Joe Strauss, with whom it is apparent Albert Pujols does not have a good working relationship, has apparently begun handicapping the St. Louis Cardinals' odds of resigning their superstar first baseman at 50/50 or less. That's his prerogative.
↵But I am of the opinion that if you can't reveal the source that has broken news to you, or the gist of the news the source has broken, or even what the source appears to see that we can't, it's not news. Joe Strauss isn't a soothsayer, he's a journalist, and if he's not doing journalism his handicapping appears to be irrelevant to the ongoing concern of Albert Pujols's free agency. (If he is a soothsayer, and the full text of Albert Pujols's 10-year, $300 million contract with the New York Yankees is currently locked up in the Department of Mysteries, I apologize.)
↵Here, then, is what we know about the Albert Pujols situation, really know—publicly he hopes to be a Cardinal forever, and publicly the Cardinals would like him to be a Cardinal forever. Neither side has confirmed that they'll do that to the exclusion of other options, but that would seem to be a poor position from which to bargain. There's no reason to be certain, but there's no reason yet to be pessimistic, either; if there is, Strauss is apparently unable to reveal it.
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