I’m letting go of Albert Pujols. He can have his fun, sun and money in southern California. It takes nine guys on a field to win a baseball game. Although Pujols is a game-changer, his 11 seasons in St. Louis were treasured.

One of the reasons the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series was a trade made in late July just before the trading deadline. Rafael Furcal came over from the Los Angeles Dodgers in a trade that also got a handful of relief pitchers to bolster the ailing pitching staff.

Now Furcal has a two-year, $14 million contract in hand. ESPN reports he just underwent an appendectomy but will ready in time for spring training. Furcal’s signing is bittersweet for the club as there are good and bad points to the veteran shortstop.

First is that he’s 34 years old. You have to have an experienced player at shortstop. He’s probably past his prime in the batting department, but 12 years on the middle infield is what the Cards need to have on the defensive end. That being said, Furcal had a slew of errors the end of September that very nearly cost the Cardinals a shot at the postseason. He only bat .195 in the playoffs.

Furcal isn’t the best hitting shortstop in baseball. He is a career .282 hitter who hit .255 with the Cardinals in 2011. With great bats around him such as David Freese, Matt Holliday, Lance Berkman and (eventually) Allen Craig, the Cardinals clearly got him for his defense.

Plus the Cardinals were able to afford him. That’s the good thing that came out of the Pujols situation. St. Louis has so much more wiggle room to get players they need to fill gaps. Heaven for fend if St. Louis paid megabucks for Pujols and then he goes down with an injury, the team would be toast because other staff were gutted to bring keep him in St. Louis.

Furcal will be a welcome addition to St. Louis. He needs to focus and forget about the errors and his horrible postseason batting. Now that he has new life for the next two years in Major League Baseball, Furcal and relax and simply play baseball. He needs to be a defensive shortstop and let other batters around him take over and drive in runs.

William Browning was born in St. Louis and is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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As a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, the insinuation that Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun may have been jacked on performance enhancers during the 2011 season simply makes me mad. A report from ESPN stated a test for Braun came back positive for using synthetic testosterone in the 2011 season.

Braun was also the NL MVP when he led his team with a .312 batting average and 111 RBIs. Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers finished second in the voting . He should be given the award instead. Just like the Olympics, when athletes test positive for banned substances after the fact, they should have honors and awards stripped.

I’m not trying to be hypocritical. I’m aware of Mark McGwire’s 2010 admission of using steroids during his 1998 home run derby with Sammy Sosa that broke Roger Maris’s record. Barry Bonds should also be accountable for his use of steroids and his conviction in federal court for perjury.

If Braun’s MVP award should be taken away, then so too should the records of McGwire and Bonds. Either that or there should be a notation in the MLB record book as they pertain to a pre- and post-steroids era.

Braun will be appealing the test and the decision. If he loses the appeal, he will be suspended for 50 games without pay.

Major League Baseball is also in the middle of setting a dangerous precedent. ESPN reports Manny Ramirez was just taken off the retirement list in MLB. Instead of a 100-game suspension he faced for a positive drug test, Ramirez got it reduced to 50 games. A third offense for testing positive is a lifetime ban from baseball .

In the case of Ramirez, a player just got his sentence reduced. Does that mean his third time is a 100-game suspension? How many strikes will he get before he’s banned from baseball for life?

Too bad these steroid rules can’t be in place retroactively. If commissioner Bud Selig feels like it, he can ban McGwire or Bonds on a whim for using steroids during their glory days. Braun is just one more high-profile major league player whose accomplishments were just tainted by a positive test for steroids.

Perhaps it is fitting that Braun’s club was stopped by the Cardinals in the NLCS. Imagine if he had won the World Series MVP. What would happen to him then?

William Browning was born in St. Louis and is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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Jeffrey Loria quickly marched down the hallway with his team president and hustled into a meeting room with a labor lawyer from Major League Baseball.

Having already made the biggest splash at the winter meetings, the Miami Marlins owner was trying to reel in Albert Pujols and perhaps other big-name free agents with the newfound riches from their new ballpark.

“He’s not the only guy,” Loria said about 20 minutes later.

