I hate to say this, but my favorite athlete of all time is getting close to that retirement age. Far too often we see players retire in their mid 30s. Very few play until they're in their late 30s or early 40s. Those that do are often legends and no doubt Hall of Famers.
Again I hate to say this, but I'm not sure there is enough on Cutch's resume to declare a no doubt Hall of Fame nod.
For every Lloyd Waner or Ralph Kiner in the Hall of Fame there are guys like Luis Gonzalez, Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy, Kenny Lofton, and Bernie Williams that never really came close to the Hall of Fame, but had really good career counting stats.
While Cutch certainly has had key moments in his career he never had that one career defining moment, that clutch postseason at bat or that spotlight on him. Sure he's had the spotlight on him in his early part of his Pittsburgh career, but taking a franchise with 2 decades of losing records into the postseason three years in a row was basically just noticed by the fans of Pittsburgh. I'm not sure the rest of the nation got a chance to see how special Andrew was to the franchise.
He was one of the best hitters of the past decade, but largely goes undervalued and under appreciated by the casual fans.
Not to me though (obviously).
Cutch was and is my favorite athlete ever. I got back into baseball in 2005 when I attended a Pirates baseball game in Philadelphia. It was the first time since the 1994 strike shortened season that I attended a baseball game.
I fell back in love with the game and decided that I would start up a baseball card collection again and researched the Pirates future. They had just drafted a teenager named Andrew McCutchen and I knew if he ever made it to the majors I would start collecting all of his cards. I had no idea how difficult that task would become in the parallel era of collecting we are currently experiencing in the hobby. I also had no idea how much the hobby had changed since 1994 when I gave up on collecting baseball cards. There were so many rare low numbered cards that I never knew existed.
I've been told that my player collection has helped inspire others to collect more heavily their favorite players and I'm honored that I have been able to do that.
Someone that inspires others can sometimes be called a luminary.
Andrew McCutchen helps inspire me.
Look closer at this 2021 Topps Luminaries autograph and you'll see why I am being inspired on a daily basis from my favorite baseball player.
When it comes to my collection I have tried to keep pace with Cutch by having an equal amount of 1/1s to the number of Home Runs hit by Cutch. They can be printing plates, Superfractors, color parallels (red for Big League Baseball, gold for Topps Now, etc), Logoman patches, sketch cards, etc etc etc...
This Luminaries card has a bold 243 on the front signifying that Cutch has hit 243 homeruns entering the 2021 season.
While this card isn't a 1/1 it does remind me of all the work I need to do to keep pace with Cutch.
Cutch had hit another 27 round trippers over the course of the 2021 season bringing his 270.
Looks like I've got some serious work to do during the off season as I will need to add 18 more 1/1 cards to the PC prior to Cutch's 2022 debut as I am at 252 one of ones in the collection.
I'll show off one of my more recent 1/1 pickups tomorrow.
Do you keep track of your player collections compared to any of that player's numbers?
Some examples could be
Having an Ozzie Smith autograph collection equal to his Jersey number (1)
Having 355 Greg Maddux base cards equal to his career Win Total
Having 73 Barry Bonds insert cards (equal to the historic 2001 season
Having 1,271 Tino Martinez cards equal to his career RBI total
