A Time Of Thanks

Cardinal Nation breathed a bit of a sigh of relief yesterday as Albert Pujols won his well-deserved third MVP.  Pujols not only didn't lose the award, but he was one of the rare unanimous selections in NL history.  Which, of course, touches off articles of praise for the best player in the game.  You have Stan Musial congratulating the best Cardinal since he played.  You have the discussion of how both the "art" and "science" side of baseball can come together in selecting AP.

You also get this from the man himself:

"This is my place.  This is where I want to be.  I don't hide that.  I'm still going to be a Cardinal for two more years and hopefully 15 more years--if I can play for that long--and retire as a Cardinal."

That might be more appropriate for Christmas, as it really is a gift to the fans.  It's great to have Albert make all these public comments about wanting to stay.  It's not, "Well, I'm a Cardinal for two more years and then we'll just have to see what happens."  Pujols genuinely seems to want to stay in St. Louis and since both sides want the same thing, I hope that we'll have an extension to talk about soon.

Which, of course, leads into the discussion of what you should pay a guy that has never finished lower than ninth in the MVP voting, and that was the only year he finished out of the top five.  The Post-Dispatch roundtable on how much for just the Pujols came to the basic conclusion that, if he wants it, he should get it.  (Love some of the comments on that story, BTW!)  I do think that Pujols isn't going to hold the franchise up and get all that he can.  I think the organization will want to give him the biggest contract ever, but I do think that it's going to be less than people think, definitely less than he'd get on the free agent market.  I also expect they'll probably do a long-term contract that easily could be his last.  You just don't let a guy like this get away, even if he tails off later on.

However, in this season of giving thanks, Cardinal Nation is very thankful that #5 is still wearing the birds on the bat and will be for the foreseeable future.  Other things to be thankful for, if you are a Cardinal fan:

• An ownership who cares about winning and is cognizant of their fan base.  The owners could have hoped the team could win the division, but they went out and made the Matt Holliday trade to make sure of it.  It's also a smart organization, who isn't sold on throwing just everything at Holliday in free agency just because they traded for him.
• Wonderful pitching.  Watching Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, even Joel Pineiro running off strong start after strong start this season was a wonder to behold.  I know we won't see that (to that level) next year, which makes the run they had this year, when they went seemingly weeks without allowing even three runs a game, so much more memorable.
• Yadier Molina.  His offense will never carry him into that "must draft in your rotisserie league" status, but when you combine that with his defense, you have just about a good of a catcher as you can imagine.  I love those throw downs to Pujols trying to pick a runner off.  I can't believe that they still are able to do it--you'd think the league would just stay on the bag by now!
• A solid team, both on and off the field.  For the most part, the Cardinals seem to have good people that make up the roster and the organization.  Granted, some people have negative opinions of the personalities of some of the players, but others will gush over them.  Last I checked, none of them were perfect.  However, most of the debate about players involves how they are producing between the lines, not what they are doing on their time off.

To stick with the thankful theme, a personal note.  The United Cardinal Bloggers did our annual Cardinal Blogger Awards recently and you can find the winners at the home page.  This blog won Most Optimistic Cardinal Blog.  (I also was runner up in Best Individual Cardinal Blog, but I fell victim to one of the classic blunders.  The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go up against Pip when a blogging award is on the line!  You can't beat Fungoes in that category.  You just can't.)

Anyway, there were a lot of nice things written about this blog and its author over the course of that voting and I wanted to say that I'm thankful we have such a great blogging community.  I'm honored to be a part of it and to contribute in my own small way.

Of course, other people are thankful at this time of year as well......

• Matt Holliday is thankful that he didn't spend all year in Oakland and that some people are focused on what Ryan Franklin did in NLDS Game 2.
• Ryan Franklin is thankful he got that extension signed early and that some people are focused on what Matt Holliday did in NLDS Game 2.
• Kyle McClellan is thankful that Adam Wainwright doesn't hold grudges, especially since a 20th win could have put Waino's name in the history books.
• Keith Law is thankful that he doesn't live anywhere close to St. Louis, so he hasn't had to clean his house and lawn this week.
• Kyle Lohse is thankful that 2008 was his free agent year, not 2009.
• Joel Pineiro is thankful Jose Oquendo didn't let him pitch for Puerto Rico, motivating him for a great year.
• Mark McGwire is thankful that the Cardinals had award nominees, allowing his press conference to be pushed back.
• Tony LaRussa is thankful he doesn't have to train a new pitching coach.
• Fredbird is thankful that no one has yet to mistake him for a turkey.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving, with safe travels if you are doing that.  As a parting link for the week, if you've not seen this rendition of a classic rock song, well, you are missing out.  Enjoy the holiday!


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