Photograph by Jeff Curry
Eventually all the St. Louis Cardinals' flaws will reemerge. Albert Pujols will be a 32-year-old free agent coming off the worst season his career, and David Freese will still be an injury-prone hitter who's just three years younger than Albert Pujols; Chris Carpenter will be a 37-year-old pitcher with 270 innings on his arm, Lance Berkman a 36-year-old with bad knees; everybody in the bullpen will run a risk of implosion or just falling back to earth a little. All that's true, to varying degrees, and by January, maybe, we'll all be forced to deal with it again. That's what winning the World Series is about: Players doing things, all at once, that they might never be able to do again.
Yesterday's parade, and the weekend's celebrations, weren't about denying any of that—they weren't about pretending Albert Pujols isn't a free agent, or that David Freese could be just as good as he was last month next year. If they were I would have been uncomfortable instead of exhilarated when they made the usual gestures toward doing it all again next year. They were about how none of that matters. The 2011 St. Louis Cardinals are World Series champions, and as long as we care about baseball they will be, no matter what happens to any of them tomorrow.
That's what I'll always appreciate the most about a great team actually winning it all—it authorizes us to enjoy them forever. As it relates to 2011, I no longer have to care what David Freese does, or where Albert Pujols goes, how long Chris Carpenter's elbow lasts or Lance Berkman's ability to walk upright. Now we'll always have Texas.
