March 21, 2001: Before he has even played his first Major League Baseball game, the Saint Louis Cardinals have offered young rookie slugger Albert Pujols a ridiculous 21 year contract worth more than 324 million dollars.

Amazingly, he will be worth this amount in his first eleven season alone (per fangraphs), meaning his last ten years, he'll be playing for free!

This is not taking into account the amount of revenue Pujols will generate for the franchise in merchandise sales, boosted attendance, etc.

If anything, it's like he's paying the Cardinals to play for them!

(This is the first of many attempts to justify the Cardinals offering a 32 year old a ten year contract. Others include: We'll All Be Dead By Then Anyway, He's Pujols!, Money Isn't Real George, and Imma Gonna Rob His Ass.)