Fool's Gold

With it being the last day of the regular season and both the Angels and Phillies eliminated from playoff contention, I felt like this point just needed to be made...

It is notably ironic that when Albert Pujols signed his recent contract with the Los Angeles Angels, that his average annual salary tied him for third on the list of active players, with none other than Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee (A-Rod and Ryan Howard rank 1 and 2).

There was a concept that I've repeated back-to-back off-seasons, mainly to my younger brother and a few close friends; in winter of 2010 it was that Cliff Lee needed the Texas Rangers more than the Rangers needed him, and in winter of 2011 it was that Albert Pujols needed the St. Louis Cardinals more than the Cardinals needed him.  The two players' relationships with their former teams held high levels of intangible value in different ways.  It turns out that both of these players believed themselves to be bigger than their now ex-teams, and went chasing after what I deem as "fool's gold."

We'll begin chronologically with Lee.  Cliff served as somewhat of an x-factor in the Rangers' 2010 run to the World Series.  Texas had acquired him from Seattle in July of 2010 hoping to benefit from his proven postseason mettle, showcased with the Phillies in the 2009 playoffs.  Adding Lee to the front of their rotation, along with ace CJ Wilson and a potent offense, helped Texas steamroll through the American League (including the defending champion New York Yankees) and make it to the World Series.  Though they would eventually lose to the San Francisco Giants, the Rangers had a lot to be excited about for the future, with the potential of a full season behind the arms of both Lee and Wilson.  The obstacle between them and that future would be re-signing Lee to a contract during the off-season.

Cliff Lee at his introductory press conference

To shorten the story about a lengthy exercise of contract offers including both the Rangers and the Yankees (the Yanks have this habit of buying up the talent that kicks the crap out of them in the playoffs. see: Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, etc.), the bottom line is that Cliff Lee signed a 5-year $120 million contract with the team who snuck in through the back door of negotiations at the last minute, the Phillies.  The alleged deal-breaker was that the Rangers weren't offering as much guaranteed money and that Lee was also demanding a 7-year contract from them.  At that point, the Rangers decided that although Lee was a more than worthy investment, the things that he was demanding might put the team's future financial situation in limbo and that risk was more daunting than the risk of thinking about life without Cliff.  So with the Rangers offer still standing on the table, Lee declined and became a Phillie.  How arrogant for Lee to think that he was SO important as to make greedy demands of the team that just got him out of a hopeless Seattle situation and brought him to the World Series.  From the Rangers angle they knew it would be a very tough void to fill, but were confident enough in the holistic organizational structure that they had built, and were justly rewarded with another trip to the World Series in 2011.

In that World Series, they faced the Cardinals, who after defeating the Rangers in seven games, faced their own dramatic free agent situation with living legend, Albert Pujols; just one year after Texas' contractual dance with Lee.  St. Louis had tried to avoid this debacle, attempting to negotiate in January 2011, before the final season on Albert's contract began, offering a 9-year deal that would pay the slugger $198 million (far from chump change).  Pujols is quoted as saying that he was "insulted" by this offer, that would have paid him until he was a 40-year-old, despite an inevitable decline in performance; he then said he didn't want to negotiate until after the season, naturally giving him a chance to test the free agent waters.  Again, to shorten a long story of contract offers involving several teams, the Cardinals went as high as 10 years and $220 million (what many critics would say is over-paying for what will likely be only 3-5 high performance years); yet that was again not enough, as Albert Pujols on January 5, 2012 signed a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels.  The contract offers much more than face value, however...

According to ESPN, other perks include: 

• A hotel suite on road trips.

• Four season ticket packages to home games over the next decade.

• A luxury suite at the ballpark for the Pujols Foundation, his charitable group, for 10 home games a year.

• The right to buy a luxury suite between first base and third base for all home games.

• The Angels' deal was so complicated that it includes three separate agreements: His playing contract, a marketing deal and an agreement to enter a 10-year, personal-services agreement following the playing contract's expiration or Pujols' retirement, whichever is later. That will pay $1 million annually, but because it is contingent on Pujols actually working for the team, it is not considered guaranteed money for the purposes of baseball's luxury tax.

• Including all three agreements, Pujols could make up to $268.75 million over 20 years.

These are the things that Albert felt were more important than continuing to don the only jersey he had ever worn before.  The Cardinals, much like Texas a year before them, were willing to go above and beyond for what they felt was a key piece of their franchise, but they just weren't going to be bullied into going all the way to the moon for someone.  If sports has shown us anything, it is that no player, no matter how talented, is completely indispensable.  There may be some efforts that are unrepeatable and performances that are unforgettable, but Derek Jeter makes it easier to see Don Mattingly go, Aaron Rodgers makes it easier to see Brett Favre go, and Dwight Howard makes it easier to see Shaq go; that's just the way it is.  And to the beat of that drum, CJ Wilson made it easier to see Cliff Lee go and David Freese, Carlos Beltran, Alan Craig, and company have made it easier to see Pujols go.  The only way to insure that it's near-impossible for someone to feel like it's easy to see you go, is to stay while you still can (see: Cal Ripken Jr, Tony Gwynn, and most recently Larry "Chipper" Jones).

