At a time when many players would have called their agent to begin laying the groundwork for a new contract that would take full advantage of their newfound earning potential, Morris didn’t place a single call to his agent. After all, he didn’t have one.

Instead, Morris negotiated a three-year, $27-million contract with the Cardinals himself over the course of two telephone calls with St. Louis general manager Walt Jocketty. [1]

“It was something I enjoyed doing,” Morris said. “Walt sent me a proposal I thought was fair. They’ve always treated me well, even with my injuries and everything. I wanted a good relationship with them. I’ve had a good relationship with them. Trying to sell yourself is a bit different but I had a decent year … a very good year, and that spoke a lot for itself.”[2]

“When we started the process, I knew it would be just the two of us dealing with each other and I told him from the very beginning that we were going to be fair,” Jocketty said. “Sometimes in dealing with an agent, they feel you probably have to send a lower offer than you would normally, so they feel they have to negotiate something to basically justify what they’re doing.”[3]

Morris, who missed the 1999 season following Tommy John surgery, was limited to 53 innings out of the bullpen in 2000, making all 31 of his appearances in relief. By 2001, however, Morris was at full strength. He threw 216 1/3 innings, going 22-8 with a 3.16 ERA and 185 strikeouts.

In the NLDS, he twice matched up against the Diamondbacks’ Curt Schilling. In Game 1, Morris allowed just one run over seven innings but took the 1-0 loss as Schilling pitched a complete-game shutout. In the decisive fifth game, Morris was even better, allowing just one run over eight innings. Once again, however, Schilling held the Cardinals in check in a 2-1 Diamondbacks win.

“We are very pleased to have Matt’s deal in place,” Jocketty said. “We feel that he is one of the top young pitchers in the game and that he should be treated as such.”[4]

Morris was eligible for salary arbitration in 2002, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that he likely would have been awarded a salary approaching $10 million before entering free agency at season’s end. [5] Instead, Morris prioritized the security of a multi-year contract.

“I was looking forward to staying in St. Louis for an extended number of years,” Morris said. “With the injuries in the past, I was just happy to get something on paper, which was three years in this case.”[6]

The contract called for Morris to earn $4 million in 2002, followed by salaries of $10.5 million in 2003 and $12.5 million in 2004.

“Obviously, the first year it hurts me and helps out the club but in that third year … that sets me up in position for a new contract,” Morris said.[7]

Morris’s $9 million average salary placed him alongside center fielder Jim Edmonds, who was playing on a six-year, $57-million contract, as the Cardinals’ highest-paid players.

“I definitely left money on the table,” Morris said. “How much? Who knows, but I’ve always said in the past, ‘Why are these guys arguing over X amount of dollars?’ And then I got to that point in the negotiations where I was arguing about X amount of dollars. I’m sure if I had an agent, he’d be scratching at the door trying to get as much as he could, but that’s not the person I am and that’s not the relationship I want with the club either.”[8]

The Cardinals actually wanted to add a fourth year to the contract, but Morris, 27, chose to stick with three years.

“Three was my number,” he said. “For some reason, three was what I set in my head beforehand and that’s what I wanted to reach.”[9]

Whether it was three years or four, the Cardinals were simply happy to have Morris penciled into the top of a rotation that also included Darryl Kile, Andy Benes, Woody Williams, and Garrett Stephenson.

“The most important Cardinal transaction of the offseason? It wasn’t Mark McGwire retiring,” wrote Southern Illinoisan sports editor Rick Underwood. “It wasn’t getting Jason Isringhausen or Tino Martinez. The most important was locking up Matt Morris for three more years.”[10]

Morris proved more important than ever in 2002. With Kile’s untimely passing that June, Morris was the unquestioned ace of the staff, going 17-9 with a 3.42 ERA in 210 1/3 innings. That season, he was named an all-star for the second consecutive year. He won Game 1 of that season’s NLDS, allowing one earned run over seven innings to beat Randy Johnson.

From 2003 through 2005, Morris won 40 more games for the Cardinals. In 2004, he pitched four postseason games for St. Louis on its way to the World Series, but he went 0-2 with a 5.91 ERA in 21 1/3 innings. In the 2005 playoffs, he picked up an NLDS win against the Padres but lost to the Astros in the NLCS.

