Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everyone. In honor of the day and of MLK’s legacy, take a moment to read this brief and lovely piece about King’s connections to baseball (including some wonderful photos), and consider locating and supporting your local Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities league.

I’m pretty slow on the Photoshop, but creating Laird art seemed far preferable to doing any meaningful work this morning, so here are my half-dozen inaugural efforts, which draw upon artistic influences ranging from Dutch masters to Diane Arbus to my family’s Christmas-dinner photo:

Jesus is Laird

Catching giant at home with his parents in the Bronx

Marc Chagall: PromenLaird

Hello, Dali

Be present at our table, Laird

That's a Laird in Laird's pocket, and it's really happy to see you!

Check out that link, and get to work on your own!

When Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey announced his intention to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this January, he made headlines across the country, because the team’s front office—apparently grateful for the distraction from their Madoff-adjacent financial troubles—sent him a letter requesting that he forgo the trip out of concern for his safety. Sportswriters and bloggers from here to Tanzania pounced on the story, debating whether a franchise had the right to govern the off-season activities of its players.

We’ll return to that matter in a moment, but let’s first consider the much cooler story that’s gotten all but lost in the controversy: Dickey’s making his climb to call attention to, and raise funds to combat, the scourge of sex trafficking in India. Forced prostitution is an enormous problem in India, where statistics are difficult to procure but one expert estimates that “in Mumbai alone, the trafficking of minor girls is a billion-dollar-a-year industry.”

Dickey’s making his climb in cooperation with an organization called Bombay Teen Challenge, which was founded in 1990 to fight sex slavery, to offer relief and resources to its victims, to assist babies and children born out of prostitution or rape (including many infected with HIV), and to address the addiction and dependency issues that often accompany life in the sex trade. Watch this brief and touching video about Dickey’s commitment to the cause:

You can support Dickey’s climb by making a contribution at this site (donations are processed through Network for Good, which is just as secure as, and far less nefarious than, Paypal). His goal—which is roughly 60% realized at this writing—is to raise the $100,000 that Bombay Teen Challenge needs to purchase a health clinic in Kamathipura, the red-light district of Mumbai.

Still not convinced of R.A. Dickey’s awesomeness? Consider this: The former English major was inspired to climb Kilimanjaro after reading Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and he’s named one of his favorite bats “Hrunting,” after the sword Beowulf used to attempt to slay Grendel’s mother. (Dickey apparently forgot that Hrunting, in the original epic, wasn’t up to the challenge; that probably explains the .136 batting average.)

Now, what of the Mets’ objections? Well, they’re not wrong to be concerned—mountain-climbing is a potentially dangerous venture under any circumstances—but since Kilimanjaro is considered one of the easiest and safest of the world’s major peaks to summit, they owe a debt of gratitude to Papa Hemingway for not titling his book The Snows of Annapurna. Dickey’s a professional athlete who’s been training for the altitude challenges of Kilimanjaro, and who presumably has the sense to turn back if at any point his climb becomes perilous.

In any case, as long as the Mets’ roster includes players who hunt and ride motorcycles in their spare time, it seems a bit disingenuous for the team to reserve its nervous hand-wringing for Dickey. On his behalf, I’m proud to break my lifelong vow of never, ever rooting for the Mets, and I’m glad to contribute to his climb for a terrific cause.

Nearly a year ago, during the first tense round of negotiations between the Cardinals and the Pujols/Lozano lobby, I began work on a post addressing the question of whether Albert Pujols or Stan Musial would be known to history as the greatest Cardinal ever. The answer, I decided, had to be Musial— regardless of whether Albert re-upped or not, and not because of their respective numbers on the field, but because (and it was my sadness over this realization that finally led me to abandon the post in progress) the realities of today’s game of baseball simply wouldn’t allow any other verdict.

