Albert Pujols, the heart and hammer of the St. Louis Cardinals for more than a decade, will leave St. Louis and sign with the Los Angeles Angels, a person with knowledge of the deal told Yahoo! Sports.
Latecomers to the Pujols derby, the Angels will pay Pujols $250 million to $260 million over 10 years, a devastating turn for the Cardinals and a departure from past organizational philosophies for Arte Moreno’s Angels.
After a month-long search for wealth and happiness, most notably in Miami, Pujols will not return to the only organization he’s known.
The contract value is the second or third highest in baseball history, behind the contractAlex Rodriguez signed with theNew York Yankees in 2008 ($275 million) and perhaps higher than the one Rodriguez signed with theTexas Rangers in 2001 ($252 million).
Pujols left the Cardinals after 11 seasons and two World Series titles.
(AP)
(AP)
Clearly of the mind to change direction after failing to reach the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, the Angels will put Pujols in the middle of their lineup, steal more thunder from the limping Los Angeles Dodgers, and attempt to catch the prospering Texas Rangers in the AL West.
It was, perhaps, with some regret that a new beginning in Southern California will mean for Pujols that he will not be a Cardinal.
Over 11 years in St. Louis, Pujols had become a generational figure, the kind of ballplayer who defines an era of baseball in a city that runs on baseball.
He arrived in 2001 as Rookie of the Year. By 2005, he was an MVP. By 2009, a three-time MVP. And, by 2011, the Cardinals were World Series champions twice with him in the middle of their order and at the heart of their clubhouse.
In the fall of what might have been his final season there, fans rose at Busch Stadium to beseech him to stay or, in the worst scenario, to bid him farewell. It happened again and again as the Cardinals’ season threatened to end, first in the regular season, then in each of three postseason rounds, and finally in the triumphant aftermath of Game 7 of the World Series.
Now he is gone, off to Anaheim.
To today’s St. Louis he was its Musial, its Gibson, its Hornsby.
Musial and Gibson never left, of course, and Pujols’ legacy as a Cardinal would be measured in part by that standard of loyalty – outdated as it may be.
Albert Pujols' deal with the Angels is exceeded only by Alex Rodriguez in baseball history.
(AP)
(AP)
Pujols and the Cardinals had begun the process of this contract – the one that could take Pujols to the end of his career – more than a year before. There were rumors Pujols wished to match Rodriguez’s $275 million standard. There were debates over the responsibilities of the midmarket franchise, either to its public or its bottom line, and how those might be married.
Cardinals fans feared Pujols would be gone the moment he and his bat hit the open market. Competitive from April to October, the Cardinals certainly would be overmatched when the larger markets showed up in November and December.
Up against a wildcat offer from the Miami Marlins, needs for the drawing power of a Pujols in downtrodden locales, and then potential interest from the annually desperate Cubs, the Cardinals were not able to manage it all.
Not with the Angels doing whatever it took to land him even though they had a rookie-of-the-year candidate in first baseman Mark Trumbo, even though their first baseman of two years ago, Kendrys Morales, is set to return from a devastating injury.
So Pujols will not be a Cardinal on the day they raise the World Series banner and get their rings, and he will not defend the championship with them. Presumably, he will go to the Hall of Fame based on 11 years of Cardinals seasons and the rest in suburban L.A., not at all in the manners of Musial and Gibson.
St. Louis goes on without its icon. The risks instead belong to Moreno and the Angels; that Pujols’ salary will be a burden to a franchise that lacks the revenues of the larger markets and that Pujols will grow old and mediocre before the contract expires.
In a single winter, St. Louis would have to say goodbye to manager Tony La Russa and then to Pujols, so large a part of their conscience and their game. And it might be awhile before the Cardinals look quite like the Cardinals again.
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