In their current state – that of a rebuilding team with no established stars, plenty of available ticket inventory, and a disgruntled and diminishing fan base – the St. Louis Cardinals are a long way from their era of domination and adoration.
The days of yore (2000-2022) were followed by the days of snore – as in the past three, and largely empty, seasons of widespread boredom and the 22nd best winning percentage in the bigs.
The Cardinals were among the very best teams in baseball for a long time, and their red-draped faithful were pleased to be crowned “The Best Fans In Baseball.”
Yes indeed, it was a wonderful and prosperous time. But for this royal St. Louis baseball family – the reputation of the team and the baseball town adjacent to heaven – it has been a hard fall from the top as the dynasty tumbled down. The Cardinals lost their way to winning, and the fans lost their way to Busch Stadium. Perhaps the bandwagons will return one day.
Once upon a time the Cardinals drew more fans at home than the Los Angeles Dodgers. And now? Well, at least Cardinals fans show up big on the tweeting machine.
From a baseball standpoint, the downturn is evident when scrolling through the four remaining rosters competing in the World Baseball Classic. There’s the USA, Canada, Korea, Dominican Republic, Italy and Puerto Rico.
The 2026 Cardinals don’t have much of a presence in this high-profile tournament that serves as a celebration of the sport we love.
Three players on the Cardinals 40-man roster are still competing in the WBC. Utility man Thomas Saggese and pitcher Gordon Graceffo are wearing Italy’s colors, and utility tool Bryan Torres recently joined Puerto Rico.
That’s it. Oh, you can see former Cardinals all over the place. Adam Wainwright is in the Fox broadcast booth. Longtime Redbirds Matt Holliday and Skip Schumaker are coaches for USA manager Mark DeRosa, who played 68 games for the 2009 Cards. Current St. Louis first base coach Stubby Clap is coaching third base for Canada.
Former Cardinal players that are still participating in the WBC are Tyler O’Neill (Canada), Nolan Arenado (Puerto Rico), Paul Goldschmidt (USA), and Sandy Alcantara (Dominican Republic.)
Former Cards pitcher Michael Wacha appeared as a reliever for the U.S. in the team’s win over Brazil on March 6, but he returned to the Kansas City Royals. Assistant Cardinals trainer Chris Conroy is assisting Puerto Rico.
Which brings us to …
Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina.
The epitome of St. Louis baseball eminence.
— Molina is managing Puerto Rico for the second time in the WBC, following his debut as PR’s manager in the 2023 tournament. It wasn’t easy for Molina to advance his team out of pool play in San Juan. Molina got Puerto Rico to the quarterfinal round without infielders Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa, pitcher José Berríos and catcher Victor Caratini. (They are absent for various reasons including injuries and insurance issues.)
— Pujols is managing the abundantly talented Dominican Republic squad that features Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado, Ketel Marte, Jeremy Peña, Geraldo Perdomo, Julio Rodríguez, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr. – and pitchers Alcantara, Christopher Sanchez, Brayan Bello and closer Carlos Esteves.
On one side of the bracket, the quarterfinal matchups pit the Dominican Republic vs. Korea, and the U.S. against Canada. In the other bracket, it’s Puerto Rico vs. Italy and Japan against Venezuela.
We could see the U.S. vs. Team Pujols in one semifinal. And Team Molina taking on Japan in the other semifinal.
Pujols and Molina want to manage in Major League Baseball, and the WBC stage should raise awareness and put them in line for an opportunity.
Molina is a special assistant to Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom. Pujols and Molina are good friends with Cardinals manager Oli Marmol and have stayed in close contact with Marmol since both players retired after the 2022 season.
Let the buzz begin. The quotes are flying. Pujols went viral on social media earlier this week through a video clip that showed him taking a muscular round of booming batting practice with Team DR. The verdict: “The Machine” can still hit.
Molina has earned respect for his work as the beloved baseball boss of Team PR. Both former Cardinals have managed (to good reviews) in Winter Ball, with Pujols guiding his childhood team – Leones del Escogido – to the LIDOM league title and the Caribbean Series championship in late 2024.
“Hopefully they take a look and see how ready we are and the way we run things here,” Molina said during media sessions this week. “Albert is a baseball man. I wish him the best. Obviously he's doing great things over there with the Dominican team. And hopefully they look at us and give us a shot at some point.”
As in a shot at managing in the majors.
The endorsements are coming in hot.
Nolan Arenado: The third baseman was Molina’s teammate in St. Louis in 2021 and 2022.
“It starts with Yadi,” Arenado told the media this week. “There's no excuses being made. The focus is to continue to focus on winning and that's what this team has always done. This group, their head is down and the focus has just been unbelievable and it shows in the way we're playing the game.”
