Cleveland Sports Forum

Albert Pujols out 4-6 weeks with fractured arm


Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols will miss four to six weeks with a small fracture in his left forearm, an injury that creates a gaping hole in the St. Louis lineup while vastly altering the dynamic of the National League Central race.

The Cardinals announced today that an MRI showed a non-displaced fracture of the left radius and that the All-Star's arm was placed in a splint.

Pujols was injured Sunday in a baseline collision with Kansas City's Wilson Betemit when Pujols came off first base to catch a wide throw from second baseman Pete Kozma. He will be placed on the disabled list and a roster replacement announced before Tuesday's game against Philadelphia. The Cardinals are off today.

The Cardinals have the bodies and versatility to fill out their lineup but are unlikely to find the production to match that of the nine-time All-Star and reigning National League home run and RBI champion. It also could be a test run for the future because Pujols is in the final year of his contract and has told the Cardinals he will not discuss a new deal until after the season.

The quickest fix at first base is to move Lance Berkman from the outfield back to the position he played regularly for the previous eight seasons in Houston. Berkman has outhit Pujols this year, ranking third in the NL with a 1.022 OPS and second with a .421 on-base percentage. Berkman has 17 home runs, 51 RBI and a .308 batting average.

Pujols is batting .279, 50 points below his career average, with 17 homers, 45 RBI and an .855 OPS.

Berkman has been sharing time in the outfield with Matt Holliday, Colby Rasmus and Jon Jay. Four-time All-Star Holliday, who's also been on the DL this season, is hitting .347 and Jay .313. Colby Rasmus, the regular center fielder, is hitting .258. Andrew Brown, who was hitting .351 with 11 homers at Class AAA Memphis, was called up June 12 when Allen Craig went on the disabled list but has just 13 at-bats and three hits.

Craig -- he has played first base, second base, third base in addition to outfield -- is hitting .336 but on the disabled list for several more weeks because of a knee cap that was fractured running into a wall June 7 in Houston. Craig's situation was similar to Pujols in that the Cardinals first called Craig's injury a contusion, then later found the fracture. Pujols' injury was announced as a strained wrist after he left Sunday's game.

The Cardinals also could recall first baseman Mark Hamilton, 0-for-12 in previous brief action with St. Louis this season, but hitting .385 at Memphis. Plus, third baseman David Freese is beginning an injury rehab assignment tonight with Memphis and could be back with the Cardinals by next week. He suffered a broken wrist when hit by a pitch May 1.

"We've been tested enough," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said after Sunday's game. "Let's quit having to prove it."

Despite all the injuries, which include star pitcher Adam Wainwright missing the entire season, the Cardinals are tied with Milwaukee for the NL Central lead and two games ahead of defending champion Cincinnati.

The division race has been a battle of attrition. A series of injuries has forced Cincinnati to use 19 pitchers already this season and Milwaukee has gotten only nine starts and a 5.23 ERA from former AL Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke thanks to a pre-season rib injury.

The Brewers are the healthiest of the top three at the moment -- but stay tuned.

Right now the fans would have 6 members of the EE starting the AS game.

The duo who dramatically changed the professional sports landscape:
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Documentary gives Flood overdue tribute

BY BRYAN BURWELL, Post-Dispatch Sports Columnist | Posted: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 12:30 am |

Two weeks shy of the All-Star break, all over baseball, teams are deciding if it is time to start buying or selling. With baseball's July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline a little more than a month away, if you are in the thick of a division race, or have reasonable expectations on the postseason, you are trying to determine whether you should leap into the market like a frenzied shopper at a close-out sale.

If you're a team on the fringes of playoff irrelevance, or in an ugly season-long swoon that has left you on the side of the road like totaled baseball wreckage, you're thinking about that trade deadline, too. But you're on the dark side of the marketplace, a potential seller trying to figure out if there's anything worth saving. Do you sell off your best players like so many spare parts? Can you get some sort of early foothold on the future by ditching your most valuable assets?

These are things we take for granted in baseball these days. We regard the business of trading players from team to team as a simple and inoffensive part of American sports.

History tells us a different story. History tells us that there was a man who decided that the act of trading a professional athlete from one team to another should carry with it a simple act of human dignity.
Curt Flood decided no man should be traded without his consent.

