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.
