Pujols Won't Find Unconditional Love Anywhere Else
By George Vecsey
Published: October 26, 2011
How much is enough?
This is something Albert Pujols is going to have to figure out before he
decides whether he wants to remain a Cardinal or move on to a richer and,
dare I say it, more demanding market.
Pujols is possibly facing the last game of his contract in this grand old
baseball city after foul weather caused the sixth game of the World Series to
be postponed until Thursday.
Any way the Series ends, Pujols is sure to finish this week, this season,
with the roaring adoration of the fans in the only town he has known. He will
be ending his 11th season as a superstar who has hit three home runs in one
World Series game (Saturday) and been walked intentionally three times and
given the liberty to put on a doomed hit-and-run play (Monday).
Sometime in the next weeks and months, Pujols is going to have to choose
where he wants to play for the rest of his career. He has turned down a
contract said to be for nine years and about $200 million.
He is a logical man who has to know this one central fact: no town will ever
love him more as a great player and, by all appearances, a steadfast,
charitable and religious family man.
It will never be easier for Pujols to be the person he is — which includes
private, taciturn, perhaps even distant — than in this city, which adores
its heroes. St. Louis never demanded that Stan Musial be anything more than
the gracious hey-hey-whattaya-say superstar next door.
The legion of elders who saw Musial play from 1941 to 1963 maintain that he
would have higher recognition today as a career .331 hitter if he had played
in a coastal city like New York, Boston or Los Angeles. What is overlooked is
that the East Coast news media hectored Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams in ways
large and small — in a kinder and gentler time before the 24-hour gnawing of
the carpenter ants of blog land and Twitter land.
Pujols may not be prepared to be the $300 million savior of a rich franchise.
Who is? After a bad second game here, he vanished into the night without
dropping a few words to sate the news media. Later he said that he did not
know anybody would want to talk to him, which just does not calibrate. Derek
Jeter gives nothing away — nothing — but he shows up, says his controlled
piece, and moves on.
The crumbling Alex Rodriguez, serving out the last six years of the worst
contract in baseball history — as much as $300 million over 10 years —
often makes things worse for himself in ways Pujols never would. After
taxes, Pujols would still be able to do wonderful things for children with
Down syndrome and all his admirable causes.
Pujols is a civic hero in St. Louis. Undoubtedly, Harry Weber, the sculptor
who made the 10 vital statues that bristle with life in the outdoor corner of
Eighth and Clark, has made mental sketches of how he would portray Pujols.
The poses vary — Cool Papa Bell, the St. Louisan who never got to the majors
because of segregation, is rounding a base; good old Red Schoendienst is
airborne, making the pivot at second base. Pujols surely would be depicted
with bat in hand.
I visited the sculpture area on Tuesday, when the temperature was still 80
degrees. (It was expected to drop about 40 degrees by Wednesday night.) James
Rooks from Myrtle Beach, S.C., who had a ticket for Game 6, was asked where
the eventual Pujols statue would be placed. “Maybe in the bathroom,” he
said. “Depends on whether he signs with them.”
Rooks said he understood a great player would want to make as much as he
could, “but he'll make more in one year than most of us make in a lifetime.”
Asked about the free agency that ballplayers gained after the Curt Flood
suit (Flood is not included in the sculpture garden, oddly enough), Rooks
said, “If I told my boss I was testing free agency, he'd say, ‘Fine, don't
come back.’ ”
Should Pujols move on? “He should go to the Astros,” said a woman who was
inspecting the statues. Turned out, she was from Texas, still smarting over
the moon shot Pujols hit off Brad Lidge in 2005.
The Cardinals management is playing the game its own way. On Monday General
Manager John Mozeliak said about Pujols, “There's no doubt he's been the
identity of this organization for the past decade, and trying to push just
one button or try to say you're not going to feel that loss would be very
difficult to say, especially in this environment.”
Cardinals fans have been imploring Pujols with standing ovations and chants
and banners and probably even prayers. On Wednesday he was down to a game or
two. It was on everybody's mind.
Tony La Russa, explaining Tuesday why Pujols had the freedom to call the
hit-and-run that backfired in Game 5, volunteered: “I think I've said over
and over again that for the 11 years that we've been together, Albert has
proven every year, virtually every day of the season and postseason, he is a
great player, not just a great producer. He's a very smart baseball player.”
Asked if it was on his mind that this could be the last game for Pujols as a
Cardinal, La Russa, himself unsigned, said: “Well, yeah, you have a lot of
time to think about your team. And over the course of the rush at the end of
the season into the postseason, I have thought about Albert's situation
because he's a teammate, and I care a lot about him personally and
professionally.”
Pujols, true to his code, addressed his free agency when spring training
opened and has not revisited it since. Asked about his status the other day,
Pujols said: “Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about baseball.”
Fair enough. But in weeks to come, Pujols needs to remind himself — if his
agents and advisers do not — that money is not everything.
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