That does not sound so revolutionary today. But in 1969 before anyone had heard of the phrase "free agency," when baseball's restrictive reserve clause gave baseball owners complete control of a player for his entire professional career, it was beyond revolutionary. Nearly 42 years ago, the former three-time All-Star outfielder for the Cardinals shook up the baseball establishment by the simple act of refusing to recognize the team's right to trade him without his approval.

It was Oct. 7, 1969 and Flood was part of a six-player deal that sent him and catcher Tim McCarver to Philadelphia for All-Star outfielder Dick Allen. But when Flood refused to go to the Phillies and met with Marvin Miller, the head of the players' association and told him he wanted to fight baseball's reserve clause in the federal courts, Miller thought he was crazy.

"I told him a case like this will take years," said Miller in an HBO documentary called "The Curious Case of Curt Flood." "I wanted Curt to understand that a) this was no simple matter, and b) it was a million-to-one shot in my opinion."

Flood didn't care what the odds were. All he knew was there was something morally wrong with baseball's rules that prevented a man from his own professional freedom to choose where he wanted to live, work and play. A few months later, he filed a federal lawsuit to challenge baseball's reserve clause, appealing it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Flood ultimately lost the case, ruined his career and destroyed his personal life, but his courageous sacrifice led to an eventual upheaval of baseball's indentured servitude, and five years later the reserve clause was eliminated and the age of free agency in baseball was born.

Tonight at the Missouri History Museum, HBO premieres "The Curious Case of Curt Flood" before a local audience; its network premiere will be July 13. It seems so perfect that we in St. Louis get to see the film before the rest of the world since another Cardinals star, Albert Pujols, is on the verge of enjoying the fruits of Flood's ultimate career sacrifice.

When Flood left the game in 1971, he was making the princely sum of $110,000 a year. Forty years later, Pujols will go on the free agent marketplace this winter with expectations of collecting one of the richest contracts in baseball history. Even though he is currently on the disabled list with a broken wrist, the three-time National League most valuable player will probably command an annual salary expected to top $20 million.

"Injury or no injury, I don't think there's anything for Albert to worry about," baseball's true all-time home run king, Hank Aaron, told me a few days ago. "He's going to get his money no matter what. I know a lot of people say, 'Oh boy, these guys are getting a lot of money.' But I don't know of one person who thinks they're going to the ballpark to see the owner. Everybody goes out there to see Pujols play. So why shouldn't he get paid? If an actor can get that much money, why not a ballplayer? I'm not taking anything away from the actors. But they get stand-ins to do their stunts for them. No one is standing in for Albert."
But there was someone who stood up for Pujols and generations of the millionaires who were created as a result of Curt Flood's courage. He played on two Cardinals World Series championship teams (1964 and '67), won seven Gold Glove Awards, batted over .300 six times and finished with a career .293 average. Yet at 31 years old and in his career prime, he essentially gave it all away to fight the baseball establishment.

The HBO documentary does a thorough job of detailing the sort of personal and professional ruin Flood suffered as a result of challenging baseball's reserve system. Regardless of how you might feel today about the sort of salaries that modern professional athletes command, that should not detract from the significant role that Curt Flood played in tilting the economic balance of power from the feudal advantage the owners had in the late 1960s to the more even distribution today.

In my mind, baseball has never done nearly enough to give Flood his historical due. At the 2009 All-Star Game here, when the league could have easily honored him as part of the Cardinal-centric festivities, the one player whose contributions to the game were noticeably absent was Flood. In the sixth inning of the game, the big scoreboard in center field at Busch Stadium kept rolling the slow-motion highlights of so many past and present Cardinals heroes. There was nothing that hailed what Flood meant to this franchise or baseball as a whole.

They didn't recognize his contributions as the best center fielder in franchise history, which was sad. But the failure to acknowledge his contribution as one of the game's ultimate pioneers was and still is downright shameful.

"Every player in every sport owes a debt of gratitude to Curt Flood," said HBO Sports president and executive producer Ross Greenburg. "His life story is a very complex character study.... He is one of the giants in the history of sports, but has largely been forgotten."

