TOWER GROVE — Add the cover of a national sports magazine (see below) to the growing list of accolades St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina has received in the past year, joining, but obviously not eclipsing, that coveted Gold Glove he won in 2008 and that All-Star Game invitation this season that inspired his cover turn.

Molina, crouched in his gear and posed at Busch Stadium, appears on the cover of the current issue of ESPN The Magazine. It will be on newsstands this week. The article debuted today on ESPN.com.

In an article titled “Yadier Molina Knows Squat”, sports writer Lindsay Berra holds up Molina as the example of the classic way to play catcher and control the game. Within the first few paragraphs of the story, Berra, who is the granddaughter of St. Louis native and Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra,  writes that Molina is “the sport’s one true game-changing catcher.” She backs that statement with a series of quotes from Jorge Posada, Brian McCann and Victor Martinez that echo the same sentiment: The Cardinals’ catcher is the “best behind the plate.”

In the article, Yadier’s older brother, San Francisco catcher Bengie Molina, describes what it means to him and his catching brothers to be a big-league catcher:

They believe a catcher’s sole responsibility is to work for the benefit of his pitcher. “Do you know how much we care?” Bengie asks. “You can’t care to win a game only. We care that the pitcher is going to have a family, that his kids will have kids. The relievers, the closers, all of them. We have a chance to make them get paid so they can have a nice life. We care about them beyond baseball.”

The article also has pitching coach Dave Duncan talk about Molina’s creativity behind the plate and it includes the number of players Molina picked off base way back in minor-league Peoria. Here’s a hint: The team doesn’t keep track of the number, but Molina knows it and it’s almost as many pickoffs as he had strikeouts that season. That’s the thrust of the article: How Molina makes a team think twice about its running game. Remember a few weeks ago when Arizona was in town and manager A.J. Hinch said: “We love to run, and we didn’t run (against Molina). That says enough by itself as to how much that combination and Molina specifically being a big part of that shuts down the running game. … You feel if you’re 10 feet off (the base), you’re too much (off). If you’re nine feet, you’re too far off. If you’re seven feet off, you feel too much off. Where to gauge to where it doesn’t invite a throw?”

The second-thoughts he gives runners is what got Molina on the cover. This cover:

Cardinals' catcher Yadier Molina on the cover of this week's ESPN The Magazine (source: ESPN)

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