Musial and Pujols played the same game with the same tools, but in entirely different businesses. I like to think that Musial wouldn’t have left St. Louis to play for more money in a glossy faraway city, but in the reserve-clause, pre-Curt-Flood era, when team coffers weren’t swelled by enormous television contracts and agents’ jockeying wasn’t a sport unto itself, he never had to wrestle with the temptation. I love reminding people that Musial gave back a portion of his salary after a season in which he felt he’d underperformed, but we all know the Players’ Association would never permit such a move today. Baseball has never lacked for egotists, sleazeballs, and robber barons, but in today’s hyper-capitalistic game, humility and loyalty—at least, the kinds that have dollar figures attached to them—have grown as rare and quaint as back-to-back doubleheaders. I hope we’ll see a few more franchise players, a few more men who represent the “two decades of sustained excellence and complete decency as a human being” with which Bob Costas so beautifully credited Musial, during my lifetime as a baseball fan, but I worry (don’t we all?) that the era of enduring heroes has passed.

Pujols himself, in 2010, asked the media and the St. Louis fans to ease up on calling him “El Hombre,” out of respect for Musial. There was only one “man” in Cardinal Nation, he said.

He tried to warn us.

In the weeks since Pujols left my real hometown for my adopted hometown, I’ve mostly calloused myself to the weirdness of seeing him in the wrong place and the wrong shade of red, but the sting of grief (yes, grief; it isn’t reserved for deaths and disasters, and there’s plenty to go around) resurfaces at expected and unforeseen moments. The other night, during a recap of the 2011 postseason on MLB Network, I realized that while watching Albert launch missiles out of Rangers Ballpark made me wistful, it was watching him laugh, grin, cheer, and celebrate with his teammates that broke my heart, in a way that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever self-flagellated over a fractured relationship with the help of home movies: Look—we really were happy. See—you weren’t faking. It was good, and it was genuine, and it still didn’t last.

This is the challenge, then: To stay loyal to a game whose shining stars may or may not be loyal to us; to learn to love the memories and the miracles not despite, but because of, their evanescence; to understand that the hometown heroes we attach ourselves to are—as a former pastor used to say of the babies he baptized—ours to love, but not to keep.

And as we coat ourselves in the emotional Teflon of stats and sabermetrics, budgets and bean-counting, it’s all the more important for us to hold close, however we can, the champions whose likes we may not see again.

Which leads me to introduce you to the newest member of my Cardinal-loving family: a small-of-stature, long-on-charisma golden retriever/Welsh corgi/David Eckstein(?) mix who arrived to Julie’s veterinary hospital several weeks ago, homeless, bruised from a run-in with a car, and with no earthly attachments except for the chewed-off rope around his neck. After a lot of phone calls and e-mails, a week to heal, and a whirlwind of paperwork and Petco trips, he donned his new Cardinals collar and made the “happy flight” from Orange County to St. Louis to live with my parents. The little guy has adapted to his new environment with Berkmanesque grace and good humor; he’s athletic, kindhearted, and ebullient, and he’ll spend the rest of his life in a place where he’ll be loved unreservedly, unselfishly, and unswervingly in exchange for his loyalty.

My mother gave him his new name.

Stanley.

Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

Yes, Virginia, there is a new Cardinal with an OPS+ above zero!

His name is the one most of us penciled into our holiday wish lists once our number-one request was so rudely denied: Carlos Beltran. We feared him during the 2004 NLCS, when the Astros were a formidable team and Beltran was their newest Killer “B”; we thanked him after the 2006 NLCS when, wearing a Mets’ uniform this time, he stood at the plate with the bases loaded and admired a sizzling Adam Wainwright curveball right along with the rest of us. Now he’s one of the family, because free agency makes strange bedfellows.

No, Beltran isn’t Albert Pujols. But he’s a whole lot of other things:

• The American League’s 1999 Rookie of the Year
• A three-time Gold Glover
• A two-time Silver Slugger
• A six-time All-Star selection
• Half as expensive as Albert, with an escape hatch after two years rather than a commitment for ten
• A totally different guy from the one on the CD here, which I suppose is fortunate, since that Carlos Beltran is known for his song “Grandes Exitos,” and we’ve had enough grand exits from Cardinal Nation for one year.