In December 2005, Morris signed a three-year, $27 million contract with the Giants.

“I had a great run in St. Louis,” he said. “They’re a class organization and they treated me great throughout my years there. It just seemed like the right time to move on.”[11]

In two seasons in San Francisco, Morris battled injuries and went just 17-22 with a 4.73 ERA. At the 2007 trading deadline, the Cardinals thought they might be able to bring Morris back to St. Louis, but the Giants instead opted to deal Morris to the Pirates for center fielder Rajai Davis and pitcher Steve MacFarland.

Morris went 3-4 with a 6.10 ERA down the stretch for the Pirates. The following season, he lost four of his first five starts and was released with a 9.67 ERA. Three days later, at age 33, he announced his retirement.

“Mentally, I was not there,” he said. “My heart just kind of moved away from the game and once that happens, it’s hard to get it back.”[12]

Morris retired with 121 career wins. In eight seasons with the Cardinals, he went 101-62 with a 3.61 ERA.

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[1] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[2] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[3] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[4] Associated Press, “Cards confirm reaching agreement with Morris,” Belleville News-Democrat, January 5, 2002.

[5] Rick Hummel, “Sources say Morris gets 3-year deal at $29 million,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 4, 2002.

[6] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[7] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[8] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[9] Rick Hummel, “Morris says Cards were fair in negotiations on contract,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 5, 2002.

[10] Rick Underwood, “Saluki history lesson,” Southern Illinoisan, January 7, 2002.

[11] Joe Strauss, “It’s official: Morris joins the Giants,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 13, 2005.

[12] Rick Hummel, “No more for Matty Mo,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 7, 2008.

The post How Matt Morris negotiated his own deal in 2002 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

The previous night, the fireworks started when Jim Edmonds hit a two-run home run off Chicago’s Carlos Zambrano. The fiery Cubs right-hander felt that Edmonds spent too long admiring the ball as it flew over the right-field wall and shouted at the Cardinals center fielder as he rounded the bases. Tempers flared and the benches cleared before order was restored.

Four innings later, Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen hit what proved to be the game-winning blast, a two-run home run that broke a 3-3 tie. Zambrano responded by hitting Edmonds with a pitch for the second time that game, earning ejections for Zambrano and Cubs manager Dusty Baker.

With those events fresh on everyone’s mind, it didn’t take long for matters to escalate.

Led by a pitching staff that included Greg Maddux, Kerry Wood, and Mark Prior, and a lineup that included Aramis Ramirez, Moises Alou, and Sammy Sosa, the Cubs had entered the season as the National League Central favorites. However, they entered the day trailing the Cardinals by nine games, just half a game ahead of the third-place Cincinnati Reds. Since the calendar turned to July, St. Louis had won 12 of its previous 14 games, including an eight-game win streak to open the month.

The Cardinals took a brief first-inning lead. Womack drew a leadoff walk, and Edgar Renteria laid down a sacrifice bunt to move him to second base. Pujols, who came into the game batting .311, pulled a 3-and-2 curveball over Alou’s head in left field to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

Rolen, batting next, was hit on the arm by a 1-and-2 breaking ball. Though the circumstances made it unlikely that Rusch was throwing at the Cardinals’ third baseman, there seemed little doubt that a response was headed the Cubs’ way. In the bottom half of the inning, Cardinals right-hander Matt Morris delivered that reply by throwing a fastball that sailed behind Cubs center fielder Corey Patterson’s hips.

“I felt it was the right thing to do, to stick up for my teammates,” Morris said. “No one got hurt. In fact, it might have fired them up.”[1]

Indeed, while Morris retired the side in order in the first, he would not be so fortunate the next inning. He led off the inning by walking Alou, and fell behind Derrek Lee 2-and-0 before Lee homered to center field. Ramirez followed with a double, and Michael Barrett launched a line-drive home run over the right-field wall to make it 4-0.

Patterson added a two-run double over Edmonds’ head, and with two outs Alou hit an RBI single up the middle to give the Cubs a 7-1 lead and chase Morris from the game.

