Let's hop in that Delorean and travel back to August 1st, 2009
The Pittsburgh Pirates hadn't had a winning season record since 1992.
They were hosting the Washington Nationals, who hadn't had a winning season since they left Montreal when they were formally called the Expos.
The Pirates best player was rookie Andrew McCutchen, who the Pirates drafted in 2005 with the 11th overall selection.
The Nationals best player was Ryan Zimmerman, who the Nationals used their first ever franchise selection with the 4th overall selection in the 2005 draft.
Yes the 2005 draft was loaded with future Face of the Franchise players!
The Pirates entered the game 44-58. This made them the worst team in the very mediocre NL Central. The Cardinals lead the division with 52 wins entering the day.
The Nationals entered the game at 32-71, nearly 40 games under .500 and the worse team in baseball.
PNC Park packed in 26,855 fans to support the last place Pittsburgh Pirates, excited for the young Pirates that were playing well after the team was gutted at the trade deadline just the day before.
What the fans got to witness was the very first Pirates rookie to home three times in a single game.
Andrew McCutchen, in less than 50 games had made Pirates history by homering three times in a game versus the Washington Nationals.
Over the years, there have been a few baseball cards recognizing Cutch's rookie year performance including the oversized 2010 Allen & Ginter cabinet card.
2017 Honus Bonus Partners made a lot of 1/1 cards similar to what Topps Moments & Milestones did. It took a few players are recognized their home run logs with a 1/1 for each homer. Above is a card recognizing Cutch's 5th career homerun and his 2nd of the day.
The backs all featured the same backs.
The 2021 Topps Silver Packs feature a retro 1986 design and all have the mojo refractor look
The back of this card notes Cutch's first three Home Run game.
The Pirates are looking for a sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies today. I would love to see the Phillies not only win today so they can get back in the division race, but Also want to see Cutch launch a few homers into the stands for the fans today.
Continuing an Irish theme week's worth of posts I am looking at the true Irish playing in the MLB debut.
To the best of my knowledge there is only one active player in MLB that was born in Ireland and that is PJ Conlon who has appeared in only 3 games for the New York Mets. However, there are plenty of players who played for Notre Dame's Fighting Irish.
A few of them have been teammates of Cutch over the years and a few of them have faced Cutch on the ballfield over the years and like today's examples, a few have been both an enemy and a teammate.
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Let's begin with a famous pitcher from Notre Dame, Jeff Samardzija aka The Shark
Wait, that's a football player. Yup, in case you didn't already know Jeff Samardzija was a two sport athlete while playing for Notre Dame. He excelled on the mound as a pitcher and on the football field as a Wide Receiver.
Jeff was a standout receiver for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish playing in all four years of his college career (2003-2006). He set a campus record by recording a Touchdown reception in 8 consecutive games. He finished as the all time leader in reception yards with 2,593. In addition to being part of All American Teams for his performance on the Gridiron, the Shark was also dominating on the diamond. He had the second best Big East ERA (2.95) and second lowest opponents batting average (.209) before being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 5th Round of the 2006 Draft. Once drafted in the MLB Draft he pulled out of the NFL Draft, thus ending any chance of another potential two sport professional athlete.
He faced Andrew McCutchen a lot over his career as a division rival and Cutch owned him with a .375/.457/.550 triple slash line, good for a 1.007 OPS.
Jeff became an All Star in 2014 and was traded to the Oakland Athletics moments before the 2014 All Star Game.
Cutch and Shark later became teammates for three quarters of a season in San Francisco in 2018.
I have an Andrew McCutchen Baseball America Cover coming to me (along with a few other Cutch on the cover purchases) and as you can see the cover also mentions Jeff Samardzija giving up his football career to pursue a Baseball career.
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Next up is the Ax-Man, John Axford.
John Axford was born in Ontario and got a scholarship to attend Notre Dame where he pitched for 3 seasons, going 14-6. He had to have Tommy John surgery during his junior year, but returned for his senior season getting a bachelor's degree in film and theatre.
He was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in the 42nd round of 2005, but opted to return to college using his one year of athletic eligibility to catch attention of other teams.
Following 2006 the New York Yankees signed him to a minor league deal where he competed in the Yankees farm system for 2007. He would work the off season as a telephone sales agent before catching the attention of the Milwaukee Brewers who signed him to a minor league deal.