Albert Pujols at his introductory press conference.

And so we now will begin a postseason on Friday that won't feature Cliff Lee's Phillies, or Pujols' Angels.  The lesson to learn from the two examples here is the same.  With Lee it's a bit simpler - he had the chance to be the mainstay in the development of a modern-day baseball dynasty, the fans viewed him as a mid-season savior, and he had nothing to prove, only more accomplishments to achieve.  He opted for the guaranteed money with a group that wasn't a team, rather a NL version of the Yankees - a bunch of high-priced square pegs, trying to be put in a round hole.  What that earned him was an early exit in the 2011 playoffs and a seat on his couch for the 2012 ones.  Not to mention that this summer, Texas was in talks to reacquire Lee at the trade-deadline...talks that I'm sure to Lee's disappointment didn't work out; I believe the appropriate phrase is "shoulda, coulda, woulda."  Unfortunately for most professional athletes, though physically grown men, it takes them till much later in their careers to realize that there are few things that are truly just "about them."  Cliff made his decision about "Cliff" and not about wanting to be a part of something.  Well, I hope Cliff is happy, because he isn't a part of anything special...but the Rangers sure are.  Perhaps it's poetic irony that CJ Wilson made the same decision to abandon Texas one season after Lee set the example, as Wilson left town for a fat payout in LA, becoming Pujols' teammate...I suppose that selfish minds think alike.

Looking back at Pujols now, his situation is arguably more complex than Lee's because he gave up much more than promise or convenience, he gave up an opportunity that would've put him as close to baseball immortality as one can get.  He had logged 11 years in St. Louis, winning 2 World Series, breaking records, and writing a historic legend with each passing season.  The benefit to "staying" is that though you will clearly be overpaid in the back half of your contract, the fans and even organization will forgive you because they look at your entire body of work from Day 1.  Meanwhile, in LA, Albert's body of work from his past was only relevant in getting him the contract.  In terms of actually getting respect and validation from the fans, he will be judged only on what he has done as an Angel, from 2012 to 2022; which it doesn't take a math wiz to know his numbers may be good during that stretch, but simply won't be as good as they were in St. Louis.  Albert could've stayed in St. Louis, potentially won several more championships, and in 10 years gotten a league-wide send off similar to what Chipper has received this year.  Instead, Albert voluntarily chose to remove himself from the pedestal that idealistic sports fans look to, the one where a guy will choose his team over the payout, where his relationship with the fans and culture is bigger than his relationship with his ego.  Gone are the days of an Albert Pujols that we revere as having a historic career, and now we have a man, just like most of the other big talents in the game, who followed his nose to the scent of the greenbacks.  Also to the scent of a mediocre regular season that has the Angels sitting at home this October, a place they would've been sitting much sooner, had Mike Trout not kept them in it this long.

Ironically, this year in the college classes I'm teaching, I required the students to read Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory, which chronicles the life of former NFL linebacker Pat Tillman.  I am using this book with the class to demonstrate several leadership concepts, one of which is loyalty.  If your wondering what a truly dedicated player looks like, allow me to share with you what Pat said when he turned down a 5-year, $9.6 million offer from the St. Louis Rams to play for the Arizona Cardinals at close to the annual league minimum of $512,000.  When Pat's agent begged him to take the money from the Rams, he simply said, "Look, Frank, the Cardinals drafted me in the seventh round. They believed in me. I love the coaches here. I can't bring myself to take the offer from the Rams."  Now do I expect every professional athlete to be as gracious as Pat?  Of course not, but I guess we were all just hoping that we'd find one more along the way.

With the recent Penn State cover-up, many sports critics have questioned the idolatry that we participate in as sports fans; pledging love to certain players, building statues to other men, defining part of who we are through personalities of men that we don't even know.  That said, it's hard not to - sports is an unscripted play, it's a drama just like any other form of entertainment and we can't help but fall in love with certain characters in the plot.  The hopeless wish of any sports fan in the viewing audience, the "fool's gold" that we chase is that maybe, just maybe, the characters we look up to will actually be better than common, mistake-ridden people.  That they won't just be the Average Joe who follows his natural selfish instincts, that they'll transcend "what most people would do," and land at "what most people wish they could do," they'll prove to us that they were worth our trust, they'll be the exact thing we hoped they would be, our hero.

You blew it Albert, you blew it Cliff, and plenty of other people have blown it before you, but even more, you demanded the big stage and bright lights for your failure.  And so the stage was set, the contracts were signed, and we rolled out the red carpet.  But the joke is on you, because this year's postseason performance includes acts by your former teams, and you're merely another paying member of the viewing audience.  I hope you don't miss the pedestal, because once you've stepped down, you can never again taste the true gold of professional sports - teamwork, trust, success, and the authentic adoration of your fans.  Instead you chased the gold that you could put in your wallet, the kind that you can stash in a bank account, the kind that you can flaunt to the world...you thought it was what you wanted at the time, but as you sit there staring at other people playing in the postseason, wearing what was once your uniform, you'll realize what a fool you are, surrounded by your fool's gold.