At 34 and with a couple of wobbly knees, Beltran may not put up the kinds of numbers he did during his peak years with the Mets, but he’s been a consistently clutch hitter, capable outfielder, and smart baserunner, and he’s a good gamble at a not-unreasonable price. In the interest of getting to know one another, here are a few other factoids about Carlos the Newest Cardinal:

• He founded and operates a baseball academy in his native Puerto Rico, and is personally involved in every aspect of its program, including conducting the tryouts himself.
• He and his wife, Jessica, have a daughter named Ivana, who was born after two devastating miscarriages—one of which happened during the 2006 playoffs. Beltran, not wanting to create a distraction or be perceived as making excuses, didn’t discuss it at the time.
• IMDB gives him a writing credit for a 2005 Chilean documentary called “La Huella de Beauchef,” which, as far as I can tell from this clip, has zilch to do with baseball. Anyone know anything about this? Beltran? Beltran?
• According to his now-defunct website, he loves animals (he had a pet macaque named Bonnet) and would have liked to be a veterinarian had he not pursued a career in baseball.
• He’s at the center of this long but very funny essay by a self-flagellating Mets fan whose Welsh corgi is named Endy Chavez: “How Carlos Beltran Almost Made My Girlfriend Dump Me for the First Time.”
• In 2002, with help from his parents, he spent months restoring and upgrading a three-bedroom home he’d bought in his hometown of Manati. When the work was done, he thanked his mother and father and surprised them with keys to the house—which he’d been preparing for them all along. OKAY, THAT SEALS THE DEAL, I LOVE MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT.

Welcome to St. Louis, Carlos! May your tenure as a Redbird be marked by healthy knees, timely hits, appreciative fans, and not too much glowering at Wainwright across the locker room.

Kids! Come quick!

Just when we thought our offense was doomed, Mr. Mozeliak pulled off a Christmas miracle—the Cardinals have signed Eugenio Velez!

The most interesting thing about Velez, as you may already know, is that he went 0 for 2011. Forty times during the past season he came to the plate; forty times his batting average didn’t budge. He did draw two walks (I assume they were unintentional), steal one base, and drive in one run, but his line for the year still reads like something you’d expect from Charlie Brown:

Batting average:  .000
On-base percentage:  .075
Slugging percentage:  .000
OPS:  .075
OPS+:  -77

Perhaps you’re wondering if Velez’s streak of 46 consecutive official at-bats without a hit, dating back to 2010, represents a record. (Perhaps you’re still dumbstruck because it had never occurred to you that an OPS+ of -77 was even possible, but try to keep up, please.) The answer is yes, sort of: Velez’s streak, which is still active, is the longest by a major-league position player—but Milwaukee Braves pitcher Bob Buhl went 87 at-bats without a hit in 1961 and 1962, so if Velez intends to lay sole claim to the feat, he’ll have to do it in a Cardinal uniform.

Other fun facts about Eugenio Velez:

• Speaking of uniforms, he took the field in April 2010 wearing a Giants jersey with the name “San Francisco” misspelled (see photo).
• He’s at the center of a truly ingenious animated .gif that you can see on this page.
• He was once decked by a foul ball in a Gatorade-related incident.
• His mother, who wanted him to be an engineer, still can’t watch him play on TV—officially, because she can’t bear the thought that he might get hurt, but really, I have to think, because he has an OPS+ of -77.

And now he’s ours. God bless us, every one!

A Blog of Their Own is now on Twitter.

You can find me at twitter.com/BlogOfTheirOwn. I’d be honored to count you as a follower, and to return the favor.

There’s literally nothing I can say about this that won’t drip with cynicism and offend someone, and it’s not as though Albert Pujols is the first or last baseball player to invoke the Almighty—so instead of harping on Dee Dee, and in honor of God’s long-standing affiliation with the big leagues, I give you another quiz to help pass the time until the Cardinals sign Carlos Beltran:

Match the God-quote to the big leaguer who said it! 

