I have a confession to make: I used to watch professional wrestling on a regular basis. I loved it. (Don’t worry, this article won’t be about professional wrestling). One of the wrestlers that I used to watch was nicknamed: The Million Dollar Man. His famous line was that ‘everybody…. and I mean EVERYBODY has a price.’
Being a St. Louis Cardinal fan, (finally, you get a hint that this will be about baseball) I have grown to believe that the Million Dollar Man’s famous statement was false. In the past seven or eight years, this Cardinal organization has traded to get great players and then they have been able to sign them for below market value because the player loved the organization and city so much. Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, and even Albert Pujols (to a certain extent) signed below market deals to stay in St. Louis.
I was fooled into thinking that this offseason would be more of the same… but the string of happy players seems to have been broken. I’m not talking about Tony Womack or Mike Matheny: Both had (in my mind, at least) legitimate reasons for leaving. I would like to take issue with Mr. Edgar Renteria.
It’s been said that Renteria was nicknamed ‘the captain’ by many of the other players in the clubhouse. He won a gold glove and a silver slugger award in St. Louis. In the six seasons that he played as a Cardinal… he went to the playoffs four of those seasons. I know for certain that the fans loved him. The organization might have made a few mistakes in dealing with Renteria… but more often then not, the Cardinals were very generous with him.
At the beginning of the offseason, the Cardinals front office made it clear that their first priority of the winter would be to sign Mr. Renteria. Everytime we turned around, the Cardinals were talking about Edgar Renteria… about how it was vital to get this player signed… about how important he was to the club… over and over… Sign Edgar and sign him NOW.
So, I’m assuming (that’s dangerous, I know) that Edgar knew that he was well-liked in the clubhouse, much sought after by the organization, and adored around the city. I assume he was somewhat comfortable because he had tremendous success both offensively and defensively. I assume that he is smart enough to know that making the playoffs four times out of six years is somewhat difficult to do when you aren’t playing for the Braves or the Yankees. So, the remaining issue must have been money. Right? That is the only thing I can think of.
If that is the case, why would Mr. Edgar say stupid things like: “Boston pursued me more. Boston made me feel wanted. Boston is a franchise full of history and tradition. Boston is a winning organization.” Why not just come out and say: “Boston offered me more money, so I’m going there…” I mean, we already know that Boston AND St. Louis heavily pursued Edgar. We know that the Cardinal organization put everything else on hold this offseason to sign Edgar. We all know that St. Louis is a franchise with as much or more history than the Boston Red Sox. (Unless you want to blame the Cards for not wanting to play in the same stadium that they played in eighty years ago.) We all know that the Cards had a BETTER winning percentage last year than Boston did and even accomplished something that Boston could not do: The Cards actually won their division. So, let’s cut to the chase instead of making up excuses: Boston offered more money and Edgar found that to be the most important thing.
Look, I don’t want to give anybody the impression that I blame him for taking the money. That is not the issue that concerns me. The issue is this: Why can’t ballplayers just be honest and say: “I went to this organization because I wanted to take more money.” Why do they have to feed us with a load o’ manure?
I also take issue with Edgar for something else. Local media has reported that the Cardinals’ final offer ended up being only a million dollars off of Boston’s final offer. The difference was that the deal was backloaded. Edgar Renteria left a perfect situation over one million dollars. And for someone that would have gotten paid close to six million next year and 39 million over the next several years… that just doesn’t seem to jive with common sense.
When it comes right down to it, I think Edgar Renteria left because his agent told him to leave. Agents get a certain percentage of their client’s salary. I think Edgar’s agent put pressure on him to take the high paying job so that the Agent would get more money NOW as opposed to later. Edgar Renteria probably left St. Louis because of what someone else told him to think… and not what HE thought.
You know what? Good riddance. Edgar Renteria… You aren’t worth ten million a year, anyway. Good luck in Boston. Hope their fans are as forgiving and adoring as our fans were. Hope Fenway Park holds up. Hope you don’t get tired of losing to the Yankees. Hope Boston doesn’t go another 80 some years without winning a World Series. Hope you don’t get ‘booed’ when you come back to St. Louis in July. (Actually, I take that back… I hope you do.)
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