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Vlad played longer and was a little better with Montreal than the Angels, so I agree that he should be an Expo. But no one asks us. 🙂
Maybe with players more apt to play in multiple cities these days, the Hall needs to redesign the plaques and have two images of the players. For guys like Cal Ripken it could be two distinct looks, and for guys like Vlad or Albert it could be one in each of the caps for which they had significant playing time.
No logo on one cap is how this has been handled to date and IMO, that remains preferable to two, which suggests changing all the plaques already in place. But go with no logo only in cases when there is not a clear choice between the two.
Among recent inductees choosing the no logo route are Greg Maddux and Tony La Russa. Were Braves fans upset about the former? Yes, but it is Maddux’ own image, after all.
No logo seems lame. It reminds me of those Topps cards as kids, where they would sometimes black out the hat logo on players who were traded. Which brings up another option, no hats. Topps used to have those “no hat” cards back in the day as well, although as kids we always hated those cards. Especially when they used them for a guy that was not traded. (check out the ’61 Mays or Bill White, or ’62 Ken Boyer). On second thought, no logo is preferable to no hat.
Still, even in tough decisions pick a team. Maddux should be in a Braves hat. LaRussa could have gone with either Oakland or St. Louis. He started with the White Sox of course, but his legacy really developed in Oakland, and he continued that with a long career in St. Louis.
Joe Strauss did a story about Pujols’ in Dec ’11. It will refresh some memories concerning his decision woes.
Albert Pujols had two hits in the Angels' 7-1 win over the Royals.
That brings his career total to 2,985 hits, tied with Sam Rice for 32nd on the all-time list. pic.twitter.com/r8kY1YvMcQ
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 13, 2018
Can someone please explain to me why the Angels have not played in St Louis in quite a while? I think the rotation for the Angels playing here should have been 2 years ago possibly?
I think fans would love to give him a big ovation for all he did for us, and even after he left, the draft picks allowed us to stay in contention and give veteran players like Wainright and others the money they deserved. Otherwise we could have never afforded those contracts.
IIRC when it was announced that we would be playing the Angels in interleague again in OC that the Angels would be in St. Louis in 2019.
I dont think pujols will be a cardinal hof, moreno knew these years would be here, he paid for the chase to 500/600hrs, 3k hits, and now the chase to 2k rbis to sell tickets.
I think lumped into that is his legacy to be rembered as an angel, and not a cardinal.
Pujols seemed like a latter-day incarnation of Jimmie Foxx to me when he was a Cardinal. He still is similar in some ways, as Foxx came up with the Philadelphia Athletics and had his best years there, then later played with the Red Sox. He had some good years in Boston as well and his numbers did not drop off much, but he played roughly 40-45% more as an Athletic than Red Sox. Yet his HOF plaque has him in a Red Sox hat.
Unlike Foxx, Albert has fallen way off in production for his second team, but as time goes on it could very well be that his St. Louis days will be more of a dim memory by the time he is Hall eligible, and he will go in as an Angel. What I think will really tip the scales is if the Angels get into a World Series and Albert has a good post season during that run.
Checked on Albert’s start this year, and it is pretty much the same old story. He is hitting .274 with a couple of homers; OPS is .716. He is what the modern baseball stat gurus call a “replacement player”.
If pujols doesnt make a serious improvement (no reason for anyone to assume he would) this has to be his last year to get significant playing time. As ref’d in the article, a similar season to last yr would put him at a .301 lifetime hitter…I’d guess if he stays healthy he will announce his retirement after the 2018 season and get his swan song season mostly off the bench.
I feel the anger towards Pujols is absolutely ridiculous.Albert gave the Cards 11 damn fine seasons and 2 world championships.Why the hate and anger? iThis isn
t the old days of 1 team for a whole career (it happens rarely).Players go for the money and where they think they can contend.i certainly would have loved to see AP retire as a lifetime Cardinal but it wasnt to be.I wish him well and hope he gets his 3000 hits and has a decent year and then retires.I don`t want to see him drop his career average under .300 like Mantle did.On the reception Albert Pujols might get for 3,000 hits in Anaheim, where he is a supporting actor: "I just hope the great county of Orange County can give him love," Mark McGwire said, "and treat him like it's St. Louis." #Angels #stlcards https://t.co/m2J9kYKmcU
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) April 20, 2018
I feel the anger towards Pujols is absolutely ridiculous.Albert gave the Cards 11 damn fine seasons and 2 world championships.Why the hate and anger?
