What Andrew McCutchen Means to Us
Story by Yinzer Crazy Co-Founder Mike Nicastro. Follow him on Twitter @MikedUpSports1
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure the news that Andrew McCutchen is returning to Pittsburgh has reached your mailbox. When considering how to best sum up my emotions surrounding this news, I wanted to write a piece on what McCutchen meant to me. But this is actually for all of us. If you're not a fan of the Pirates-McCutchen reunion, I’d advise you stop reading now.
If you’re around my age (early 30’s), you unfortunately witnessed the Pirates’ futile years. And not just a few losing seasons. 20 of them. From 1993 to 2012, quite literally our entire childhood to formative teenage years.
Growing up playing baseball our coaches would always utter the same phrase if we made an egregious error or swung at a bad pitch;
“you’re playing like the Pirates!” - and they were right. Although some of us were smitten by Brian Giles, Jason Bay, and the Jason Kendall’s of the world, I didn’t own any of their jerseys. No one in my high school did. Heck, it’d be tough to find one in the city of Pittsburgh. The Pirates were the laughing stock of Major League Baseball.
And then came Andrew McCutchen.
Selected with the 11th pick in 2005, McCutchen was a skinny kid from a small town in Florida. I’m certain that he was passed off by older Pirates’ fans as
“just another player who would ultimately be traded for prospects.” Little did we know he would change the game of baseball for my generation, entirely.
Cutch debuted with the Pirates in 2009. He recorded a hit in his very first game, and it didn’t take long to see the Bucs had something special with number 22. However, he too endured 4 losing seasons. But in 2012, the Pirates provided a glimmer of hope and finished 79-83. That season, McCutchen batted .327, smacked 31 dingers, and drove in 96 runs. He finished 3rd in National League MVP voting. They were getting closer. And most importantly, we were growing closer to this team and organization.
In 2013, the top popped off. Cutch and the Pirates won 94 games, and Andrew went on to secure the MVP award he should have won the prior season. The Bucs beat the Reds in arguably the greatest sporting event ever to be played in Pittsburgh, the 2013 wild card clash.
These stats are relevant to the story, but they aren’t the picture I wanted to paint.
The picture I want to paint is this:
Put that in the louvre. I’ll never forget this moment when McCutchen handed his gloves to a few fans in San Diego after a win against the Padres. First of all, before McCutchen, what kids in San Diego would buy front row tickets wearing Pirates’ jerseys to watch this baseball team? Digest that thought for a moment.
Cutch wasn’t just a baseball player. He made the game fun. He wasn’t buttoned up. He wasn’t influenced by classic “baseball etiquette.” He was freaking cool as hell. He was on the cover of video games. He pimped home runs (his words.) He interacted with fans. We didn’t care about his WAR. Or his exit velocity. We were infatuated with the way he played baseball.
I couldn’t tell you the stats without first researching those in the prior paragraphs. But I could tell you that his mom belted out the National Anthem at the aforementioned greatest game ever played in the Burgh. I didn’t need to tell you how many doubles he hit. I remember most how many “Zoltan” signals, the Pirates rallying cry derived from the movie “Dude Where’s My Car,” they flashed each time they recorded an extra base hit.
During those years, when kids smashed a double in baseball, coaches would now say “you look like McCutchen out there.”
What a turn of events.
As McCutchen returns to the Steel City for his swan song, I’ve seen a million takes of you know exactly what. “Who cares, the Pirates aren’t going to win anyways.” And “he’s a shell of himself, why should we be happy about signing a 36-year old outfielder?”
They are mostly missing the point. Cutch is here to mentor the young guys, who someday hope to be the next Cutch. The players like Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Oneil Cruz, who could inspire a generation of Pirates fans, just like Andrew did for us.
He’ll most likely teach them how to interact with fans. And how to
have fun.
I’m not sure if it will ultimately breed winning baseball, in terms of postseason appearances, or world series wins. But it will make the same kids that we once were, fall in love with the game. And at the end of the day, that is winning in my book.
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