My friends and family will also (some of them begrudgingly) tell that I'm fairly liberal and usually take changes in stride. But when I heard that a part of my life that has been the same since I was a sophomore in high school was going to be different, it pissed me off. Albert Pujols will no longer play for the St. Louis Cardinals. I dropped an F-bomb as soon as I looked at my phone, especially since I expected my phone to tell me we had resigned him. As soon as the Marlins were out of the bidding, I felt secure that we would bring him back, probably for a stupid amount of money and years, but we'd bring him back just the same. And it wasn't my money, so I was somewhat okay with it. Especially since it would simply be Bill DeWitt Jr. paying for his mistake (not locking him up two or three years ago and not getting into this mess in the first place). But no, DeWitt decided it would be a better idea to let Alex Rodriguez sign a second insane contract. He decided to let Ryan Howard, a clearly inferior player on both offense and defense, a huge five-year deal. And he decided to let the Nationals sign an average (at best) player in Jayson Werth to a mega-contract. (He looks great on giant posters, though!)So while I dont' disagree with the Cardinals not matching the offer that the Angels made to Pujols, I'm still furious with them for allowing the situation to arise. And as John Hammond from Jurassic Park would say,"I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them." Unfortunately, I can't count on DeWitt being eaten by a Dilophosaurus later on.
Dilophosaurus Attack by
Instead, I simply plan to not attend any Cardinals games in 2012. I'll still cheer for them. However, I've been saying since they failed to sign him before spring training, that if they messed up and didn't get Pujols to stay with the team, that I would not be attending any games the following season. I plan on sticking to my guns, just like the front office did on waiting to sign him until he was on the open market.
As for the Angels, they simply fall into a long list of teams that I hate: The Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies, Brewers, Reds, Braves, and Mets. And now the Angels. At least it'll give my brother-in-law, Taylor, something to bond about. We didn't bond much during the World Series. Taylor's a Rangers fan.
The Cardinals could have done more, but this is really on Pujols. It was his decision to leave, and let's face it - it's not really about the money. There's not much you can do with 250 million that you can't do with 220 million.
ReplyDeleteHe wanted to try his luck elsewhere, and that's what he's going to do. I'm actually proud of the Cardinals for not matching the Angels' offer, which was, um, excessive. Pujols is gone, and may everyone involved get what they deserve.
Very good blog. But I think you should reconsider your stance against the Cardinals. What makes you think Albert would have been more willing to negotiate 2 years ago? The way he has handled everything shows he was after free agency and the big payout all along.
ReplyDeleteWhen Albert was negotiating with Miami, I had no concern that he would leave St. Louis. First and foremost in Albert’s life is his family. I could not imagine Albert moving his family from conservative, safe St. Louis to ‘Las-Vegas-by-the-Sea’ and having his children grow up in a community where much of what Albert finds objectionable in life defines the culture.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I didn’t sleep well while Albert was negotiating with the 11th-hour suitor, Anaheim. And I think I subconsciously expected to read that Albert was going to the Angels when my cell phone signaled an incoming text message, awakening me at the ungodly hour of 9:20 AM on a Thursday morning.
Compared to the East Coast cultural centers of Boston, New York, Washington, and Miami, St. Louis looks quaint and conservative, perhaps even old fashioned with its 120-year-old baseball team and the vision most of America has of the turn-of-the-century city depicted in Vincente Minelli’s “Meet Me in St. Louis,” broadcast widely during the holiday season each year.
Regardless of how closely we and the rest of America may regard St. Louis as “conservative,” our metropolitan community is really a very radical place when viewed through the lens of early 21st-century American “conservatism,” the sort of world view espoused by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck in the popular media.
St. Louis, while no longer the fourth largest city in the United States, remains a major manufacturing center with a highly unionized workforce. Its mosaic of ethnic neighborhoods, established by European immigrants in the 19th century, lingers still. St. Louis remains – with Baltimore and Montréal – one of the three historic centers of Roman Catholicism in North America (one Irish, one French, one German). The contemporary question “Where did you go to high school?” is the post-World War II secular version of the original “What parish were you in?” – a reference to the neighborhood- and church-based amateur soccer leagues ubiquitous in this city (as lacrosse is in Baltimore and hockey in Montréal). As quaint as even all of this may seem, it stacks up as less-than-conservative by contemporary definitions.
Orange County, California, on the other hand, is the oasis of political conservatism and conservative wealth in metropolitan Los Angeles. This is saying something because, despite the high-ballin’ image of LA portrayed in the media, Los Angeles is really a very conservative place.
Long before it was a “suburb” of Los Angeles, Orange County gave rise to what today we call the conservative evangelical movement. This is the original land of mega-churches led by profoundly-charismatic pastors with questionable theology credentials. This is the land of Ronald Regan, the home of the Regan library and museum in Yorba Linda.
Based upon what Albert and Dee Dee have shared with their fans about their family life, Orange County, California would seem to be a far more attractive place than St. Louis for them to raise their children and to find like-minded individuals with whom to worship and socialize and become politically engaged. If this speculation is correct, then Albert chose to accept the Los Angeles Angels offer for all the right reasons. Certainly, it wasn’t for the $5 or $6 million more per year in Anaheim’s contract offer.
Nearly 24 hours later, I remain stunned, even emotionally numb. This has been a very traumatic event for those of us who are maniacal Cardinals fans. Nevertheless, I wish Albert and his beautiful family well. I hope the find what they’re looking for in Orange County.
You, sir, most definitely "get it" -- while I, too, wish no ill will towards the team as a whole, I am not making plans to attend any home games in 2012. Nor, am I holding my breath for a championship season.
ReplyDeleteI believe Bill DeWitt, Jr. and company became really short-sighted on the Pujols issue by throwing insane amounts of "Cardinal Cash" and a long-term, no-trade contact at a player who is yet to live-up to said contract.
And now, like it or not, that player is on track to becoming the face of the franchise -- particularly, if the price of retaining Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina's services increase beyond what I refer to as "The Cardinal Way", as I suspect it will.
Let's also not forget about another wad of cash the folks at 700 Clark recently saved -- they no longer have to pay a HOF-caliber manager for his services. They went cheap on the new field mamanger -- really cheap.
Recent history also tell us that odd-numbered decades don't translate into a whole heckuva lot of World Series championships in St. Louis.
Good luck with that one, Bill and Mo...