I have not seen anger expressed in recent years (or TCN posts) concerning Albert. It seems the anger faded a lot after his first couple of years in Anaheim.
Now most Cardinal fans are relieved that he moved on in fact, as we would have been stuck with a big salary drag. However, I tend to think that his production would have been better had he stayed in St. Louis. He would not have signed quite as big of a contract, and would have stayed in familiar circumstances. The pressure would not have been quite so great on him, and I think he would have put up better numbers – not the Albert of old, but would have still been a decent player.
However, we could not have “hid” him in a DH role, other than a few games a year in AL parks.
I don’t think about him much anymore but when I do its always “ap”…. small letters. I’m glad he left.
ps. give us back your #5.
I thank Albert Pujols for his service and great times here in the Lou. Would love to see the Angels come to St Louis. Nothing but love for ALbert.
My guess is that Pujols’ drop off in performance has much more to do with his chronic physical problems than pressure to perform. If the Cards had kept him (without a designated hitter spot), it would have disastrous to the payroll. Time has already shown it was a monumental break that he and his wife decided to chase the money.
That does not change his many contributions while with the Cardinals. The team is holding out #5 for a reason. I would bet a lot of money that before the time he is an old man (no age jokes, please!), Pujols will admit his mistake. But who among us have not made big mistakes in our lives? And for him, Plan B has been highly lucrative.
For grins, I did the quick math. In his six full years with the Angels, Pujols has averaged 66 games per year at first base. That is it.
Now, had he been forced to play more games at 1B with StL during that time, would that average games played have increased? That is logical. However, he also could have ended up missing more games as a result on the back end because of the additional wear and tear on his feet by playing in the field.
Huge, huge break for the Cards.
As Albert Pujols closes in on 3,000 hits, he looks back on his relationship with Stan Musial, his 1.194 slugging percentage against Randy Johnson, a memorable encounter with Jose Altuve, and a bunch of other stuff. https://t.co/GaAnHK13E5
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) April 19, 2018
Albert still looks odd to me in an Angels uni. He’ll enter the Hall in his current uniform, but to real baseball fans, he’ll always be a Cardinal first and that team out on the left coast second. It’s not a 50-50 thing like say an Andre Dawson. If someone had a gun to my head and shouted at me to give a compelling case for Andre being sent to the Hall with the Expos over the cubs or vice versa, I’d have to tell them to fire away because I honestly couldn’t do it.
Great story. Albert still is a class act. Yeah, he took the money and ran, but who among us would not have done the same thing when you are overwhelmed with a deal like that. A lot of the criticism Albert got was due to his comments a few years before the deal, when he said how he loved being a Cardinal, and made plenty of money.
But when someone waves an insane amount of cash in front of you, it’s tough to walk away.
In sort of an odd consequence, his walking has kept Stan as the undisputed King of the Cardinals. If Albert were still in St. Louis, he would have eclipsed many of Stan’s team records.
As it is, he is on my Cardinal Mount Rushmore. My four guys are Stan, Albert, Rogers Hornsby and Bob Gibson.
Would Albert’s batting average have dipped so drastically if he had stayed in St. Louis? I think not. Come on….. Albert Pujols hitting .240 in a Cardinals uniform. Not in a million years. Only if he was forced to bat left handed. Sure, a drop off was only natural, but not as drastic as Albert’s. I bet if Albert had remained a Cardinal, he would have passed that 3000 hit plateau before last year’s all-star game.
Pugs, I have to take the other side of that view. If it was an apples-to-apples comparison, I would agree with you, but it is not.
To date, Albert has played almost 500 games at designated hitter for the Angels, an option not available to him as a Cardinal. Not having to play defense surely enabled him to be in the lineup for many more games in the AL than he would have been able to otherwise in the NL due to his chronic foot problems.
Also, Jerry Crasnick’s article goes into his unusual batting stance and how that is impacted by his injuries.
As it turned out, the right move to elongate his career was to go to the American League, though at the time he left, I doubt think any of us fully understood the severity of his problems. I wonder if in the back of his mind he suspected this, as his issues first surfaced when he was still with St. Louis.
If Pujols had stayed, I wonder if the DeWitts would have moved into the pro-DH camp? OK, enough wondering for me this morning. I need to get to work posting articles!
And old story line with some new perspective.
As Albert Pujols closes in on 3,000 hits, new public comments from the man himself suggest he’s two years older than we thought. I dig into that here. https://t.co/JpvIcOsayQ
— Matthew Trueblood (@MATrueblood) April 24, 2018
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