The massive statue of Stan Musial sits on the third-base side of Busch Stadium. The big one of Albert Pujols would have gone on the first-base side someday sooner rather than later. I'm with Sully in thinking that Pujols should have appreciated what it meant to be a great icon in a great baseball town like St. Louis. We were both wrong. Pujols has 254 million reasons to show us why but I'm still disappointed.
That said, the Angels put Pujols and Texas ace C.J. Wilson on the field and now become the favorite in the AL West over the two-time defending AL champion Rangers. That will now be quite a race, better than Yankees-Red Sox but without all the ESPN fawning.
Musial and the team's other Hall of Famers were sorry to see Pujols go, like any other Cardinal fan would be.
In his terrific column that ran on Page A-1 of today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch (click image at right for a bigger view), longtime sports columnist Bernie Miklasz reminded everyone in Cardinal red and white that this was all business with no sentiment attached.
P-D Hall of Fame writer Rick Hummel has this interesting comparison to where Pujols now stands in relation to Musial.
---Mike Harrington
(www.twitter.com/bnharrington)
(Front page image from Newseum.com)
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