After excelling in the minors he was called up in 2009 to be a member of the Brewers bullpen where he would be used in more high leverage situations over the next season. In 2010, the Brewers closer (and then All Time Saves leader) Trevor Hoffman blew two games in a row to the worse team in baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates and John Axford was moved to be the team's closer for the remaining portion of the year. He finished the season converting 24 of 27 save attempts and going 8-2 with 76 strikeouts in 58 innings.
In 2011 Axford took the closer role and turned it into him getting the Rolaids Relief Pitcher of Year award.
He would bounce around from team to team begining in 2013, playing with 7 teams in 6 years including stays in Colorado, St. Louis, Oakland Los Angeles, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.
Andrew McCutchen became teammates with Axford in 2014 when the Pirates claimed Axford off waivers to strengthen their bullpen.
He received a Pirates card in 2015 Topps Series 1.
Over the course of their careers, Axford had faced McCutchen over 15 plate appearances. McCutchen has a .400/.533/1.000 triple slash line vs the former Notre Dame Alumni. Among his four hits are 2 Home Runs, which were turned into trading cards in 2016 as part of the Honus Bonus Program Career Milestone set. This set takes some of the star players and makes 1/1s for the players based on Home Runs, Wins, and several other milestones.
I have almost 10 of these 1/1s in my collection including this one which recognizes Cutch's 80th Career HR, a solo shot off John Axford.
I still need to get a ticket stub for this game to help with my Cutch HR Ticket Stub collection.
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Another player who once called McCutchen a rival, but most recently called him a teammate is David Phelps.
Phelps had a strong commitment to attend Notre Dame and went on to pitch four seasons for the Fighting Irish.
He was drafted in the 14th round of the 2008 draft by the New York Yankees and was part of a trade that got Garrett Jones to play for the Yankees when Phelps was shipped off to Miami.
Phelps would go on to pitch for the Blue Jays, Cubs, Brewers, and eventually Phillies on the 2 years that followed.
In 10 at bats, Cutch went 1 for 10 versus Phelps with 3 strikeouts and 1 walk.
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To close things out is the pitcher who had a perfect season (2008) of being a closer, but is also gave up the first Walk-off Homerun in Andrew McCutchen's career back in 2009.
Brad Lidge aka Lights Out
Brad went to Notre Dame and was the pitcher of the year when he struck out 93 batters in 80 innings. This got him the attention of the Houston Astros who drafted him in the 1998 draft.
He was the closer for the 2005 NL Pennant Winners Houston Astros and later the 2008 World Series Champions Philadelphia Phillies. He was a two time All Star (2005 and 2008).
Cutch only faced Brad Lidge twice in his career. One time Brad struck him out, the other time McCutchen got the best of Lidge. You can view the epic walkoff on YouTube here.
It's been rumored that moments before the game he was talking to teammates that if he ever hit a walk off homer he would do an Air Jordan slam dunk impersonation.
I got Topps artist Darrin Pepe to draw a sketch card for me and he put the celebration from Cutch's 1st Walk Off HR on it.
Who are some of your favorite Notre Dame alumni? (Any sport) Mine is Jerome Bettis
This Honus Bonus 1/1 commemorates Andrew McCutchen hitting a homerun off Kevin Gregg. It was his career 129th homerun.
It was opening day 2015. Johnny Cueto had been dealing zeroes through the first 7 innings, but the Pirates elelvated his pitch count. The Reds brought in Kevin Gregg who was able to get two quick outs in only 4 pitches. The Pirates were down 2-0 heading into the top of the 8th inning and former MVP Andrew McCutchen came to bat with 2 outs and Josh Harrison on first.
On the first pitch by Kevin Gregg, Cutch sent the ball sailing deep over the centerfield wall to tie the game up.
Gregg would be taken out and Jumbo Diaz would eventually come in to get Starling Marte to strikeout.
The Pirates lost the game 5-2.
I guess the saying of "Never Trust a man with two first names" applies to bullpen pitchers too.
Have you ever used the saying "Never trust a man with two first names?" Do you know the origin of that saying?
Following a 97 win season in 2015, the Pirates front office made some moves during the 2015 off-season that didn't sit too well with fans (or players).
The Pirates had the second best record in baseball for 2015. Unfortunately the best record belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals and the 4th best record belonged to the Chicago Cubs. Both are division rivals of the Pirates and both teams looked to improve their rosters heading into 2016.
