PS. Is it too early to refer to him as HWSNBN2?

or one baseball club.

alz wrote:

As a fan, thank you for the 11 seasons of superb play. Thank you for the MVP's, the Rookie of the Year, the years where you posted better than Bonds numbers, but came up short. Thank you for the 3 World Series appearances, and the 2 titles. Thank you for 11 seasons of letting the fans know that they mattered to you.

Until yesterday, I found you to be a man of great principle. For the "thank you", I will ignore the last 9 hours and focus on that. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for what you did here.

As a goodbye, to be seperate for the reasons why I will miss you, let me explain what you have done.

You have forced a rift down the very heart of Cardinal nation, we are no longer united.
You removed 11 years of decency and morality with a signature that went against every statement you have publicly released.
You have let down a massive amount of people to please an audience that ranks baseball about as highly as the Los Angeles surf.
You have uprooted your family in order to chase down an extra 12%.
You've quite simply broken the hearts of Cardinal fans everywhere. While your frustrations with the team might have been legitimate, we became your victims.

For me personally, and this may change over time. I cannot see following you to Anaheim because you went for every dime you could get your hands on. On the alternate side, I cannot see abdicating the Cardinals of responsibility for you leaving, and thus you both have possibly ended baseball for me entirely as a fan. I have no strong desire to cheer for either of you. Enjoy your money asshole.

Pretty well written!

JV wrote:

I know we don't think much of Passan but I liked his essay tonight. "Albertross" indeed! Feeling better about this all the time in light of the money freed up. Given that there's not much of value out there, I don't expect the club to spend it all this year, but this additional payroll flexibility will come in very handy down the road.

That's a great point JV. With Albert's 22, Lohse's 12, Berkman's 12 and Westbrook's 8, that's $54M off the books. Of course, there will be pressure to do something this off-season, but if they don't do anything stupid, they could have resources for 2013.

"But it'll never cause me to switch allegiances. Best way to stick it to Albert and the Angels is to have MozBag hoist the trophy again next year."

I keep hearing about what great fans the Angels have. I'm not sure the introduction of the rally monkey and thundersticks is something I'd want attached to a legacy.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/09/opinion/pearlman-pujols/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Let the sniping begin, I'd heard rumors to this kind of stuff, but nice to read the article.

TV revenue :

[url]http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-angels-fox-tv-20111209,0,4052777.story[/url]

"I'd love to hear everyone tell me how this was a terrible contract again"

Because the two aren't necessarily related.  Anaheim didn't get that TV contract because of Pujols.

Use the example you had yesterday where I win the powerball for $220M.  I'm now a multi-millionaire (the only time in my life I'll ever get to type those words) and have more money than I can spend.  I go to buy a new house and find one that's worth about $4M, but because I can afford it, I offer $6M.  The seller immediately accepts.  Did I make a good deal?

don.rob11 wrote:

TV revenue :

[url]http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-angels-fox-tv-20111209,0,4052777.story[/url]

and this is why TV revenue must be shared equally.

APRTW wrote:

What was stopping this point of view from being wrote over the last ten years?

Rec. Too many rabbit punches and wild haymakers in there. I like some of Pearlman's stuff, but I've always had the impression that he's under the impression anyone who isn't from New York City is a rube.