McCutchen Mailday #27 & 28: 2015 Topps Is Here!!!

I'm going to be like Quentin Tarantino and go to the future and tell you the present before I tell you the past.  Did you follow that McFly?

2015 Topps has been out for a few weeks now and I managed to join a jumbo case group break for $20.  I didn't get any major hits, but did get a few parallels (including a rainbow foil Charlie Morton WOOT WOOT!!!).  I'll show them off in April most likely. Why not sooner you ask? Well because March is Going Green!

Back to the subject of this post...on the Cutch front all I got was the base of card number 127 along with the Inspired Play with Willie Stargell.

Cutch also appears on card number 271 for the Pittsburgh Pirates team card.

I don't consider that to be a Cutch card though because his name isn't on the front of the card.  Gregory Polanco and Josh Harrison join Cutch in the outfield celebrating a Buccos Win.

My Go Green Event starts tomorrow in which I will showcase only green, emerald, and lime cards leading up to St Patty's Day.  I hope you all are ready to "Go Green" in March.  Obviously I'm very far ahead of my goal to add 100 new Cutch cards to the collection since I have 28 new Cutches in my collection through the first two months (although only 18 have technically been shown off prior to this post).

The Final Card to the Reverse Box

I had committed $279 towards my 2014 National Treasures Reverse Box approaching my final card.  Each box of National Treasures features 8 cards for $425 with the guarantee of 4 autographs and 1 booklet.

I set out to do something incredible by not only adding some of the Pirates young future, but also remembering the history of the Bucs with Hall of Famers while keeping every card to less than 50 copies.

My latest on card addition is of future ace Gerrit Cole.  It's my 29th unique autograph of the former UCLA #1 overall pick.  It's my second Cole auto used in the reverse box so I kind of feel like I cheated a little, but my rules were simple.
1)Keep the box under $425 while following the standard National Treasures ratio
2)Every card must be a member of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club
3)Every card must be under 50 copies

Using those rules, I fully complied with what I set out to do and kept under budget by $131.

I will now use my $131 savings to see what else I can come up with.

EVERYTHING I HAVE ACQUIRED SO FAR CAN BE SEEN BELOW

Roberto Clemente bat relic 6/25

Willie Stargell Cut AUTO and jumbo bat booklet 7/10

Gerrit Cole on card AUTO and jumbo jersey 32/49

Jameson Taillon Jersey Patch 2/25

Gregory Polanco Colossal Prime Jersey Patch 14/25

Bill Mazeroski On Card Autograph Hall of Fame 2/10

Paul Waner Diamond 12/20

Listen to this dog, it's mad!!!!

Bill "Mad Dog" Madlock was an incredible ballplayer in the 70s and  80s.  He was a member of the 1979 World Series Champion Pittsburgh Pirates, but also said one of the dumbest things ever.

"Two grand slams in a week - man, that's seven or eight ribbies right there."

Topps produced a line of relic cards in their Bazooka series in 2004 and several Pirates have cards in the set.  I showed off the Willie Stargell 3 years ago which you can see here.  I grabbed the foiled version you see above numbered 19/25 for $12.  It's my 8th unique bat relic of the 4 time Batting Title champion.

McCutchen Mailday #18: 2014 Finest Competitors Red Numbered /10

The latest Cutch to the collection in my pursuit of 100 new Cutch cards in 2015 is a very low numbered red parallel from 2014 Topps Finest.

The Finest Competitors were one of the rarer of the inserts in Topps Finest with the red parallel being the rarest (only 10 copies exist) besides the Superfractor.  I really liked the design of the card and knew that I wanted to add it to my collection so I got caught up in a bidding war which rendered me a loss of $42 in my wallet.

The back of the card shows his most recent year's stats along with career totals which is a normal Topps standard. It also goes into detail about how good Cutch has been over the past 2 seasons (2012 and 2013).  If it were to discuss his 2014 totals, I would expect the numbers to be even better.

I may chase the rainbow of this card since their are several color parallels of it and I like the 1997 throwback design.

Tony Tuesday: I struck gold!!!

For under $2 I was able to win a low numbered gold parallel of Tony's 2014 chrome update card.

Couldn't be happier with this purchase.  I just don't know where Tony fits into the Pirates plans for the 2015 season.  With Spring Training starting up, maybe we will get some answers soon.

Remembering Oscar Taveras

I don't know why it has taken me so long to post this dual autograph of two of the NL's top outfield prospects heading into the 2014 season, but thought with Spring Training just around the corner it was now appropriate.  St. Louis announced last week that they plan to wear a number patch on their uniform in 2015 to honor the late Oscar Taveras.  Heading into Spring Training last year, both Taveras and Polanco looked like they would be competing against one another not only for top NL outfield prospect, but potential Rookie of the Year candidates.  Add in that they are division rivals and nearly the same skill set and age and it seemed like these young potential superstars could be forever linked to one another.

Sadly in late October the link between Taveras and Polanco was broken when Oscar passed away from a car accident resulting from him being 5 times the legal alcohol limit while driving.  I'm torn on if honoring Taveras is the right thing to do.  His untimely death appears to be self induced and because of that he took the life of his teenage girlfriend as well.  

Polanco has been given the right field job when the Pirates traded away Travis Snider in the offseason.  I suspect that Gregory will be a good rightfielder, but I truly think that Andrew Lambo is going to be the breakout star for the Pirates in 2015.  

The dual autograph represents my only Oscar Taveras autograph in my collection and it was purchased the day of his passing with a best offer in the $50 range.  I wasn't a big fan of Topps Supreme, but using these two subjects on the card together was a good idea by Topps.  National Treasures has also since linked these two players together for their dual jumbo patch booklets.

I recently grabbed another card featuring both players at a local mall card show.  I snagged it for $2 which I thought was a pretty good deal considering how much these things go for online.

From 2014 Bowman Chrome is a Dual-ing Die Cuts.

I got a (spring) Fever and the only cure is....

BUY MORE MCCUTCHENS!!!!
I plan to add many more over the coming months as I approach my Quest for 100 new Cutch cards to the collection.

This 2014 Spring Fever ran me $1 last year, but I've been waiting several months to show it off because quite simply I needed to get in the spring mindset.

Welcome Back Baseball!!!! I've missed you...