The Pittsburgh Version of Noah's Ark

When I saw this card pop up for sale, I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!!

It features Gerrit "The Cole Train", Pedro "El Toro" Alvarez, and Mark "The Shark" Melancon with 2 nice patches from their throwback Sunday alternate uniforms along with the Jolly Roger sleeve patch.

Cole and Alvarez have had a lot of jersey relics hit Topps products over the past few years, but even though Mark Melancon has been a 2x All-Star and is currently leading the league in saves he has been absent from high end releases.

It's because of the Shark that I had to add this card to my PC.

The Pirates are going to be in the most important game of the season tonight, a win or go home for baseball's team with the second best record. 

Let's hope to Raise the Jolly Roger after tonight!!!!!

Reverse Boxin' Museum Collection

With the complete debacle that was 2015 Topps Tribute being recalled, I quickly decided that I wasn't going to reverse box Tribute this year like I have done in the past.  Instead I chose to do another reverse box of 2014 National Treasures and 2015 Topps Museum.

National Treasures, despite not having a license, has been my favorite set to reverse box (as you can tell by all the posts I've made about it).  Topps Museum has been one of my favorite sets to chase high end cards on the secondary market year after year.

Museum had a large selection of Pirates to choose from in their product this year.  Due to overspending on some other high end items from the line, I went for the cheap route for these three cards you see below.  I managed to win all three for $38 delivered in separate auctions.

Everybody aboard the Cole Train...

This card had eluded me for nearly half a year before I was able to pull the trigger on one that was reasonably priced.  I can finally add it to the other 2 Pirates Notable Nicknames (Dave "The Cobra" Parker and Gregory "El Coffee" Polanco)

Gerrit Cole has truly turned himself into the ace of the staff and there ain't no stoppin the Cole Train this year. He will be on the mound today going for his 10th win of the year.

Auto XFractor...Read All About It!!!!

I couldn't think of a better headline, so I'm sorry for the stupid title.

Even more though I apologize for lack of words on a title that says "Read all about it"

Here's my latest Gerrit Cole.  It's from 2013 Topps Finest and features a nice swatch of yellow spring training jersey.

It cost me only $17

Major Error on this Cole Train card

Gerrit Cole is one of the league leaders in wins this year.  His performance on the mound has been nothing short of incredible.  Last year he won 11 games and in early May he will attempt to get win #5.  Earlier last month I snagged up this low print run (only 11 copies) card commemorating Cole for his 11 wins last year.  This particular card is numbered to 5.

On the back of the card is where I get frustrated with Quality Control at card companies.

Notice the 2014 states that Cole won 11 games in 2014.  Well how come for his career, he is only a 10 game winner?
Donruss used Cole's career numbers for ERA, WHIP, and total innigs pitched correctly, but the Wins ,Loss, Games/Games started, Hits, BBs, and K columns they used Cole's 2013 numbers.

C'mon....get your shit together