Today was the final home game for the St. Louis Cardinals. Accordingly, it was the final regular season home game for Yadier Molina, and Albert Pujols, who have both made it clear that this season is their last.
As you may or may not know, Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina now have the all-time MLB record for most starts as pitcher and catcher. It's possible that, given the great caution with which those players are handled, this record is completely unreachable. We will see. I do know that Wainwright is the best pitcher never to win a Cy Young Award as the league's best pitcher, and that he's within hailing distance of consideration for baseball's Hall of Fame. (In point of fact, he has carried the Cardinals this season, and has for several years now, despite celebrating his 41st birthday about 2 months ago.)
You can't say enough about Yadier Molina. Once considered a light-hitting catcher, he's just finished his regular season career with a batting mark of .278. He hit .300 5 times. He's collected over 2000 hits, along with 176 career regular season home runs. He won a Silver Slugger award, as the best hitter at his position. He's had 2 seasons back-to-back in the top 5 of MVP voting. I haven't even mentioned defense yet.
The greatest defender of his generation, Molina has collected 9 Gold Gloves, second-most all-time at that position. 4 times, Yadi was awarded the Platinum Glove, as the best defender on the diamond, among all Gold Glove winners. And not only has he thrown out runners attempting to steal at a rate above 40 percent, but the Cardinals have had the fewest steal attempts against them during this period, by far: fewer than 1000, while the next-closest team has nearly 1500 attempts against them. The upshot: Teams are so afraid of getting thrown out by Molina that they don't even try. (Molina is now 40.) In short, I can't choose between Wainwright or Molina as my favorite player. It's as if they are one, as the starts record amply attests.
Pujols. The most feared hitter of his generation, Pujols collected his 702nd career home run today--4th all-time, behind Bonds, Henry Aaron, and Babe Ruth--and pulled even with Ruth in career RBI, with 3 games left, for second-most in the history of baseball. The 42-year-old has 24 home runs this season alone. If I am honest, I will tell you that it felt absurd to "root" for Albert; in baseball terms, he never really struggled; he's an icon, a baseball "saint" if anyone ever was. And in a sense, beyond us. Yadi and Adam worked to be great; their efforts were as obvious as the chalk lines. Albert made it look easy, as if he invented baseball himself.
Today, in the fifth inning, all three legends, three brothers, left the game together. They left the Busch Stadium field during a season for the very last time. Those pictures will sell for an unreasonable amount of money. I might have cried, on any other day. But the game still hung in the balance; individual accolades come after team wins. They taught us that, and we have learned it well.
Time is passing, to be sure. But for these men, time seems to freeze. And we are frozen in their greatness; every play has felt like a milestone, even before they earned the respect that milestones imply. I don't even know what Cardinals baseball will be without them. But Cardinals baseball has been built by men who don't play for only themselves. And so it will be, always.
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