Baseball’s new Big Fish were the talk of the winter meetings Tuesday, with teams wondering how close the Marlins were to an agreement with Pujols on a deal that could be worth $200 million or more over 10 years for the three-time NL MVP.

St. Louis said it submitted a new offer Tuesday to keep Pujols with the Cardinals, a team he’s already led to two World Series titles in the last six seasons. No specifics were available.

Traditional big spenders such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox were reduced to spectators.

“They have a new stadium. They’re excited about it, and it’s good for baseball,” former Marlins and current Yankees manager Joe Girardi, an East Peoria native, said. “Our roster is pretty set. We have a lot of guys that are on long-term deals. That’s why maybe there’s not a lot happening for us.”

Having already reached deals with All-Star closer Heath Bell ($27 million for three years) and All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes ($106 million for six), the Marlins’ interest in Pujols is real. What’s unclear is whether the first baseman is prepared to go to Miami or whether his talks with the Marlins are an attempt to push the Cardinals higher.

“I know the ownership group is putting their best foot forward and trying to do everything that they can to make this possible,” new Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said, “but I also know it’s a complicated decision on both sides. There’s a lot going on, a lot that I’m not even involved in, but I think it’s clear to say that St. Louis Cardinals would love to have Albert, and we’ll see how it all plays out.”

Albert Pujols was recently offered salary arbitration by the St. Louis Cardinals, and while it’s possible that the most desirable free agent in Major League Baseball decides to accept a one-year deal at a price arbitrarily set by a salary arbitr—wait a minute—I think it’s important that we prepare for the outside chance that Pujols decides, instead, to continue negotiating for one of the largest contracts in the history of baseball. 

In that case, should the Cardinals fail to be the ones offering that large contract, they will receive two draft picks—even after the new collective bargaining agreement, which effectively banned the practice of offering Type-A relief pitchers salary arbitration and then laughing at them, very loudly, while they tried to find a team willing to sign them—and the sympathy of every other Major League Baseball team. 

Look, I know Albert Pujols will probably agree to play for one more year at a salary determined primarily by the worst season of his Major League career to date, just because the Cardinals offered it to him and he’s a very polite young man. But if it doesn’t happen, it’s important to know what happens next, is all. 

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa made two key mistakes in Game 5 of the 2011 World Series , both of which he admitted. First was that LaRussa miscommunicated with his bullpen . The wrong pitchers were warming up and facing the wrong batters. Then he let superstar Albert Pujols(notes) call a hit-and-run situation from the batter’s box. Unfortunately, Allen Craig(notes) was caught stealing as Pujols failed to swing at the pitch.

Tony LaRussa.
SD Dirk, Wikimedia Commons

Watching the game, I was aghast that St. Louis unraveled so thoroughly in two innings after commanding much of Game 5. The normally solid bullpen choked.

Hopefully LaRussa won’t make critical errors in Game 6. His club has to win two games in a row to win a world championship. Although not out of the realm of possibility, the way St. Louis lost two games in the World Series is startling. Game 2 saw the bullpen collapse and give up a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1. The same thing happened in Game 5 when Chris Carpenter had a 2-0 lead and then gave up two solo home runs to tie it. The bullpen lost it in the eighth.

After losing two close games, the franchise is on the brink of elimination during one of its greatest late-season runs into the playoffs. Frankly, Cardinals fans deserve this World Series in the final year of Pujols’ contract. The most feared hitter in Major League Baseball may be with another team next year. With his meteoric numbers in 11 seasons, it has been a joy to watch Prince Albert play in St. Louis.

Luckily the World Series isn’t over yet. St. Louis can learn from its mistakes. Winning at home has been a specialty of the Cardinals this year, especially in August and September. The team’s magical comeback to end the season was surreal even to get to this point.

Earlier in the World Series and throughout the NLCS, fans saw the brilliance of LaRussa who is sure to be a hall of fame manager. Yet for two ugly innings Oct. 24, the Cardinal skipper looked like a rookie.

LaRussa himself said he had never seen anything like the phone incident ever in his managerial career. If St. Louis loses the World Series, he may never get a chance to rectify his mistake. The best thing he can do is win two for the fans over the next two nights. His job may even depend upon it.

William Browning was born in St. Louis and is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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