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 3:01 pm
Right now the fans

As of today's vote report, Asdrubal Ranks No. 3 of all American League players not on New York or Boston in all-star voting, behind only Rangers's Hamilton, and Adrian Beltre. Or to put some other ways:

Asdrubal is top vote getter among all AL Central playrs.
Asdrubal is top vote getter among all AL players no one ever heard of before.
Asdrubal is the top vote getter among all AL players based on what he's done this season.
Asdrubal will be backup shortstop to a guy with an OPS of 649

White Sox get to .500.

Could be a 3 team race as the Dog Days loom.

This is our year.

I feel good about this one.


The brass seems to be happily in sync with the roster moves


Pedal to the metal, and don't look back or down......

I agree about wlllingness to bring up the minor leaguers. Will they make deals that cost $? That will be the real test of commitment to compete. I'm sure they had no idea that the team would be in the running this late and that might be expected to go over budget. Although they certainly are not hestiating to spend on draft picks and the recent $1.0 million+ signed of a SS from the D.R.

Who could have predicted that after the games on July 4th, Cleveland, Arizona, Washington and Pittsburgh would all be .500 or better for the season?

Probably could have got a million to one from a book on that happening.

Pirates most unlikely of all. First time since Willie Stargell retired?

John Lester of the Bosox had to leave the game due to an undisclosed injury after 4 innings of ho-hit ball.

Pujols was activated today, though not in the lineup tonight.

Twins are now only 7 back.

The games within the AL Central should be laced with pennant fever.

Good stuff for this Tribe fan who expected nothing in that way for 2011.

Three cheers for Parity!

Fan at Rangers game dies after fall

ARLINGTON, TEXAS (AP)
The Texas Rangers say a fan died after falling out of the stands while trying to catch a baseball tossed his way during a game Thursday night.

The Rangers said the man fell about 20 feet.

''We had a very tragic accident tonight and one of our fans lost their life reaching over the rail trying to get a ball,'' team president Nolan Ryan said. ''As an organization, and as our team members and our staff, we're very heavy-hearted about this, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family.''

A very somber Ryan didn't get into details about the accident or release the man's name.

Ronnie Hargis was sitting in the stands next to the victim, who was at the game with his young son. The men were talking to each other before the accident.

''He went straight down. I tried to grab him but I couldn't,'' Hargis said. ''I tried to slow him down a little bit.''

TV replays showed the man falling head-first and landing behind a 14-foot-high wall supporting a video board for replays and scores. The area where the man fell is out of sight from the field.

The accident occurred in the second inning after Oakland's Conor Jackson hit a foul ball that ricocheted into left field. Hamilton retrieved the ball and tossed it into the stands. Replays on Oakland's television broadcast show the man reaching for the ball and apparently catching it before tumbling.

''We spoke to the ballclub, they understood what has happened and we spoke to Josh,'' Ryan said. ''I think as any of us would be, Josh is very distraught over this, as the entire team is.''

Replays on Oakland's television broadcast show the man reaching for the ball and apparently catching it before falling.

There was an audible gasp in the stands when the man tumbled over the rail, eerily similar to an accident last July when a man fell about 30 feet from the second-deck of seats down the right-field line while trying to catch a foul ball.

Before the Rangers batted in the second, manager Ron Washington spoke briefly with one of the umpires. Michael Young, who was leading off the inning, could be seen talking to A's catcher Kurt Suzuki and pointing toward the area where the previous accident happened.

Former president George W. Bush was sitting in the front row with Ryan near the Rangers when the accident happened. Ryan left moments later while Bush remained in the seats.

Ryan said the former president, who is a frequent visitor to Rangers Ballpark, was aware of what was happening.

Hargis' daughter said the victim's head was bleeding badly.

Safawna Dunn, who was sitting behind the victim, said he appeared to have injuries to both arms and was conscious when taken away on a stretcher.

''Josh Hamilton tried to throw (the ball) up to the guy because they were yelling for the ball,'' Dunn said.

Last July at Rangers Ballpark, a fan fell 30 feet from the second deck of seats down the first base side while trying to catch a foul ball. That fan, Tyler Morris, suffered a fractured skull and sprained ankle.

After Morris was hurt last year, he called the incident a ''100 percent, total accident that could have happened to anybody.'' He said he didn't blame the Rangers or the ballpark.

Ryan said it was too early to talk the two accidents and what evaluations the team might make about railings at the stadium.

''Tonight, we're not prepared to speak about anything further than the accident and the tragedy,'' Ryan said. ''That's where I'm going to leave it.''