nb4 frick the cards

Was looking up stuff about McGwire and how he was adamant about the Cardinals keeping Pujols around even though he would be his eventual replacement (something I remember reading a while back) and found this article. I remember that rookie season and this guy who was killing it, got to see Pujols that year in Atlanta, Sunday day game that the Braves won where Albert hit 2 out (also saw him hit one out in Atlanta in '04). Have always loved his swing. Do wish he could have finished with the Cards but it was pretty clear he on the downslope of his career and shelling out that money for 10 years was just insane.

LINK

quote:
In the spring of 2001, the St. Louis Cardinals seemed pretty well set. They were coming off their best season in more than a decade, a 95-win season where they reached the National League Championship Series. The Cardinals had one of the most powerful lineups in baseball (featuring Mark McGwire and Jim Edmonds), and they had good veteran pitching. They did not expect any surprises at Spring Training.

Only then, a 21-year-old kid named Albert Pujols showed up.

"Impressive," Cards manager Tony La Russa told reporters that February after watching Pujols play a little bit.

It happens every spring. It will happen this spring, too. A young player will show up, catch the eye of the manager and general manager. He might be a pitcher suddenly throwing 100 mph or breaking off savage curveballs. He might be a hitter crushing home runs at an impossible rate. The jolt of watching someone -- especially a young player -- emerge in the spring is one of the things that makes baseball joyous.

But let's be honest, the jolt usually fades. The player usually fades. "Spring Training phenom" is not usually a compliment. In Pujols' case, he had played just one full season of Minor League baseball. It was a fine season -- he'd hit .324 with some power at Class A Peoria. Everyone knows it's a long way from Peoria to the big leagues.

"Pujols shouldn't make the club," La Russa teased on Feb. 15. He paused. "But," La Russa added, "I didn't think McGwire was going to make the club in 1987."

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By late February, the good-humored talk about Pujols actually making the team started to get a bit more serious. "La Russa has been playing Pujols sparingly," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in early March, "perhaps trying not to fall in love with him too soon."

It was no use, though. Everyone was in love. Whenever Pujols got into games, he hit. Whatever position they put him at on the field, he played competently. And there was something about the way he carried himself -- this was no rookie. He seemed spookily at ease.

"How's Pujols looking?" Cardinals minority owner Fred Hanser asked one day in mid-March.

"Obviously not ready," La Russa said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. It was at this point that La Russa was beginning to fight himself. Yes, he'd joked about it earlier, but La Russa had no intention of bringing a 21-year-old kid with one year of Minor League experience to an experienced big league club. But now Pujols was looking so good that everyone around La Russa -- including his general manager -- thought Pujols should stick.

quote:
"Every once in a while, you can see his inexperience," La Russa said. "That would be my answer to the fans. Like, he put on the wrong hat the other day. He put on the red hat instead of the blue one. So inexperience exists there."

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And it happened for Pujols in 2001. Two days after La Russa said he was leaning toward sending Pujols down, Pujols homered again. St. Louis moved him to Minor League camp and prepared to send him down. "We'll make a decision in the next day or two," Jocketty said.

And then … Bobby Bonilla pulled his left hamstring.

That sounds like a punchline. But it's true. Bonilla, who was 38 and the Cardinals' starting left fielder, pulled a hamstring, and that's when the real story begins. When Bonilla pulled the hamstring, the Cards had their excuse to put Pujols on the team. Pujols hit sixth and played left field on Opening Day. By the time Bonilla came off the DL, Pujols was already hitting .346 and slugging almost .700. As the coach in the movie "Hoosiers," once said, after that, it would take the National Guard to get Pujols out of the lineup.

Pujols would go on to one of the greatest rookie seasons in baseball history, hitting .329/.403/.610 with 37 homers, 130 RBIs and 112 runs. He would finish fourth in the National League MVP Award voting. And he would become the best player in baseball and a force of nature for two World Series champion Cardinals teams.

This post was edited on 4/24/19 at 12:28 pm