Andrew McCutchen Has Pittsburgh a Little Too Excited

With the Steelers and Penguins reigning as champs of their respective sports, it's certainly a fun time to be a Pittsburgh sports fan. The trouble now, with the Penguins' season over and Steelers camp still a month away, is that the only game in town is the Pirates. That's fine for a baseball geek like me, but many more casual Pirate fans are trying to make this rebuilding club, barely hanging around .500, into something they're not.

All those fans had their fires stoked a bit this week when Beaver County Times columnist Bob Hertzel decided to compare Andrew McCutchen, the Bucs' exciting rookie, to the golden standard of Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente. I shouldn't have to tell anyone why this comparison is both unfair and ridiculous, but I'm going to anyways.

It's unfair because McCutchen has played in exactly 23 major league games through Sunday. That's a little more than an eighth of a season. In those eight games, McCutchen has hit five triples, which already has him tied with teammate Nyjer Morgan for the National League lead. He's stolen four bases without being caught, hit a walk-off single earlier this week, and has a .297/.362/.465 line even after going hitless in his last 10 at-bats. He's the best prospect the Pirates have had in years, but he's still only played in 23 games and comparing someone who's played in 23 games to a Hall of Famer with 3,000 hits, an MVP trophy, and a hit in all 14 World Series games that he played in (both of which the Pirates won) is more than a little unfair.

It's ridiculous because, plain and simple, there will never be another Roberto Clemente. Some players have the ability to capture the imagination of fans that transcends mere baseball; Clemente was one of those players. If you were at PNC Park today, there's a good chance that you'd see more shirts with Clemente's No. 21 on the back than shirts with all of the current Pirates combined. He was beloved both in Pittsburgh and his native Puerto Rico for his skills both with the bat and in the field, with an arm that's still the go-to comparison for any strong-armed youngster in right field. Beyond baseball, he spent his offseasons doing charity work and died flying relief to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake.

It's every fan and writer's tendency to compare each exciting new player to players past, especially in a place like Pittsburgh where the Pirates' history is so rich and their present is so empty. But that doesn't mean that any young player should be saddled with a comparison to one of the all-time greats. McCutchen may well go on to have a great career (as a Pirate fan, I certainly hope he does), but it's more than enough pressure being the last great hope of a downtrodden franchise. Let's not heap any more onto his plate.