4-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
When I saw Andrew McCutchen swing at that hanging breaking ball and toss his bat aside, it looked awfully familiar. I mean we’ve all seen him do this hundreds of times, and in many ways, he’s done it under the radar.
Part of that is expressly because Andrew chose to spend most of his career here in Pittsburgh, a team that hasn’t garnered much MLB attention, even when they managed to build something that brought them to the playoffs, there was always going to be an air of circus sideshow to the Pirates being at the top of the league, and by the time the national MLB media finally realized what was going on and who was winning MVP on the way there, Andrew’s contract extension here in Pittsburgh was nearing it’s expiration date.
Let’s key in on that first part….Andrew Chose.
He chose to take less than he could have gotten on the open market and stay here in Pittsburgh to see through what he himself had helped build. He’d become a Pittsburgher in every way, loved the city, lived in the city, or near it anyway, married a girl from the city, and damnit, he was going to win, right here, in HIS city.
Now, I’m only going to speak for myself here, but I had never in my baseball life seen a star player come along and choose to overlook all the dumb moves, all the cheapness, the salary dumps, the everything and make a conscious decision to stay here.
I watched my favorite teams from the late 80’s and early 90’s sold off or allowed to walk away one by one. I saw them laugh at the idea of signing with the Pirates with all the new Cable TV money floating around the league. I watched every player I held dear leave and finish their career somewhere else.
Oh there was Jason Kendall, but they never won anything that mattered and while a very good player, he wasn’t MLB elite.
Suddenly, here’s this guy who was the first cement block laid in the foundation of this team that would go on to return this franchise to the playoffs, and being talked about in the upper echelon on MLB players and he WANTS to stay?
When that extension was signed in 2012, I can’t tell you how shocked I was.
I’ve always loved baseball, always watched, but I had given up hope that this team would ever extend a star. I never saw it happening. I hoped they’d find a way to win, build a team and have it work out, but by 2012, I felt they had until 2014 to get it done, because surely Andrew McCutchen would be gone the next year.
Instead, he bet on himself, and this team, this city and signed a team friendly deal to extend 3 years beyond his arbitration years.
Then the Magic came.
You know what happened after that. They climbed the mountain and came up short. Wound up trading Cutch for a current core player Bryan Reynolds and Kyle Crick.
It hurt, both us and him. I figured the story was over, we’d hear from him one day at alumni stuff. We’d cheer when he came back. We’d still see him around in the off season.
Instead Andrew shocked me again. The same man who allowed the last winning team to come up short and Cutch teamed up to have him return and play out his career here.
It’s led to milestone after milestone being reached. None bigger than this 300 homerun mark.
I don’t know if Andrew will make it long enough to see this team climb that mountain again, maybe we’re seeing that first few gravity defying steps taking place right now, but I do know, this player, this man CHOSE us.
He chose to make us his city, his famalee, his home, his team and his fans. This stuff matters to him, and doing things for you matters to him too.
He said something today after the game that struck me, and I think illustrates a lot about who Andrew McCutchen is. When asked about the fans in Philly where he played for 3 seasons, and I’ll paraphrase here, essentially he’ll always love them because he was making almost 20 million dollars and not producing, and they stood by him.
He’s so Pittsburgh, every time he positively spoke about Philly he quickly referenced how much more whatever emotion he was discussing was for Pittsburgh up to and including being giddy he hit that baseball to the only two Pirates fans sitting in that section.
We’ve been lucky in Pittsburgh, we’ve had some incredible athletes come through this city, and become even better citizens. I’ll never have Roberto, or Willie, or Dave Parker just for me. I have their legacy, and I love the history of this game, but Andrew is the single greatest Pittsburgh Pirates player in my lifetime as a fan.
Yeah, I’ve loved watching him, but to know he’s loved US watching him here just as much is a big part of what makes Andrew such a special player.
Congrats on 300 Cutch, I’m sure whatever you do next will amaze me just as much as the rest of your incredible career.
See ya dahn at Market District n’at!
Steel City Pirates 
You are overblowing McCutchen as an elite player. McCutchen was elite. However, he has not had one of those seasons since the summer of 2015. That is 9 years ago.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He’s not elite anymore. But he’s had an elite career. Both are true. Both are my opinion.
LikeLike