Black is the New Black: Nick Kingham Heritage

For the second time this week, I'm showing off a Topps Heritage Minors Black Parallel card that literally ran me just a few pennies...well in this case 99 to be exact.  The above Nick Kingham 2014 Topps Heritage Minors black parallel numbered 102/105 ran me 99 cents delivered and is my most recent addition of the future major leaguer.  Many people were thinking that Kingham might receive an early cup of coffee last year due to top pitching prospect Jameson Taillon suffering from Tommy John surgery and many of the Pirates rotation having multiple stints on the DL.  Fortunately Jeff Locke and Vance Worley helped solidify the rotation lead by Edinson Volquez over the course of the season.  Yup, you just read that all correctly...that's how the Pirates 2014 season went.

I have high hopes for Kingham to make an impact at the major leagues, but don't see him much more than an innings eater with mid to high 3s ERA.  Basically I see him as a Bronson Arroyo type without the crazy delivery.  When put that into the back end of a rotation, the Pirates rotation plans look pretty good for 2016 and beyond.

At one time I considered super collecting Nick's cards especially since I have his superfractor, but that mustache was just too terrible to ever bear witness on a baseball card consistently.

Throwback Thursday: 800th Post Mazeroski Sketch & AUTO!!!!

For my 800th post, I wanted it to be something impressive!!!!
Something that made people say "Woah that's cool"

A 1 of 1 sketch card and autograph of Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski, ought to do the trick.  I have been keeping my eyes on these Leaf Masterworks sketch cards for a long time.

As some of you may know, I used to collect comic books and spent a lot of weekends attending the comic book convention circuit in the summers.  While attending the events I would often spend a lot of time and money chatting up the artists to get sketches of my favorite characters.

When I got back into the sports card collector market, I still had a fixation on sketch cards as you can tell by all the Chris Henderson sketches I've gotten in the past year.

This great image of a happy Maz (even though logoless) complete with a sticker auto of the Hall of Fame secondbaseman and 8 time gold glove winner was just too beautiful of a card to not add to my permanent collection in the Treasure Room.

Thank you to everyone that reads my blog over the past 800 posts.  It's been fun interacting with you all.

Chasing Rainbows: Russell Martin Orange Chrome Refractor

Last month I showed off my Pink Refractor of Russ numbered /5.  It marked my 6th different parallel of this card I had shown off.

I had already shown off a few of the rainbow parallels in the past dating back to last year.

black numbered/100
camo numbered 10/15

gold numbered 34/50

red numbered 12/25 and sepia numbered 45/75

Today I'm showing off my 7th parallel of the recent free agent backstop.

It's the un numbered orange prallel.  I'm going to keep trying to add these to my collection as long as they come up.  This one ran me just $1.25 delivered.  

Tony Tuesday: Another Penny Deal

Last Tuesday, I showed off a gold parallel Topps Pro Debut of Tony Sanchez numbered to 50 I won for only a penny.  Today it's another penny deal of the former first rounder.

2011 Topps Heritage Black Parallel 2/62

Despite what happens to Russell Martin in the offseason, it is almost certain that Tony Sanchez will play some kind of role in the Pirates for the 2015 season whether it's backup catcher, right handed platoon partner at 1B, a pinch hitter, etc.  I still have high hopes for Tony with the Pirates, but the window of opportunity for him to prove himself at the position is narrowing with each passing season.

As for Martin, it's reported that he's looking for a 5 year/$75 million contract.  I appreciate your time in Pittsburgh Russ, but I hope you have a great career.  It's clear the Pirates won't be AND SHOULDN'T be paying that kind of contract.

McCutchen Monday: Ginter Insert!!!!!

I recently grabbed 42 new Andrew McCutchen cards I needed from COMC and now I have almost enough ammo for the next year's worth of McCutchen Mondays.

This 2014 Allen & Ginter insert of Cutch cost me a lowly price of just under three quarters.
Not all McCutchen Mondays will be quick during the offseason, but expect a lot of insert cards and parallels over the next few months until we get to Spring Training.

Football Sunday: Le'veon Bell Book with On Card Auto and patches!!!!

The Steelers are rolling lately with Big Ben leading the charge.  Ben is the first QB in NFL history to throw back to back 6 TD games.  Think about that for a second...

2013 Topps Five Star Booklet 8/15

One of the Steelers best offensive weapons this year is running back Le'veon Bell.  Bell is a dual threat to both run and receive the football.  So far this season, Bell has 1 rushing touchdown and 2 receiving touchdowns.  He's already got 711 rushing yards and 433 receiving yards.  In recent weeks, Bell has been used more as a receiver while on the field and you've seen the results of the Steelers offense exploding because of the dual threat.

The above 2013 Topps Five Star Booklet is the nicest football card I own.  Bell is my current favorite player, just slightly above Antonio Brown, and I really wanted to get 1 nice card of him.  I've decided that for my Steelers and Penguins collections that I would go with the less is more way of collecting.  Less quantity, but better quality.  The above Bell card is what can be expected going forward for my Steelers collection.

The Steelers got the Jets today and I'm hoping to score some tickets to go to the game.  If not, it's looking like another day at the pub cheering on the black n yellow.

Seeing Red: Another penny deal of a silver slugger

It's been over a month since I showed a Seeing Red segment at the PTR and that's because of my Save Second Base charity event which raised almost $80.  Thank you to all who participated.  It was a lot of fun and helped a good cause.  I will be randomizing some cards off over the next few weeks or so to those that actively participated.

Earlier in the week I showed off a Tony Sanchez 2011 Topps Pro Debut Gold /50 that I won for a penny.  Today I'm going to show off another card that I won from the same seller for a penny also.

2011 Topps Chrome Red Parallel 11/25

For a penny, you can't really beat that price, but if you need further convincing that it was money well spent...here you go

Neil Walker won his first Silver Slugger award at 2B this year by leading all National League 2B in Homeruns (23) and On Base Percentage (.342).  

What's funny about Walker's 2014 season is that it got overlooked in Pittsburgh because their lineup had 4 players with higher wRC+ (Andrew McCutchen, Russell Martin, Starling Marte, and Josh Harrison).  That just shows how good the Pirates lineup was in 2014, if only their pitching hadn't struggled so much early in the season they could have had a good shot at winning the division.