“I thought he hit a wall,” La Russa said. “He went out to the mound, and it was like all of a sudden somebody punched him in the gut. He was having trouble breathing.”[2]

Pujols and Ramirez traded solo home runs in the third inning to make it 8-2 before St. Louis began its comeback. After Pujols and Rolen each singled to lead off the sixth inning, Edmonds singled to right field to score Pujols. Baker replaced Rusch with Francis Beltran, who immediately walked Sanders and Mike Matheny to score Rolen. So Taguchi reached on an infield single that scored Edmonds, and Ray Lankford hit a sacrifice fly that cut the Cubs’ lead to 8-6.

Pujols made it 8-7 in the top of the seventh when he hit Kyle Farnsworth’s first-pitch fastball over the left-field wall.

Farnsworth was still holding onto a one-run lead in the eighth inning when he fell behind Taguchi 3-and-1 and threw a fastball down the middle of the plate. The diminutive Taguchi turned on the pitch and hit it into Waveland Avenue beyond the left-field wall. Afterward, Pujols pointed to Taguchi’s home run as the biggest blow of the game.[3]

The teams were still deadlocked 8-8 when the Cubs turned to LaTroy Hawkins for the ninth inning. Renteria led off with an infield single to bring Pujols, already 4-for-4 with two home runs, to the plate. Both of Pujols’ blasts had come on the first pitch, so Hawkins was cautious with his first offering, a low fastball. He was less cautious with his second pitch, a fastball out over the plate that Pujols hit the other way over the right-field wall.

Pujols’ three-homer game marked the first time a Cardinal had accomplished the feat since Mark McGwire on May 18, 2000.[4]

“As soon as I hit it, I knew it was out of the park,” Pujols said.[5]

With two outs, Reggie Sanders added a home run to center field to make it 11-8. After striking out Yadier Molina to end the top of the ninth, Hawkins got into an argument with home-plate umpire Tim Tschida and had to be restrained by Baker and four of his fellow coaches.[6]

“Do I regret it? No,” Hawkins said. “I talked to him like a man at first, and it didn’t work.”[7]

In the ninth, Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen worked around two walks and a single to earn the save. It marked the Cardinals’ largest comeback since July 28, 2002, when they rallied from a 6-0, third-inning deficit to beat the Cubs.[8]

It was a strong showing for the Cardinals bullpen, which allowed just one run in 7 1/3 innings, including three innings from Eldred and two shutout innings from Kiko Calero. Ray King earned the win after retiring the side in order in the eighth.

“It just shows the character of this team,” Isringhausen said. “After our big win Monday, we could have been content to leave town with a split … but we kept plugging away, plugging away. That’s how we do it. This is just a great win for us.”

With the win, the division-leading Cardinals moved 10 games ahead of the Cubs, who were leapfrogged by Cincinnati and fell into third place.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been after giving up seven runs in 1 2/3 innings,” said Morris, who optimistically noted that the Cardinals’ comeback would not have been possible if he hadn’t allowed seven runs in the second inning.[9] “It’s unbelievable. To win that game against that team, with the position we’re in, it’s just a snowball effect. It keeps getting bigger.”[10]

In the next day’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, columnist Bernie Miklasz compared Pujols’ performance to another classic Cardinals-Cubs showdown: the “Ryne Sandberg game” of June 23, 1984, in which Sandberg went 5-for-6 with two home runs and seven RBIs, helping to spur the Cubs to the 1984 division championship.

“Citizens of Cardinals Nation: We have a reverse Ryno,” Miklasz wrote. “Two decades later, the St. Louis-Chicago rivalry has crowned a new comeback king – His Majesty Albert Pujols.”[11]

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[1] Dave van Dyke, “Rallying the best revenge,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2004: Page 4-1.

[2] Joe Strauss, “Cubs gum it up; Birds stick it to ’em,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 21, 2004: D1.

[3] Strauss.

[4] Strauss.

[5] Strauss.

[6] Paul Sullivan, “Losing it … again,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2004: 4-1.

[7] Sullivan.

[8] Strauss.

[9] van Dyke.

[10] Strauss.

[11] Bernie Miklasz, “In Sandberg’s yard, Pujols shows he’s second to none,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 21, 2004: D1.

The post Albert Pujols goes 5-for-5 with three homers in comeback win: July 20, 2004 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.