Nothing felt right about Andrew McCutchen's final home game here, likely because it wasn't clear if it was his final home game here.
The date was Sept. 27, 2017. The Baltimore Orioles were in town for a nothing game between two lost teams. Nobody knew if McCutchen would be back for the final year of his contract or if the Pirates would trade him. Certainly, no one could have predicted he would leave and return six years later at age 36.
So it was treated as a kind-of, sort-of, maybe-we-should-say-goodbye-to-Cutch Night. The stadium was a little more than half-filled. Wiz Khalifa, wearing a "Legalize It" T-shirt, threw out the ceremonial first pitch after twice mimicking a drag from a joint (that's the part I'll always cherish). Pedro Alvarez played first base for the Orioles. And the definitive goodbye was reserved for retiring broadcaster Kent Tekulve, who received a rousing ovation before the seventh-inning stretch.
McCutchen was coming off a memorable night — his first career grand slam, eight RBIs and two curtain calls. That felt like the real goodbye, I guess, because the next night was just plain weird. Fans greeted McCutchen with a loud ovation — many stood — as he stepped to the plate for his first at-bat. But it just did not have that ceremonial goodbye feel to it. McCutchen tipped his helmet, then singled. It wasn't even clear whether the ovation was sparked from his performance the night before or the possibility it was his final home game.
"Probably a mixture of both," McCutchen said later, with only a handful of reporters around his locker. "The performance from last night and what you mentioned — maybe being my last game and whatnot — I guess they were trying not to take it for granted."
Yeah, that's not the way Andrew McCutchen should have gone out. He's too important a figure in Pirates history. He's too connected to this city and to a generation of fans that grew up watching him lead this franchise out of the wilderness for three unforgettable seasons (and yes, when you're coming off a 20-year losing streak, you best believe three brief playoff appearances qualify as "unforgettable").
I have a 14-year-old daughter who taped a McCutchen photo to her bedroom door when she was about 4 and never took it down. She wore his No. 22 jersey to games, too, and that kind of bond lasts. But thousands of you already know as much, because things like that happened in your households, too.
That is why there was such excitement over the Pirates bringing McCutchen back this season — and that is why you'll see what a real ovation looks like when he steps to the plate Friday in the home opener against the Chicago White Sox. It'll be a 10th anniversary celebration of the 2013 team. McCutchen has endorsed the idea of a "blackout" — fans wearing black — just like they did in creating that frenzied scene for the wild card win over the Cincinnati Reds.
A.J. Burnett will throw out a ceremonial first pitch to Russell Martin. That should help get things warmed up for McCutchen's first at-bat.
"I'm definitely gonna feel that ovation or whatever it is that they give me," McCutchen told the Post-Gazette's Jason Mackey. "To be back home, man, it's gonna be cool."
This goes both ways, you know. The city adores McCutchen. He adores it back. That was never more clear than when I caught up to him in Tampa, Fla., when he was strangely playing for the New York Yankees in September 2018.
I asked him if he felt like he should have been a Pirate for life.
"At the moment, no," he said. "I can't plan my own future. Now, if you changed that question and said, would I have wanted to be? Yes. Yeah, of course, and I said that plenty of times when I was there."
Even though trading McCutchen turned out to be the right baseball move (they got Bryan Reynolds, after all), it never really felt right. He belongs here. I'm convinced he thought he'd play his entire career here.
I spoke with McCutchen's mother, Petrina, on the five-year anniversary of the wild card win. She'd sung the national anthem that night. Her son greeting her after the final note was an all-time tear jerker.
"I was just Andrew McCutchen's mom. It wasn't like I had any singles on the charts or anything like that," Petrina McCutchen recalled. "I never dreamt anything like that would happen, singing in front of 40,00 people for a game like that. A part of me was nervous, but the way the organization and fans accepted us from the time we got there, it just really made me feel confident. That night, it was like, 'This is family. This is our town. Our city. This is what we've been fighting for. All the losses until now prepared us for this moment.' That. I'll remember that."
And should anyone ever doubt what you, as a city, mean to McCutchen, let me take you back to our conversation in Tampa. I asked him to recall the night of the wild card game, to his mom singing the anthem in a "Just Cutch It" T-shirt, to the crowd chanting "M-V-P!" upon his introduction.
"However I was quoted at the time — and I read whatever I said about it — I'd be like, 'No, that wasn't enough,'" McCutchen said. "You can't really put into words the things you experience when you're part of something that big. When someone tries to get you to explain what it was like, you can't explain it. Words aren't enough. That's how I feel about that moment: Words cannot express how I experienced it through my own eyes.
"There are just some moments where you feel like you're a part of this whole journey, and the fans are right there with you, and they're part of it, too, and you're all together. That's kind of how I felt in that moment — me and the fans were all one."
They will be again late Friday afternoon. When McCutchen stepped to the plate on opening day in Cincinnati, it just felt right. Like he'd never left.
He belongs here.
