There is a few other images of Cutch appearing at Miller Park from the 2015 season.

This image was used for Cutch's 2016 Gypsy Queen photo variant card, which you can see below.

The best Pirates alternative road uniforms of the past ten years wwre captured at Miller Park after Cutch had a strikeout.

It is the throwback jersey variation in 2017 Topps Heritage.

If you were to drink a beer, would you choose a Miller or Busch product? 

Happy St Patrick's Day Week Celebration

Since yesterday's long and thought provoked post got very little views and comments, I'll just go with more pictures, less words to keep the Irish St Patrick's theme moving forward.

After all a picture is worth a thousand words?

Kevin-John is a famed artist for Topps and Disney.  He has also done some baseball sketches in Museum Collection.

You can visit his site by going to Kevin-john.com

Here they are side by side with the matching green backgrounds.

Oh yeah, more pictures...

Fightin' With The Irish

Continuing an Irish theme week's worth of posts I am looking at the true Irish playing in the MLB debut.

To the best of my knowledge there is only one active player in MLB that was born in Ireland and that is PJ Conlon who has appeared in only 3 games for the New York Mets.  However, there are plenty of players who played for Notre Dame's Fighting Irish.

A few of them have been teammates of Cutch over the years and a few of them have faced Cutch on the ballfield over the years and like today's examples, a few have been both an enemy and a teammate.

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Let's begin with a famous pitcher from Notre Dame, Jeff Samardzija aka The Shark

Wait, that's a football player.  Yup, in case you didn't already know Jeff Samardzija was a two sport athlete while playing for Notre Dame.  He excelled on the mound as a pitcher and on the football field as a Wide Receiver.  

Jeff was a standout receiver for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish playing in all four years of his college career (2003-2006).  He set a campus record by recording a Touchdown reception in 8 consecutive games.  He finished as the all time leader in reception yards with 2,593.  In addition to being part of All American Teams for his performance on the Gridiron, the Shark was also dominating on the diamond.  He had the second best Big East ERA (2.95) and second lowest opponents batting average (.209) before being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 5th Round of the 2006 Draft.  Once drafted in the MLB Draft he pulled out of the NFL Draft, thus ending any chance of another potential two sport professional athlete.

He faced Andrew McCutchen a lot over his career as a division rival and Cutch owned him with a .375/.457/.550 triple slash line, good for a 1.007 OPS.

Jeff became an All Star in 2014 and was traded to the Oakland Athletics moments before the 2014 All Star Game.

Cutch and Shark later became teammates for three quarters of a season in San Francisco in 2018.

I have an Andrew McCutchen Baseball America Cover coming to me (along with a few other Cutch on the cover purchases) and as you can see the cover also mentions Jeff Samardzija giving up his football career to pursue a Baseball career.

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Next up is the Ax-Man, John Axford.

John Axford was born in Ontario and got a scholarship to attend Notre Dame where he pitched for 3 seasons, going 14-6.  He had to have Tommy John surgery during his junior year, but returned for his senior season getting a bachelor's degree in film and theatre.  

He was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the 42nd round of 2005, but opted to return to college using his one year of athletic eligibility to catch attention of other teams.

Following 2006 the New York Yankees signed him to a minor league deal where he competed in the Yankees farm system for 2007.  He would work the off season as a telephone sales agent before catching the attention of the Milwaukee  Brewers who signed him to a minor league deal.  

After excelling in the minors he was called up in 2009 to be a member of the Brewers bullpen where he would be used in more high leverage situations over the next season.  In 2010, the Brewers closer (and then All Time Saves leader) Trevor Hoffman blew two games in a row to the worse team in baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates and John Axford was moved to be the team's closer for the remaining portion of the year.  He finished the season converting 24 of 27 save attempts and going 8-2 with 76 strikeouts in 58 innings. 

In 2011 Axford took the closer role and turned it into him getting the Rolaids Relief Pitcher of Year award.  

He would bounce around from team to team begining in 2013, playing with 7 teams in 6 years including stays in Colorado, St. Louis, Oakland Los Angeles, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.

Andrew McCutchen became teammates with Axford in 2014 when the Pirates claimed Axford off waivers to strengthen their bullpen.  

He received a Pirates card in 2015 Topps Series 1.

Over the course of their careers, Axford had faced McCutchen over 15 plate appearances.  McCutchen has a .400/.533/1.000 triple slash line vs the former Notre Dame Alumni.  Among his four hits are 2 Home Runs, which were turned into trading cards in 2016 as part of the Honus Bonus Program Career Milestone set.  This set takes some of the star players and makes 1/1s for the players based on Home Runs, Wins, and several other milestones.  

I have almost 10 of these 1/1s in my collection including this one which recognizes Cutch's 80th Career HR, a solo shot off John Axford.

I still need to get a ticket stub for this game to help with my Cutch HR Ticket Stub collection.

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Another player who once called McCutchen a rival, but most recently called him a teammate is David Phelps. 

Phelps had a strong commitment to attend Notre Dame and went on to pitch four seasons for the Fighting Irish.  

He was drafted in the 14th round of the 2008 draft by the New York Yankees and was part of a trade that got Garrett Jones to play for the Yankees when Phelps was shipped off to Miami.  

Phelps would go on to pitch for the Blue Jays, Cubs, Brewers, and eventually Phillies on the 2 years that followed.  

In 10 at bats, Cutch went 1 for 10 versus Phelps with 3 strikeouts and 1 walk. 

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To close things out is the pitcher who had a perfect season (2008) of being a closer, but is also gave up the first Walk-off Homerun in Andrew McCutchen's career back in 2009. 

Brad Lidge aka Lights Out

Brad went to Notre Dame and was the pitcher of the year when he struck out 93 batters in 80 innings.  This got him the attention of the Houston Astros who drafted him in the 1998 draft. 

He was the closer for the 2005 NL Pennant Winners Houston Astros and later the 2008 World Series Champions Philadelphia Phillies.  He was a two time All Star (2005 and 2008). 

Cutch only faced Brad Lidge twice in his career.  One time Brad struck him out, the other time McCutchen got the best of Lidge.  You can view the epic walkoff on YouTube here.

It's been rumored that moments before the game he was talking to teammates that if he ever hit a walk off homer he would do an Air Jordan slam dunk impersonation.  

I got Topps artist Darrin Pepe to draw a sketch card for me and he put the celebration from Cutch's 1st Walk Off HR on it.

Who are some of your favorite Notre Dame alumni? (Any sport) Mine is Jerome Bettis