SPRING TRAINING CAN OFFER ITS SHARE OF SURPRISES

By BILL BALLEW

Contrary to popular belief, rare are the times when unknown players emerge from out of nowhere during spring training to earn a spot on the big league roster. Two of the biggest fairy tale-type stories involve outfielder Mickey Mantle with the New York Yankees in Phoenix in 1951 and a quarter-century later when pitcher Mark Fidrych caught Detroit by storm by earning a job with the Tigers in Lakeland.

Cardinals fans may remember an equally extraordinary situation that unfolded in Jupiter in 2001 when a 21-year-old player who went by the first name of Jose at the time amazed St. Louis general manager Walt Jocketty and manager Tony La Russa with his ability to make consistently hard contact at the plate. This youngster entered camp having been drafted the previous year in the 13th round out of Maple Wood Community College and his professional experience consisted of 133 games split between the Midwest, Carolina, and Pacific Coast leagues. Yet every time this right-handed hitter received an opportunity with the big league club he had success, posting a .351 batting average that included eight of his first 12 hits going for extra bases.

Given his inexperience, the young man was assigned to minor league camp despite hitting a home run in the waning days of spring training. That scenario changed, however, when veteran Bobby Bonilla, the Cardinals’ projected left fielder, suffered a pulled left hamstring. After weighing their options, Jocketty and La Russa decided the “phenom” had done everything to deserve the first shot to fill Bonilla’s shoes.

It did not take long for the player soon to be known as Albert Pujols to make a name for himself. He batted at a .370 clip during the first month of the 2001 season, which proved to be a harbinger for one of the most remarkable debut campaigns in major league annals. In 161 games, Pujols put together a slash line of .329/.403/.610 with a team-best 112 runs scored, 47 doubles, 37 home runs, and 130 RBIs. That performance earned Pujols unanimous National League Rookie of Year accolades, a fourth-place finish in the NL Most Valuable Player Award balloting, a spot on the All-Star team, and his first of six Silver Slugger Awards.

Every team enters spring training with designs of how its time in Florida or Arizona will unfold in preparation for the upcoming campaign. Yet even the best laid plans can result in change, many of which—like Pujols in 2001—are the stuff of legend. Others may occur due to opportunity. Most deals of any consequence take place during the offseason or around the mid-season trading deadline, although spring training can on occasion lead to the acquisition of a key component who adds more notches to the win column.

In 1959, the Cardinals were in midst of their spring training run in St. Petersburg that extended for more than a half-century. Hoping to find a long-term presence in the everyday lineup, on March 25, 1959, St. Louis general manager Bing Devine sent pitchers Sam Jones and Don Choate to the San Francisco Giants for first baseman Bill White and infielder Ray Jablonski. Jones and White were the primary pieces to the deal, and more than a few followers of the Redbirds wondered what Devine was thinking. After all, Jones was the Cardinals’ best pitcher who was coming off a 1958 performance that saw him rank fourth in the major leagues with a 2.88 ERA and pace the circuit with 255 strikeouts. White, meanwhile, had missed the entire 1957 season and most of 1958 while serving in the Army. His big league experience consisted of 164 games, during which he batted .255 with 23 home runs and 63 RBIs.

The 33-year-old Jones continued to pitch well with the Giants, going 21-15 with a 2.83 ERA in his first season by the Bay and 47-37 with a 3.30 ERA in 126 games with San Francisco that continued through the 1961 season. White, meanwhile, proved to be one of the club’s most consistent and productive players during his seven seasons with St. Louis.

In 1,064 games as a member of the Cardinals, White batted .299/.358/.475 with 140 home runs and 627 RBIs. He debuted with St. Louis as a left fielder and batted .302 with 12 home runs and 72 RBIs in 1959. White moved to first base in 1960 prior to hitting at least 20 homers for the first of five consecutive season, beginning in 1961. He batted a career-high .324 while reaching the century mark in RBIs for the first of three straight seasons in 1962. After attaining a career-high 27 home runs and 109 RBIs while batting .304 in 1963, he finished third in NL MVP balloting in 1964 when his .303 batting average, 21 home runs and 102 RBIs played a significant role in the Cardinals winning the World Series.

Throughout his tenure with the Redbirds, White was one of the most prominent members of the team, both in the clubhouse and on the field, while collecting five All-Star recognitions and six Gold Glove Awards. He was inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2020.

Another impactful trade involving the Redbirds that occurred during spring training was executed in 2000, during the team’s third year in Jupiter. St. Louis had struggled in center field since Ray Lankford underwent knee surgery after the 1998 campaign. Unsatisfied with his in-house options during the first four weeks of camp, Jocketty improved the situation markedly on March 23, 2000, when St. Louis traded second baseman Adam Kennedy and pitcher Kent Bottenfield to the Angels for Jim Edmonds.

One of the premier all-around players around the turn of the century, Edmonds made an immediate impact by hitting 42 home runs and driving in 108 runs while earning his first of seven Gold Glove Awards as a member of the Cardinals. He posted a slash line of .295/.411/.593 with an OPS+ of 147 to help St. Louis win the NL Central Division with a 95-67 record and sweep the Braves in three games during the NL Division Series.

Edmonds continued to produce at the plate while making amazing plays in the middle garden a common occurrence at Busch Stadium. In eight seasons with the Cardinals, Edmonds accumulated a 37.9 WAR and established himself as one of the best defensive center fielders in team history. His presence in the lineup helped lead to five NL Central Division titles, six postseason appearances, two World Series, and a world championship in 2006. In 64 postseason contests, he batted .274/.361/.513 with 13 home runs and 42 RBIs. His contributions to the organization were recognized in 2014 when Edmonds was inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame.

Not all happenings in spring training are not as positive as the acquisitions of Edmonds and White or the emergence of Pujols. As camp opened in 2012, the Cardinals were coming off a World Series title thanks in part to the pitching of Chris Carpenter. The righthander had battled through some ailments over the course of season, registering an 11-9 record and a 3.45 ERA during the regular season prior to posting a 4-0 mark in six postseason starts.

Deemed one of the premier big-game hurlers in St. Louis history, Carpenter also had been one of the game’s best pitchers in the two years prior. He placed second in the NL Cy Young Award balloting in 2009 after going 17-4 with a league-best 2.24 ERA. In 2010 he was dominant once again, notching a 16-9 mark with a 3.22 ERA, which served as a precursor to his October showing in 2011.

Unfortunately for Carpenter and the Cardinals, the 2011 postseason proved to be his last hurrah at the major league level. The pitcher experienced a bulging disk in his neck as well as pain in his shoulder during spring training in 2012 and returned to St. Louis for medical evaluations prior to the team breaking camp in Jupiter. Carpenter underwent surgery in July to treat thoracic outlet syndrome yet returned to the mound for three starts over the final two weeks of the campaign. He recorded a respectable 3.71 ERA and proceeded to make three starts in the playoffs, including a victory over Washington in the NL Division Series. Despite his desire to pitch and rehabilitate the injuries that were becoming chronic, Carpenter missed the entire 2013 season before he reluctantly announced his decision to retire.

As always, only time will tell what unfolds for the Redbirds this year in Jupiter as the team works its way to Opening Day. But the game as well as life can be summed by the late Cardinals pitcher Joaquin Andujar, who was quoted as saying, “There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, ‘You never know.’”