Mets outfielder Juan Soto, Team DR, when speaking to reporters (in Spanish) this week:
“It’s truly incredible having a legend like Albert in the clubhouse, leading every single one of us as our manager. He’s been in our shoes and truly understands how we feel, how the pieces move on the field, every swing we take, every decision we make. He’s right there with us through it all, and that makes it something truly special and beautiful.”
Dusty Baker: the future Baseball Hall of Fame manager won 2,183 games, a World Series, and is the only manager in major-league history to lead five different teams into the postseason. Dusty managed in the bigs for 26 seasons. Baker, who managed Team Nicaragua in the WBC, is emphatic about Pujols managing an MLB team one day.
Except ...
“It shouldn’t be someday,” Baker told The Athletic. “He should be managing right now. There are a lot of guys that are managing that don’t have the experience on the field of Albert Pujols. I didn’t have much (managerial) experience either. I coached for a while, and then I had experience in the fall league.
“There are a lot of guys in the game that don’t have the experience that Albert Pujols has, that don’t have the knowledge that Albert Pujols has or don’t have the respect from the players.”
Baker wasn’t finished.
“That’s huge in this equation, how your players respect you. It helps when they look on the back of your bubble-gum card and it says he’s one of the baddest dudes that ever played this game. Albert Pujols should be managing somewhere right now.”
Pujols has learned from some of the best. “I had managers such as Tony La Russa, Dave Roberts, Joe Maddon, Oli Marmol, Hall of Famers,” Pujols said in a media setting. “You learn a lot from them. This is something that I have been developing, and I have the chance to go to the stadium and learn something new every day.
“I don’t think that, just because I have been here for 23 years, I know everything. Every time I come to the stadium, I have this open mindset to learn, and I will learn with every play and go back to the hotel thinking, ‘Well, I could have done this a different way.’ ’’
It’s interesting to see Pujols mention Marmol with the other managers. But this wasn’t some random name drop. Pujols has known Marmol for a long time and enjoyed playing for Marmol so much in 2022 that he told Oli he wanted to become a coach for him in St. Louis.
(That couldn’t happen because of the post-career contract Pujols has with the Angels. Too many complications.)
Molina wants to work with Marmol in St. Louis and we’ve seen him fill dugout as an honorary coach. (Think of him as a visiting professor of baseball. A master.) Molina is an unofficial member of Marmol’s coaching staff, and Yadi’s respect for Marmol is obviously there.
The same goes for Pujols, who pushed aside any talk about managing the Cardinals in early 2025 when asked about the possibility.
“The Cardinals have a great manager,” Pujols said. "I welcomed the opportunity to play for him in ‘22 and I learned a lot from him.”
One Pujols confidant told me this: Albert has too much respect and fondness for Marmol to even consider doing something that would undercut Oli as the STL manager.
The Oli Haters insist that Marmol can't manage and should be fired. They fire him in their dreams every night.
Pujols and Molina are on Team Marmol.
Gosh, almighty, which side would you go with here?
It’s a really close call … but I think I’d side with the two distinguished, universally respected baseball men who will be going into the Cardinals Hall of Fame together later this year – the first stop before they both get inducted in Cooperstown.
(Hee-hee. Sorry. It’s a Friday, I’m wound up, and I couldn’t resist acting like a horse’s hindquarters there.)
I can see a logical scenario that could put Pujols or Molina in the manager’s office in St. Louis at some point. Marmol’s job is secure, but no manager has a lifetime contract. And some managers eventually welcome a move upstairs, to the front-office suite to recharge.
One of the reasons why Marmol and Bloom have connected on the same wavelength is Oli’s passion for understanding every aspect of a baseball operation. Marmol is the opposite of myopic. With his diverse background in the game, Marmol could handle any baseball job in an organization.
There’s also something to be said about Molina or Pujols guiding the Cardinals in their second big-league managing job, after learning a lot more about the comprehensive, all-encompassing and crazy nature of a manager’s job. I’m not talking about the baseball part.
As Cody Stavenhagen accurately wrote at The Athletic: “Schedules for managers can be hectic beyond belief, meeting after meeting with one department or another. No wonder, then, many of the best managers in today’s game trend more toward polished diplomats than the fiery dictators of yesteryear.”
Stavenhagen is right. And he didn’t even get into the work-family balancing issues. Or the heavy media-related duties that come with every MLB managing gig. These guys have three or four separate media sessions per game day. And that doesn’t include the text-message exchanges that managers and beat writers (or columnists) can have at any hour of the day or night. I could share some good stories about that. I don’t think managers get enough rest. Or quiet time.
Pujols or Molina will manage in the majors. It’s a matter of time and fit and place. For now, it’s the WBC, and a portal to new opportunities for two of the most acclaimed Cardinals this franchise will ever know.
Thanks for reading and have a fantastic weekend …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.