Cutch Comes Home, The Playoffs Begin, and Jim Thorpe

It's been a jam-packed week, so let's get right on to various topics, as indicated in the headline.

CUTCH COMES HOME

The Pittsburgh Pirates made news this past week with the announcement that they had signed free agent Andrew McCutchen, 36, to a one year, $8 million contract.   This, of course, was greeted warmly by the Bucco fan base since it brings back, arguably, the greatest and most popular Pirates player of this century.  I, for one, will love seeing Cutch back wearing #22 for the Pirates and will be glad that he will get the chance, maybe, to "retire as a Pirate."   However, let's just suppose that the Pirates had signed some other 36 year old free agent who can be described as being well into the back nine of his career?

Would we be saying "same old cheap skate Pirates"?  I think that we probably would.  But, you say,  as the Post-Gazette's Jason Mackey did, "Cutch can still play."  Can he?  Last year for the Brewers, Cutch played in 134 games, had 515 at bats, hit .237 with 17 HR and 69 RBI, and sported a .700 OPS.  He's 36 years old and those numbers don't figure to get better come 2023.  Of course, Cutch will provide a veteran presence and elder statesman leadership in a clubhouse filled with young players, particularly outfielders Cal Mitchell and Jack Suwinski, and there is certainly value in that.  McCutchen is also expected to serve as a band-aid for the possible, if not probable, departure of Brian Reynolds, the man obtained from the Giants when Cutch was first traded away.  Why is Reynolds leaving?  Because the Pirates won't pay the market value price for him.  Surprise.

And don't think that this might not possibly occur.  Let's say that McCutchen discovers the fountain of youth (possibly from one of the new bars the team is putting into PNC Park) and by the All-Star Break has 15 HR, 50 RBI and is hitting in the .270 range.   The team still stinks and is headed for a 90-95 loss season.  Will GMBC then try to trade Andrew McCutchen to a contender in need of a hot bat in exchange for a basket full of prime prospects?  Will the Pirates become the first franchise in history to be pilloried TWICE by its fan base for trading the same player?

THE PLAYOFFS BEGIN

Wild Card Weekend, oh, excuse me, Super Wildcard Weekend, took place with five of the six games being incredibly good and exciting.  The only game that was not in that category was last night's easy win for the Cowboys over the Bucs, but that game was intriguing because it may well be the last time that we see Tom Brady playing.

Some quick hit thoughts and impressions....

• The 49ers looked incredibly good in their win over Seattle.  I see them playing in the Conference Championship game in two weeks.
• The comeback of the Jaguars from being down 0-27 to the Chargers to winning 31-30 was an unbelievable gag job by the Chargers.  
• The matchup between Trevor Lawrence and Justin Herbert could be this decade's version of Tom Brady v. Peyton Manning of the '00's.  Two incredible talents.
• Both Buffalo and Cincinnati won their games, but didn't look dominant in doing so, and it could be said that they were fortunate to win.  QB's Josh Allen and Joe Burrow did not play their best games, but, in the end, they won.  They meet this weekend in a rematch of the Monday Night game of two weeks back that ended up not being played.  One of them will end up playing the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game in two weeks.
• The Giants beat the Vikings, who may well have been one of the worst 12 win teams in history.   The Giants will meet the Eagles this weekend for the third time this season.  Philly finished shakily in the regular season, in large part due to Jalen Hurts injury.  I'm sure that the Eagles would rather be playing the Vikings instead of their divisional foe this weekend.

I am figuring that the 49ers, Eagles, and Chiefs will win their games this weekend.  The Cincy - Buffalo game will be the most intriguing one.  I am guessing the both Allen and Burrow will bounce back and perform better this week than last week.  I'll call it a win for the Buff Bills because the Bengals are, well, the Bengals.

JIM THORPE

I finally finished David Maraniss' massive (568 pages) and meticulously researched biography of Jim Thorpe.  As he was beginning the project, Maraniss had numerous people say to him something along the lines of "Jim Thorpe?  I think I read a book about him when I was in fourth or fifth grade."  I think that I did, too, and like many people, I knew the basics of his story.  American Indian born on Oklahoma, sent to the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA, great football player, won decathlon and pentathlon gold medals at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, then had medals stripped from him because he played bush league baseball in 1910.  One of the first great players in what is now the NFL, played major league baseball.  In 1950, he was Named the Greatest Athlete of the First Fifty Years of the 20th Century.   Had a movie of his life made with Burt Lancaster playing him on screen.  That was about the extent of my knowledge of Thorpe.

Maraniss give you more, a whole lot more, of what Thorpe's life was.  He pretty much spent his whole life scuffling to make ends meet.  He played minor league and barnstorming baseball well into his forties, he appeared in dozens of movies, usually as an extra, often uncredited (he was one of the native dancers in "King Kong"), fought for the rights of American Indian actors in Hollywood, dug ditches in California during the depression.  He was the front man for numerous bars, restaurants, and even a Nevada casino that always failed.  He drank too much, was married three times, and was an absent father to his seven children.   He died of a heart attack at age 65 in 1952.  He is buried in a town renamed Jim Thorpe, PA in the north east corner of Pennsylvania, an area where, for all of his travels, Thorpe never set foot.  Maraniss tells the story of how that came about in fascinating detail.

You will learn a lot about the plight of the American Indian when you read his book.  You will also learn who some of the villains were in Thorpe's story.  You  might be surprised to learn that one of them was fabled football coach Pop Warner.  You will not be surprised, if you know anything at all about the man, that another was Avery Brundage, Thorpe's teammate on the 1912 Olympic team and later the President of the USOC and the IOC.

"Path Lit By Lightning" (the english translation of Thorpe's Sac and Fox native name) is at times a ponderous read, but in the end, well worth it, I think.   I enjoyed Maraniss' books on Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente more, but I am glad I read this one.   It gets Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

In 2000, ESPN did a poll of the 100 Greatest Athletes of the Twentieth Century.  Thorpe, as noted above, topped the list in 1950, but in ESPN's 2000 poll, he fell to seventh, behind Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Wayne Gretzky, and Jesse Owens.

 

Painting of Jim Thorpe 

that hangs in the Oklahoma State Capital 

Building in Oklahoma City