Thoughts on Albert Pujols

As fellow Missourian Mark Twain cautioned his readers before embarking into The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you'll be hard-pressed to find a motive, moral, or plot in what I'm about to write. And although I won't threaten to shoot or banish you, and have no prosecutorial authority than I know of, I will save you some time if you want to quit reading now and go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before landing on this blog.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a St. Louis Cardinals fan. I'm not for a variety of reasons. First, I'm a fan, because of geography mostly, of the Kansas City Royals. And as has been aptly stated under greater inspiration than that found here, it is impossible to serve two masters.

But beyond that, I am slow to let loose of grudges forged as far back as 1980, when most of my college friends (those from St. Louis) rooted for the Phillies in the World Series against my beloved Royals.

The pain increased after the 1985 World Series, as it became apparent that many of my friends would forever focus their wrath on my Boys in Blue, instead of directing at where it (sort of) rightfully belonged--Don Denkinger. (Editor’s Note: Watch ESPN's The Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame Don Denkinger).

The last straw may have been a few years ago when some of my Cardinal fans friends went with me to a Royals game and rooted for the (then) hapless Tampa Bay Rays. I thought, 'Hey, root for your team, not against mine!'

So I've got all this baggage, and my point is that I'd probably not root for the Cardinals in the World Series or Playoffs unless they were playing the Yankees. That's a character flaw, I know. I'm working on it.

But hopefully more than being a Royals fan, I'm a baseball fan. And what happened today makes me sad. I loved watching Albert Pujols play baseball, and I loved watching him play it in St. Louis. I was happy for my friends. They had something special.

I believe Albert Pujols, more than any other player in Major League Baseball, was inextricably linked to the team with which he played, and by extension to the city and region in which he played. As a passing observer located some 250 miles to the west, Albert Pujols was St. Louis to me. Albert Pujols was the Cardinals to me.

If I was playing random word association, I'd more likely shout out "Pujols!" when someone said "St. Louis" than "Barbeque" when someone said "Kansas City." And that's from someone with no dog in the fight, even from someone who might have been a little jealous.

Deep down as a Missourian I'd have liked to seen Pujols finish his career in St. Louis. I grew up idolizing George Brett and when I was in high school I went to an open house in a housing subdivision to meet him one time and get his autograph. I'd see him around town occasionally. Kansas City loved (and still loves) him because our home became his home. He finally settled down here--raised his family here (I know, his wife had something to do with that).

I grieve a little bit today for St. Louis in that they won't be able to grow up and grow old with Albert Pujols the way I have with George Brett. I grieve a bit even for those St. Louisians who waste their time hating the hapless, perennially losing Kansas City Royals. If you're a true baseball fan, that's something you just "get," no matter who you root for day-in and day-out.

Extremely few major leaguers, or athletes from any sport, play their entire careers for one team anymore. I'd like to think some of them really want to though. I'd like to think many of them fall in love with their fans and their communities to a degree that their cost-benefit analyses would not consist of only monetarily quantifiable components.

Many will undoubtedly say, wishfully, that Pujols will one day retire as a Cardinal. Maybe 10 years from now he'll sign a contract for a day and hold a press conference at Busch Stadium to retire....

Maybe he will, but it won't be the same. For St. Louis, it won't be as sweet as it was with Musial. Maybe he'll come home one day, but it will be hard to forget that he had a fling with another before he did. St. Louis will still feel the betrayal, at least a little bit. And, by that time, Little Leaguers in St. Louis looking for an idol will have fixed their gaze on someone else.

I told you I didn't have a moral or a plot or a motive in writing this. The internet is undoubtedly ablaze at this moment with people either saying Pujols is greedy or that you can't blame him--you'd do the same thing. I guess none of us will have to make that call for ourselves or our family.

I could say a lot about small markets vs. big markets and the economics of baseball. I could talk about Moneyball and how the book was better than the movie but that both captured the feeling that many players have become Kelly Girls taking a summer job rather than long term fixtures in their communities. If we’re honest, however, it’s never that simple. And by saying those or other things, I'd end up trying to identify a moral. And then you'd have to banish me.

All I have to say, really, is that today, despite having much more important, even eternal issues to tend to, I'm a little bit sad for St. Louis.

And I'm a little bit sad for baseball too.

Rich Mullins, Kansas Jayhawks, and the Imperishable Wreath

Today the under-performing Kansas Jayhawks lost once again in the NCAA tournament to an over-achieving mid-major. If you're a KU fan these losses don't get any easier to take. And, like every other year, I walk away from the television set unsettled and bothered.

I'm bothered that a bunch of McDonald's All Americans can miss more free throws than the guys in the over-50 league at the YMCA. I'm bothered that I wasted yet another March weekend watching basketball on pins and needles when I could have been making sure my zero-turn mower will work in April. I'm bothered that my tournament bracket is in a lower percentile nationally than my 5th grade Iowa Test of Basic Skills. I'm bothered (a lot) that other teams' fans seem to take more joy in a KU loss than a win for their own team.

But perhaps what bothers me most is the simple fact that I am bothered at all. I care too much. My hope, unfortunately, rests too much upon the outcome of a game played and coached by people that I do not know. My affections are misplaced; my joy (or sorrow) dependent upon the results of a contest in which I have no control.

When the pain cuts acutely, I realize that I've put my hope in something that cannot ultimately satisfy. I've sought a counterfeit joy and trusted in a temporal vapor. It seems that in any adversity, no matter how apparently insignificant (e.g. a basketball game), our idols are exposed. We may not worship a golden calf, but we seek joy, acceptance, comfort, peace, and security in things that are fleeting, in "stuff" that is passing away.

The late Christian artist Rich Mullins, in his song If I Stand, penned these words: "The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the Giver of all good things."  God was merciful to me today in bringing this song to mind when I turned on my ipod after the game. He was also gracious to remind me that even more dangerous than the idolatry exposed in me after a troublesome loss, is the less obvious idolatry that goes unnoticed after a glorious victory.

You might think my conclusion to all of this introspection would be a suggestion to jettison all sports and to pursue a life of contemplative reflection on  loftier things. It's not. I think sports are certainly one of the pleasures with which God has richly blessed us. But his blessings, unchecked, can become our most deadly adversaries.

I find it ironic that the Apostle Paul often used athletic metaphors to drive home his most critical spiritual points. And while I don't suggest this means Paul gave tacit approval to sports, he certainly acknowledged them as part of his society and evidently thought they provided illustrations with which his audience would be familiar.   In I Corinthians 9:24-25 he writes: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." (ESV)

And it's in Paul's words that I'm brought back to the root of my problem and the source of my disappointment. I've chased after the perishable wreath--the wreath, along with this year's (and 2008's) NCAA Championship trophy, that will eventually burn with all the temporal "stuff" of this Earth.

So let us pursue the imperishable wreath. Let us pursue the prize being guarded in Heaven which, as the Apostle Peter said, is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading" (I Peter 1:4).

I'm sure I'll watch the tournament again next year and chances are I will be bitterly (hopefully less so) disappointed again. But I trust that disappointment, along with all others, will point me to Jesus Christ, the lamb whose blood ransoms me, and the only true One who will never disappoint.


Enjoy this Rich Mullins video from 1987 where he sings If I Stand....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K93ebKnmhs&feature=BF&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1