My Take on Albert Pujols

Living on $69,589 (or $2.67) a day

Published: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 9:40 AM CST

I don’t get out much. Living in the sticks forces me to limit my excursions to civilization in order to conserve gas, so often times the only contact I have with people not related to me occurs when I go to pick Truman up at preschool. I enjoy visiting with the stay-at-home moms who gather outside the classroom each day very much, but sometimes I yearn for an opportunity to talk about “guy stuff” such as sports and cars and flatulence.

That is why I was thrilled this morning when one of the moms broached the subject of Albert Pujols. The all-star first baseman who thrilled the fans of the St. Louis Cardinals for the last eleven years broke the hearts of those same fans last week when he accepted an offer to play for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Redbirds offered King Albert a ten year deal worth around $210 million, but the slugger opted to take the ten year, 254 million dollar deal offered by a team with a fan base who has not lived and died with every swing of his mighty bat for the last decade. While Albert claims that his decision to move on was not about the money, it is hard for Cards fans to accept the implication that our adoration and the organization’s $21 million per year was not enough to convince him to remain a Redbird for life.

I am not mad at Albert Pujols for leaving. I am disappointed in him sure, but I am more disappointed in myself for investing so much of my heart and soul and time and money in supporting him so fervently over the past eleven years. My oldest child Alex is eleven, and I am beginning to realize how much time I wasted watching a complete stranger play a game while my own son patiently waited for his dad to give him a little attention. That’s a pretty sobering realization.

One of the other moms involved in our conversation had a vague notion of who Pujols is, but admitted she didn’t even know his first name. At first I wondered if she had been living under a rock, but then I realized that this was a person who had her priorities in order. She said she didn’t own a Cardinals ball cap, but the more she thought about it, she actually didn’t want one. Instead, she wanted a cap with the number 3 on it. When I asked her why, she said, “Because of my three kids.” Priorities.

$254,000,000.00. The moms and I tried to wrap our heads around the concept of any one man earning that much money. The calculator on my iphone tells me that Mr. Pujols will receive $69,589 every day for the next ten years of his life. I guess he didn’t think he could survive on the $57,534 per day that St. Louis was willing to give him. My wife gives me a monthly allowance of $80 (which she labels in our budget as “Trav’s Fun Money”) for doing the housework and performing the duties of being a stay-at-home parent. That’s my walkin’ around money, my going out with my friends once in a blue moon money. That amounts to $2.67 per day. $2.67 for the privilege of raising three wonderful children. I should probably pay to have that privilege. (Don’t tell my wife that.)

I think I’ll save up some of my allowance for a new hat. One with the number 3 on it.