I don't even know what to say. I guess I understand the allure of playing professional sports, about how it's hard to just stop playing one day when you've been playing a sport nonstop for 20+ years. I get that. That's why it wouldn't have bothered me if Jim Edmonds had played the next five years for 20 different teams either in the continental United States or in Japan, Mexico, whatever.
But the Cubs?
In case you haven't figured it out, I'm a Cardinals fan. As I pointed out on Tuesday, this isn't a somewhat high-profile athlete with a few good years ahead of him jumping ship from the Red Sox to the Yankees (Damon) or anything. This is a guy who's at the end of his run looking to collect a paycheck, and frankly, there just had to have been at least one other team interested in Edmonds' services besides the Cubs, right? I would've thought so.
I'm severely conflicted about this; on the one hand, I've got my Cardinal love for Jim Edmonds, and many fond memories of his exploits in center field. On the other, a general dislike for the Cubs to go along with the altruistic notion that you just ought not accept playing for your main team's biggest rival. I know that as a fan I see the sports world through a different prism than the average professional athlete, and I know that a lot of pro athletes just don't view the traditional rivalries as rivalries at all. But, we as fans do, and I guess it's a tough pill to swallow when one of your "own" goes over and plays for the other team.
That being said, I wish nothing but the best for Edmonds. Of course, I hope that he never collects a hit against the Cardinals and gets routinely burned in the outfield by bloops and line drives. I also hope that this somehow curses the Cubs for another 100 years, but they seem to be taking it almost as hard as Cards fans, so maybe that's bad enough.
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