1) “God gave me the opportunity and the ability to be here at the right time, at the right moment, just like he gave Babe Ruth.”
2) “Maybe that’s why God’s mad at me—that I didn’t practice my mother’s religion.”
3) “You can’t hit 1.000. Jesus could, but I can’t.”
4) “Like I said, it is a blessing. When the blessing is upon you, it’s God’s will. He’s the one.”
5) “When I was born, God gave me a natural greenie, a built-in steroid.”
6) “I’m a firm believer that God has a plan and it wasn’t in his plan.”
7) “I firmly believe that if Jesus Christ was sliding into second base, he would knock the second baseman into left field to break up the double play.”
8 ) “The Lord told me it was going to happen before it happened. You hadn’t [done that] in a while. You’re about to right now.”

A) Ralph Branca
B) Adrian Gonzalez
C) Josh Hamilton
D) Bo Jackson
E) Fritz Peterson
F) Mariano Rivera
G) Luke Scott
H) Sammy Sosa

Answers

1) H. Sammy didn’t specify which supreme being supplied the superballs.

2) A. Years after serving up the “shot heard ’round the world” to Bobby Thomson in 1951, Ralph Branca discovered that his mother, whom he’d long known to be a Catholic, had been born a Jew—making him one, too, by Judaism’s laws of matrilineage.  ”He made me throw that home run pitch,” he said. “He made me get injured the next year. Remember, Jesus was a Jew.” The lesson here: You should call your mother more often.

3) G. Cheer up, Luke! You may have hit only .220 on the field this season, but you batted a thousand when it came to offending decent people’s sensibilities with your ignorant, bigoted, gun-toting, Tea-Partying, birth-certificate-demanding remarks!

4) F. Rivera was playing catch with Ramiro Mendoza one day in 1997 when, by God’s grace, he stumbled upon the pitch that would cement his career. Rivera, of course, went on to become the premier closer of all time on the strength of his cut fastball; Mendoza, meanwhile, is a great trivia question for your next trip to the sports bar.

5) D. Bo knows his PEDs (performance-enhancing deities). And those of us who saw Bo play know what a bummer it is that God also gave him a wonky hip.

6) B. Adrian certainly did his part on the field to keep Boston in the 2011 playoff hunt, but when Game 162 was in the books and the Sox were headed to the golf course, he passed the buck to the holy trinity of the schedule-makers, ESPN, and God, the last two of which were equally surprised to learn that they were Rays fans.

7) E. Peterson was an All-Star pitcher who went on to write books on religion, but he’s probably best remembered for his role in an infamous wife-swap that I imagine Jesus would also have tried to break up, given the chance.

8 ) C. Specifically, God was foretelling Josh Hamilton’s tenth-inning, two-run shot in Game 6 of the World Series, which seemed destined to give Texas the 2011 World Championship….only to be eclipsed by two more Redbird rallies. God’s a real smartass sometimes, isn’t he? More cynically—and I say this with all due respect to the faith that’s gotten Josh Hamilton and others through their darkest times—shouldn’t any reasonable person be leery of praying to a god who tells a slugger that he’s about to hit a home run, but not that the ball he’s about to toss into the stands is going to lead indirectly to a man’s death? Somebody better go ask Deidre.

In the wake of the Al-pocalypse, the interwebs have been lit up by wounded Cardinal fans and their gleeful scolds: “Pujols gave you the best years of his career, and now you want to topple his statue Saddam Hussein-style and organize a mass ditch-and-dine at his restaurant? And you say you’re the best fans in baseball! For shame!”

Hey, Rest of the Baseball World, nobody said breakups were governed by logic and sabermetrics. Your job is to bring us ice cream and bad DVDs today, not to admonish or try to reason with us—but if you’re determined to make conversation when we’d probably rather be left alone, please at least avoid the following pitfalls:

1) “You can’t blame a guy for wanting to make more money!” Yes. Yes, I can. Let’s be very clear about this: People who already stand to earn $20 million per year do not need to make more money, full stop.

