Starting a Mini Rainbow (literally)

So I am in the process of starting a John Holdzkom 2015 Topps Chrome Autograph Rainbow and will now start the 2015 Topps Mini Rainbow.

Here's two of the harder cards to find

 1/1 Gold

2/5 Red

Together these two cards ran me $28.  The other cards missing are the black and base.  Shouldn't be too hard to grab those though.  I think that Holdzkom will be a key piece for the Pirates bullpen this year.

Chasing the Rainbow: John Holdzkom Edition

2014 was a memorable season for the Pirates as they set out to prove that their double decade long losing streak being broken in 2013 wasn't a fluke.  There was a breakout campaign by Josh Harrison as he came close to winning the batting title.  Andrew McCutchen had another monster year as he contended for MVP discussion again. 

One of the truly amazing stories though was career minor leaguer turned independent ball gamer to urban legend reliever, John Holdzkom. 

While watching him in his brief stint in the Pirates minor league system I grew a fascination to make Chuck Norris like jokes about how legendary he could become. 
Striking out 3 batters on 3 pitches. 
Batters don't swing the bats against Holdzkom in fear of embarrassing themselves

He instantly became one of my favorite pitchers on the mound.

When Topps announced that he would have an autograph in Series 1, I instantly knew that I had to add that to my collection.  When he was announced as one of the signers for Chrome, I kept my eyes open for any lower numbered cards, but never saw the Superfractor pop up for sale.  I wasn't going to overpay for the other parallels and patiently waited.  Waited longer.  And finally a lot of 5 became available for $20.

Behold the start of my John Holdzkom 2015 Topps Chrome Rainbow.

 Refractor (463/499) Blue (137/150)
Purple 206/250) Green (80/99)

Base

A John Holdzkom John Hancock

When the 2015 Topps Series 1 Checklist came out, there was one card in particular that I NEEDED to add to my collection.  After nearly 2 months I finally have it in hand.

Behold the majestic awesomeness of this cardboard...

When John Holdzkom made his major league debut last year, it was feel good story that made some headlines.  If you watched him dominate batters, it was a great story for the Pirates scouting department and fans were very excited about the former Indy Ball league prospect.

Holdzkom has always had a strong strikeout numbers, but didn't find his control until last year while a member of the Buccos minor leagues.

I got a chance to meet John Holdzkom at PiratesFest last December and he was kind enough to sign a baseball from a game he pitched in.

Holdzkom looks to begin 2015 in the minors but will likely be the first arm they call upon when needed.

The Legend of John Holdzkom

Many sports publishers released articles about John Holdzkom and his path to the big leagues in 2014.  For those of you that don't know Holdzkom was a 4th round pick of the New York Mets in 2006.  He's 6ft7 and throws hard.  After many minor league seasons he was eventually released and joined the Reds for a season in A ball as a 24 year old.  He would be released again and eventually joined several independent leagues before being scouted by the Pirates in 2014.  The Pirates signed him to a minor league deal and he tore through AA and AAA hitters striking out 37 batters in 26 innings while allowing only 15 hits sprinkled across those 26 innings.  The Pirates rewarded the tall righty with a September callup and he continued to dominate at the major league level as well.  He struck out 14 batters in 9 innings of work and surrendered only 4 hits.

The Pirates appear to have struck gold in the tall righty and I felt the need to add a gold rookie card of the Legendary John Holdzkom while the prices were still only .25 delivered.  Figured a quarter was a fair price to pay for someone being compared to John Lackey.

If you want to read more about Holdzkom check out the Baseball America article.