Put on your business hats, folks…I have a proposition for you. An investment opportunity if you will.
I am talking about the bluest of the blue chips. The centerpiece of your portfolio. Without it your other stocks melt into the manila folder of mediocrity. I’m talking about a nationally recognized, well-established, financially sound entity with essentially ZERO evidence of volatility…the epitome of stable and reliable returns and an undeniable history of weathering economic fluctuations with success unparalleled in any industry. I repeat, unparalleled.

Regardless of the wax and wane inherent to the marketplace, this proposed opportunity has continued to produce absurd dividends over a significant and measurable amount of time. He is…I mean it is…for all intent and purposes, a machine. A money machine.
There is no doubt a camp that would argue that, even if Pujols didn’t hit a lick for the next ten years, he means enough to the organization that a deal is mandated at all costs. Conversely, there is an innocence within even some of the most jaded sports fans that compels us to feel the signing of an extension between the Cardinals and Albert Pujols should be dictated, at least in part by factors not related to the business of the game. That the continued nurturing of the franchise’s storied legacy, and the player defining one of its most successful eras, should have as much to do with inking a deal as the absurd numbers he has tossed into the air like confetti over his first ten eleven years in the league.
As for Albert Pujols, I believe, perhaps naively, that intangible factors will impact his decision. I am not without my cynicism, but I believe Pujols has considered carefully what it means to be an icon in the way Derek Jeter is to the Yankees or the way Stan Musial is to this very Cardinal Nation.
As for the ownership group – a cast of whales with pockets deeper than the fences at San Diego’s Petco Field, many of whom having few local ties to the community beyond the cash cow that is Saint Louis baseball – I sincerely doubt it.
If I am breaking your heart, I’m sorry. But grow up. These are business men. They are wealthy and affluent for a reason. These are men who are able to separate the romance of “Cardinals vs. Cubs” from the financial discussion of “risk vs. reward” with cold, calculated ease. It is this objectivity that has allowed them to become and/or remain rich. Accumulating money is their game. They pay baseball people to worry about baseball. The men who pull the purse strings do care whether or not the team wins, just not as much as you and I, and for completely different reasons.
Both philosophies can coexist and have done so under the current regime. But the “smartest fans in baseball” need to understand that with this ownership group it is and always will be a business decision. This is the case whether we are talking about the signing of baseball’s best player, or a low-cost, obscure, left-handed relief specialist (typically on the agenda each offseason as well).
But that is exactly why, my dear Cardinal faithful, we need not fret over this particular matter. The Cardinals will reach an accord with Albert Pujols. They will because even at the $27.5 million yearly he will likely command, ownership surely recognizes the limited number of scenarios that will play out as a result. They are as follows:
1. Pujols remains the ridiculously consistent demigod that he has been for his entire career, keeping the team in contention annually, if only by his own will at times. With his tenth eleventh season in the books, he’ll already be wearing a Cards cap in a Cooperstown bust one day…all that is left to do is watch the magic unfold for another 7 to 10. Ownership wins.
2. Pujols suddenly forgets how to hit and the contract proves to be a shocking mistake, hamstringing the team at various points throughout its term. But the fan base continues to support the team, because they primarily feel that signing Pujols was “the right thing to do”. They remember that their cries were answered in 2010 2011 and any crying over unforeseeable poor production lands on the shoulders of the “empathetic” owners. Revenue continues to pour in, allowing the team to adapt and to continue to gently increase the payroll from year to year. Ownership wins.
Or, they do not do the deal, in which case option 3 likely vests. Mo and the gang come up short this offseason and fail to exhaust their resources in order to extend the greatest player to wear the birds on bat for our humble, almost embarrassingly loyal city. They allow him to be lured away by a team with deeper pockets, more aggressive owners, or an organization seemingly more hell-bent on winning.
Pujols maybe then goes on to put up another 5 to 10 years of jaw-dropping numbers, cutting Cardinal fan loyalty with every sweet swing of his bat.
Ownership loses their ass.
The Cardinals will sign Albert Pujols to a record deal. They will do so because they are too smart in business to not. For, if they didn’t, the organization would risk the solace of our confidence. They would be to us stupid baseball men and even stupider businessmen, and a lot of the money these fat cats have been raking in due to our love for a thirteenth-round blessing might leave with number 5. Never mind the unrealized revenue lost every time the slugger reaches another historical milestone.
The Cardinals will sign Albert Pujols because the cost of not doing so would be even greater. And that is the bottom line.







1. Stand Your Ground. Literally. Common sense should always set the precedence, but when standing still in a public setting, baring an emergency of some sort, you have the right of way. When some aloof jackass encroaches upon your personal space, own it. Do not move. Do not give way. In some cases, I might even suggest a subtle elbow extension in the assailant’s direction, followed by an insincere apology.
4. Put An Attractive Yet Bitchy Woman In Check. By most anyone’s standards, she was hot. And she’d been looking in my direction for a while that night. So when she made her way through the crowd and into my vicinity, I knew I had to say something before she passed.
8. Sing Karaoke. I’m kidding. Unless you have legitimate talent, you need to cut that shit out. And don’t tell me you’re “just having a good time” either. What you’re doing is seeking a drunken escape from a life that clearly lacks a legitimate creative outlet, and you’re doing it at the expense of others who are likely actually trying to have a legitimate good time.
There may even be some mysterious benefit to sitting upon the acme of social drinking status that is the VIP section. Perhaps being perched a few steps above the general-admission masses and clad in $150 pattern-pocketed jeans offers some glimpse of what it takes to achieve societal advancement.
Any establishment can serve a drink, but the places that last garnish their fare with an experience and an energy that leaves a stronger mark than the hangovers that often follow.
That’s right. $2 tall cans on Tuesday. It is a glorious spectacle to behold. And the music on Friday and Saturday nights, at least as I have experienced it, is always solid. Add to that their Happy Hour (3-7 pm, $2 bottles/drafts/rails) and Cardinal game specials ($2 bottles/drafts) and you have a little something I like to call a no-brainer.
Witty lines spews from your face no matter how intimidating the intended recipient might be. Eye contact with the opposite sex comes so naturally that you would swear you had a soundtrack playing in the background.
It has become cliché to acknowledge to others how little one cares about what others think. I would even go a step further and say that, for many people, doing so is little more than a protective countermeasure to the contrary.
I mean, who was she to me at that point? Were we characters in some crappy, idealistic, romantic comedy all of a sudden? When had I decided to become Matthew fucking McConaughey?