2) “He has to do what’s right for his family!” Of course he does, and if we’d had any inclination along the way that the Pujols family wanted to be on the West coast, this might be mildly persuasive. But that’s not the case, and anyway, this is usually code for “He needs the extra money to feed his children,” which….see #1.

3) “The Cardinals were the greedy ones!” Leaving aside the question of whether any single player is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, you can’t logically slam the team for being parsimonious while cheering Pujols for making a cash-grab. The money the Cards would have had to pay Pujols could have paid ten up-and-coming players. What about their children? Huh?

4) “At least he’s going to a classy organization!” Thanks a lot. That’s like saying “At least your ex left you for someone beautiful and intelligent!” When the Marlins seemed like the prime contenders for Pujols’s services, we were at least mildly consoled by the thought of getting to watch Albert spend his sunset years wearing a day-glo uniform and being feted by cheerleaders instead of Clydesdales.

5) “Cheer up—you had eleven fabulous years with the best player in the game!” And who doesn’t love to be reminded of the awesome times they had with their awesome ex right after they’ve been ditched, amirite?

6) “He’s going downhill fast anyway, so you dodged a bullet!” Stay with me here, because we’re digging deep into the illogic of break-up psychology. Just as we don’t want to hear about how great Albert is, we also don’t want to hear about what a broken-down dud he is, because that only implies that we’ve had the poor judgment to hitch our wagon to a loser. We weren’t misguided for adoring him, and we weren’t naive for being prepared to do so until the day he retired. Retrospectively cheapening the years we had together is no way to ease the pain of their ending.

7) “You’re awfully ungrateful, considering that the guy gave you all those home runs and two World Series rings!” To be precise, he didn’t exactly donate those things; he was handsomely paid for them, and would have continued to be. And his compensation didn’t just take the form of a paycheck. Cardinal Nation wore his jerseys, ate at his restaurant, contributed to his charities, cheered him when he slumped, and—against our better judgment and in contravention of everything we know about the baseball industry—took him at his word when he said he returned our feelings. We’re not ungrateful for what he did for us. We’re hurt that it didn’t mean enough to him to keep doing it.

8 ) “Well, you knew all along that baseball was a business!” Sure we did. But the 2011 Cardinals helped us forget that, for a few shining weeks in September and October. Suddenly Borases and Lozanos were less important than tortoises and squirrels; men with million-dollar contracts were boys with crazy dreams again; Busch Stadium was a cathedral and we were all pointing our index fingers toward the sky. We were in baseball heaven, and knowing that we’d have to return to earth sooner or later didn’t make the landing any softer. The baseball gods can’t possibly expect us to revert from believers to bean-counters so soon.

Neither should you.

I’ve picked my top five. Enjoy!

1. The baby bear Beadazzled bra ($125): Yikes—no wonder their team doesn’t get to second base very often. I’d be scared of it too if it looked like this.

2. The “you can’t spell scrap metal without ‘crap’” Cubs sign ($50): I assume this is an homage to the 2010 and 2011 Cubs—a collection of cast-off junk that isn’t worth the price.

3. The “oh my gourd look at that thing” birdhouse ($7.00): Sigh. Listen, Cubbies, I don’t want to say too much here, but—it seems to me that the number-one bird you’re trying to attract is a certain Cardinal named Albert Pujols. And this isn’t going to cut it.

4.  The shamelessly racist Carlos Zambrano fridge magnet ($4.95): So the thing about Zambrano is…..nah, I got nothing. This is just gross.

5. The Wrigley Field “industrial abstract” photo ($25): In St. Louis, we call this “Oops, I accidentally pushed the shutter release while the camera was in my lap.” Had I know that it was, in fact, “industrial abstract,” I could have made enough money to re-sign Octavio Dotel just by selling my misfires.

Happy holidays to all the North-Siders and those who love them! May the New Year bring Cub Nation….exactly what it’s brought them for a century now.