Albert's sweetest home run occurred, well, between home runs

“Souvenirsville!”

From childhood I remember this characteristic exclamation of legendary baseball announcer Harry Caray.

The flamboyant Caray was the Cardinals storied play-by-play man for 25 years before going on to eventually conclude his career with the Chicago Cubs. When a baseball was hit into the stands as a foul ball--and sometimes as a home run--Caray would often interject, “Souvenirsville,” as fans scrambled for the memento.

From early in the history of major league baseball, fans, including hopeful children who’d wear their baseball glove in the stands, would scramble for foul balls and home runs. There was little question the souvenir belonged to the lucky fan who came up with it.

It has always been understood by player and fan alike that there is a virtually impassable boundary between the stands and the field. Everything on that side of the boundary—out on the field of play—is a sort of forbidden fantasy land reserved solely for the bigger-than-life heroes who’ve achieved the magical status to inhabit it. A Field of Dreams

On this side of the boundary is the realm of the common man who must content himself with the thrill of cheering for his team, idolizing the great players and enjoying the circus-like atmosphere of tightly packed crowds and overpriced beer. On this side there’s also the occasional baseball which dares to traverse that invisible boundary between the magical and the commonplace, invading the humble environs of the fans. Souvenirsville.

Certainly, the current financial value of record-setting baseballs has complicated the norms of Harry Caray’s quaint world where it was a given that fans should keep their mementos. But that monetary value, it seems, is simply an incidental consequence, not a factor that should strike at the heart of a venerated baseball tradition.

The fans understand that they themselves are not to transgress the boundary between the field and the stands. The occasional spectator who jumps the wall and trespasses on the field is appropriately chased down, captured and fined. When proper boundaries are transgressed, after all, bad things result.

This is much like the rest of human experience. In everyday life, relationships that thrive are characterized by firm, healthy relational boundaries. But when one person in a relationship manages to effectively transgress the appropriate boundary of the other, personal resentments generally ensue.

As in some dysfunctional personal relationships, in recent times the natural boundary between the realm of major league baseball players and of the fans has been blurred. Players, media, and some fans themselves have been increasingly asserting, contrary to long tradition and the “Souvenirsville dictum” of Harry Caray, that the player who hits a record breaking ball into the stands has a moral claim to it.

Consequently, pressure is often exerted on fans to relinquish their souvenir baseball regardless of their inclination or disinclination to do so. Fans retrieving such balls are often immediately approached by stadium personnel and presented with the possibility of giving the ball to the player.

Enter Albert Pujols.

Pujols has completed the final year of his magical career, back with the Cardinals at Busch Stadium where his bigger-than-life fairytale began. Pujols, a man of deep Christian faith, has made clear that baseball success is not the only pursuit that impels him. “I’ve heard kids say they want to be just like me when they grow up,” he has said. “They should know I want to be just like Jesus.” As an outgrowth of his spiritual pursuit, he has maintained, “I don’t focus on material things” and “Souvenirs are for the fans.”

On September 8, in the right-center field stands of PNC Park, Pirates fans Matt and Samantha Brown came up with Pujols’ ricocheting 697th career home run baseball. With that historic homer, Pujols surpassed Alex Rodriguez on the all-time home run list, putting him in sole possession of 4th place behind only Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth. It also put him a step closer to the stratospheric 700 home run milestone, which he proceeded to surpass in short order.

It so happened that Samantha Brown’s father had died on that very same day, one year earlier. Of the captured historic baseball she said, “I just feel that it was a sign that we got the ball”.

After the game, outside the visitor’s clubhouse the Browns offered their souvenir ball to Pujols. Albert, having become aware of the significance of the date to Samantha, surprised the Browns by declining the historic ball. He explained to Matt, who pressed him to accept it, “… I have plenty of baseballs. She deserves it more than me.”

Samantha’s voice cracked as she thanked Albert with tears in her eyes. Pujols later reflected, “I think it means more to that girl than it means to me having it in my trophy case. She lost her dad…” Pujols also gave the Browns two other autographed baseballs on which he wrote a couple of his stats.

Albert’s gesture reflected Christlike humility, embodied the spirit of Harry Caray’s Souvenirsville and upheld a century old tradition of major league baseball. It also cut against the grain of current expectations that transgress the boundary between the Field of Dreams and the humble realm of the common fan.

In tenderly declining Matt and Samantha Brown’s souvenir baseball, Albert hit perhaps his sweetest and most significant home run.

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Sources:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/12/22; Personal interview - Jerry Leyshock, Traveling Security Agent, St Louis Cardinals; Fox News-Sports, Joe Morgan, 9/24/22

Contact the author at: bob_levin@sbcglobal.net