The Pirates traded their long time second baseman (and Pittsburgh native) Neil Walker to the Mets for....Jon Niese? They cut ties with power slugging Pedro Alvarez. The loss of AJ Burnett was replaced with Juan Nicasio and the list goes on and on.
Still I remained optimistic about the 2016 season and during the opening weekend the Pirates fans put their doubts aside with a sweep of the defending division winners, Cardinals. However, the magic of John Jaso at 1st Base, Jon Niese being on the mound, and replacing Walker with Josh Harrison didn't last. The Pirates found themselves very quickly looking up at the Chicago Cubs who would just keep winning and winning and winning (eventually the World Series too).
On May 13, 2016 the Pirates played the Cubs and by the end of a 9-4 victory by the Cubbies they were already in double digit win totals above the Bucs.
One of the few redeeming moments of that game was Andrew McCutchen who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs and a Run Scored. One of those hits was a two run homer off Trevor Cahill in the 9th inning with two outs.
It's good to know that with the team losing 9-2 with two outs, Cutch didn't just roll over and play dead.
Cutch raised his average that game to .261, but would finish the season with a career worse average of .256.
Now because I forgot to mention yesterday that Cutch hit a HR on that date in 2014 (as evidenced by the card below), I will instead focus on his July 6th 2014 performance where Cutch went 2 for 4 at the plate with a triple and RBI. Following that game, Cutch raised his average to .324.
The Pirates completed a sweep of their state rivals and rose to 6 games over .500 while the Phillies further sunk to 14 games below .500.
These career milestone cards are similar to the Moments and Milestones impossible sets that Topps made a few years ago. As someone who missed out on the chaos of the M&M set, I like that the concept was reinstated in the form of these cheap 1/1s for the game's top players.
Unfortunately Honus Bonus Partners never really took off so there's probably a bunch of these still sealed in boxes at a warehouse. I have been able to get a bunch of them for under $10 so hopefully as more become available they can find their way into my collection.
The McCutchenless Pirates are facing one of the best teams in baseball this weekend, the Philadelphia Phillies. Earlier in the year the Pirates were swept in a four game road trip to Philadelphia. Hopefully they can start winning some games again soon. I would love to see some winning baseball in the Steel City. 2013 to 2015 seems so far removed from the current roster. Only 5 players on the 2015 roster are still with the Pirates (Josh Harrison, Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Francisco Cervelli, and Jordy Mercer). Only 3 of them played in that series against the Pbillies 4 years ago. Cervelli is a free agent at the end of the year so it is likely that another fan favorite will leave Pittsburgh for greener pastures.
The Pirates fell to the Brewers 3-1. Kyle MacPherson made the start for the Bucs and pitched himself out of a lot of trouble early on. The Pirates offense couldn't get any traction against Marco Estrada as he pitched 7 scoreless innings while surrendering only 4 hits. The Pirates only run came on a solo shot by Andrew McCutchen off John Axford in the 9th inning.
Cutch went 2 for 4 that day, raising his average to .340 for the season. He also stole his 19th stolen base of the year in that game. Cutch was winning the batting title when the game was over as Buster Posey was batting .334 at close of day.
The Honus Bonus Partners Cards released this year have milestone 1/1s for players recounting homeruns, wins, saves, etc.
I had 2 already, but when the opportunity presented itself to add this new 1/1 to my collection for only $5 I couldn't pass it up. I have since added one more as well. I can't begin to fathom trying to collect them all.
Commemorating Cutch's 44th career Home Run off Jonathan Sanchez in a 9-2 victory on August 10, 2011. Cutch batted leadoff in the game and went 1 for 1 with 3 walks. He also scored 4 times, drove in 3, and stole 2 bases. That's a heck of a day.
I doubt kids across the globe will be having tournaments for these any time soon like they do for Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic the Gathering, but for us card collectors this gives us a unique oddball set to track down and chase.
Produced by Honus Bonus Partners, this game card seems to be a cardboard version of fantasy baseball. More information about the release can be seen here.
The cards feature a simple design with black and white player photos despite colored backgrounds. It makes a nice contrast and even without the team logos the card looks legit. I will probably seek out a few other players to add to my collection.
The backs of the cards feature Cutch's 2016 stats along with a scratch off code to use Cutch on your fantasy team.
Any player collectors going to try and add these to your PC?
