This is my starting 9 for my all-time St. Louis Cardinals lineup. I have also listed my 9 worst Cardinals. The worst Cardinals are mostly recent, so any suggestions are helpful. Here's my take:
C: Ted Simmons (6 All Star games, 12 years, 172 HR, 929 RBI's, .298 BA) - Before Whitey Herzog traded away Simmons for not cutting his hair (possibly one of the worst reasons of all-time), Simmons was much beloved by Cardinal fans for being an all-around good athlete and person (played football and baseball at Michigan). Simmons' replacement (Darrell "The Drunk" Porter) was liked by some, hated by others, but was definitely never the steady rock behind the plate for the Cardinals that Simmons was.
Un-honorable mention: Darrell Porter- The Cardinals have consistently had good catchers (see Matheny, Molina, even Pagnozzi), even Porter put up good stats, but it was his excessive drug and alcohol abuse that make him so un-honorable. Porter's fast-lane life sadly lead to his demise as he died in 2002 in a car crash in which cocaine was found in his system. That is just not the way a Cardinals catcher that won two WS should go out.
1B: Albert Pujols (1 ROY, 1 MVP, 1 WS win, 1 Gold Glove, 7 AS games, 305 HR, 934 RBI, .333 career BA, .424 OBP, 1,471 hits)- It is mind boggling that Pujols has compiled all of the above stats in only 7 plus seasons. That being said, Pujols is possibly the best all-around hitter in baseball this decade. When all 30 MLB managers were polled at the beginning of the season on who they would least want to face with the game on the line, Pujols led the votes, getting 11 of the 30 votes. The next closest player received 4.5 votes. As well as seeing the ball so well, and hitting to all fields, Pujols has consistently been clutch for the Cards, who doesn't remember his walk-off absolute bomb against Brad Lidge? The one in which Andy Pettite is seen saying, "Oh, my God," in the dugout. If that isn't clutch, then I don't know what is. All in all, Pujols has already compiled the best numbers of any Cardinals first basemen in the history of the franchise.
Un-honorable mention: Tino Martinez- Martinez produced some of his worst career numbers with the Cardinals, the only time Tino ever showed true passion with the Cards was during his fight with then Diamondbacks pitcher Miguel Batista.
2B: Rogers Hornsby(HOF, 1 WS win, 2 MVP, 2 Triple Crown wins, .424 BA in 1924, 301 HR, 169 3B, 2,930 hits, .358 career BA)- One only needs to see Hornsby's 1922 stats, in which he batted .401, hit 42 HR's, and had 151 RBI. Other than that though, Hornsby is the only player to win the NL Triple Crown twice, his career BA is an NL, and the best career BA for a right handed hitter of all-time. As well, Ted Williams once said Hornsby was the greatest hitter for average and power in baseball history. If that compliment isn't enough, then nothing is. Hornsby was also a great fielder. His all-around attributes make him possibly the best second baseman of all-time, not only in Cardinals history.
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3 months ago
Esteban Yan is for sure one of the worst Cardinals ever. He was absolutely horrendous!
3 months ago
Glad that someone remembers how bad he was
3 months ago
EsteISuck Yan is possibly the worse reliever that I can remember. Villone is quite bad, but less than a season? You can't say he's amoung the worse.
Kennedy for the worst? Please. Kennedy is a very good player and a great person. I give him beef, but he's way better than anyone else in history.
Luis Alicea, Bo Hart and Mike Tyson come to mind.
And I know Hornsby was a great 2B, but I think a man named Red Schoendienst should have at least gotten a mention.
This was a good article. If you want to look up some old-time players, go here: http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/stl/history/players.jsp
3 months ago
hornsby has the best career BA for a right handed hitter EVER, and the man won TWO triple crowns, if i did honorable mention, red wouldve been there, also, i was kind of blanking on bad second basemen, and kennedy is pissing me off right now, but thanks for the link, and I will look into changing it possibly to Alicea (Hart had too much heart for me to put him there). Thanks for the suggestions.
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