Albert Pujols and the Moment of Clarity

They've done it before, they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it, it seems only children weep. — To Kill a Mockingbird

It was one of the worst days of my life.

It was early on a Saturday morning when my mom woke me up for a news story. Usually any local news would bounce off my 15-year-old teenage bubble, but this one froze me.

The Chicago White Sox were selling the naming rights of their stadium. As of that season, there would be no more Comiskey Park.

I'd seen my mother sobbing at my grandmother's funeral and been to memorial service for a high school friend's brother. So why did this have me repeating the words, "They can't do that"?

Glory days

Being a young sports fan was like having spring training last 10 years. As soon as I could read, I was searching for White Sox books. When my fingers were deft enough to hold the newspaper without dropping pages, I was flipping to the sports section, checking scores and reading columns. I could recite statistics off the top of my head and knew exactly what happened in last night's game.

We didn't have cable so I listened to the radio, drinking in the sounds of the game from John Rooney and Ed Farmer. I read the Sun-Times every day, game or no game, and like any good Sox fan, I grew to hate Jay Mariotti and the Tribune for favoring the Cubs.

I treasured those few games I could get to in a summer, pleading with my mom to spend the 14 bucks on a Kids Day game or half-price tickets on Mondays. Usually, she relented with two conditions: she would never sit in the upper deck and she read a book during the game.

The Sox had a middle-of-the-road team in a stadium that everybody hated in a neighborhood no one wanted to be in after dark. But I loved them. I loved James Baldwin and Mike Caruso as much as Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez.

It was a charmed life.

Comiskey Park was a part of that life, as much a part of me as the White Sox. I passed the park on the Red Line in the winter months, staring at the scoreboard and counting the days until April. I watched the pinwheels spin during night games after home runs and the occasional Sox victory. I remember the old black-and-white scoreboard signs that would play after plays ("Send it flyin' to the Ryan" was my favorite) and Nancy Faust playing "Na-na-na-na" on the organ when the opposing pitcher was taken out.

That was Comiskey Park. That Saturday in 2003, those memories were swept away for $68 million dollars and a cell phone company.

End of innocence

There's a point in every fan's life when the fun of the game is replaced with reality. These days, it's when the franchise player leaves town for a better offer, your favorite player brushes aside an autograph request or when the owner makes stupid moves with no regard to the fan base (I'm looking at you, Dan Snyder).

You could see it in the faces of every Cavs fan this summer, young and old alike, as LeBron said those damning words and left Cleveland behind.

The point where the "game" becomes a "business". The moment of clarity, if you will.

It's funny to say that, because sports, especially baseball, has been a business almost since they became professionalized. But when you're young, you don't know any better. There's your team, the good guys versus everyone else. Anyone in a uniform is a little bit larger than life.

Then reality comes crashing in. All the colors become real.

And the only ones who get hurt are the kids.

Ghost of the hometown hero

Today is the deadline for Albert Pujols to sign a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols and the Cards set this date out of respect to Stan Musial, who is receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in Washington.

Pujols has often been compared to Musial, with fans going so far as to nickname the slugger "El Hombre" in reference to Musial's moniker of "The Man". While Pujols doesn't care for the nickname (he believes it's disrespectful to Musial), he has to realize one thing: he is the man in St. Louis now.

Musial played in a generation where players played their entire careers for one team, and those careers often last 20-plus years. Ted Williams did it. Joe DiMaggio did it. Harmon Killebrew did it. And the fans loved them.

Now, the culture seems to be "get yours and get out while you still can". No one sticks around a team longer than a few years, and they jump as soon as they get a better offer from somewhere else. The only baseball player in the last 15 years who might finish where he started is Derek Jeter, and the Yankees even tried to lowball him out of town.

Albert Pujols is more than just a franchise player. To many a young baseball fan in St. Louis, he's larger than life. There are kids who will imitate his swing, wear his number 5 as they grow up, and try to play first base like him. They'll draw pictures of Albert in the margins of notebooks and daydream about watching him swat home runs.

In an age where there are no more hometown heroes, Albert Pujols and the Cardinals must reach an agreement and have their cornerstone in St. Louis his whole career. Pujols is the Cardinals, and that's worth more than any contract.

There's plenty of 12-year-olds Cardinal fans who still have a love of the game. Let's not enlighten them to  the reality of the business just yet.

See you in the cheap seats.

JS