TOWER GROVE • The signature dish, served chilled with lemon and mustard sauce (or butter, if you wish), are the stone crab claws. It's been that way since the 1920s, and will be that way long after the 2020s.
Joe's Stone Crab is a Miami Beach staple, with its regal dark wood, polished bar, glorious homemade key lime pie ($6.95), famous stone crab claws (go jumbo), and, of course, it's schedule. Located near the southern tip of Miami Beach, it stands apart from the Art Deco extravaganza of South Beach with its simple green awnings and the fact that during the summer it's just closed. Joe's is open during crab season, having just opened, as the Web site says, on Oct. 14 for its 99th season.
Just in time for baseball's free agency.
The Miami Marlins (nee Florida) used Joe's Stone Crab as a setting for at least one of their high-profile recruiting visits earlier this month. Free agent shortstop Jose Reyes dined there with Marlins' executives, including president David Samson. It is not clear whether he had the jumbo claws.
"He did not sign the check, and did not sign a contract," Samson said a few days later on the Miami-based sports radio show, The Dan Le Batard Show. "Yes, we were at Joe's. There is nothing to hide. We said from the beginning, we're interested in making our team better."
Mark Buehrle, the St. Louis-area native, and Albert Pujols, the St. Louis-area icon, were also wooed by the Marlins during separate visits to Miami. Pujols spent about three hours with the Marlins. He met with owner Jeffrey Loria. He and his agent, Dan Lozano, lunched with executives. He took a tour of the new ballpark in Miami, and he was greeted there with photoshopped action photos of him in the Marlins' new jerseys. It was very much like the blue-chip basketball recruit who is greeted at Duke with a mocked-up Sports Illustrated cover with his picture, a jersey with his name on it, and, of course, the P.A. announcer introducing him in the starting lineup.
How can the Cardinals compete with that? Toasted ravs?
When it became clear that Pujols was going to wade into free agency and see how green the grass was elsewhere in the majors, it was also obvious that he planned to take some of these "recruiting" trips or, at the very least, meetings. The Marlins were the first to invite him over. As many as six teams are expected to show some interest. The Marlins and Cardinals have offers on the table; a third offer from an unknown team is expected. As a free agent, Pujols wants to be wooed. He wants to hear where he fits in an organization -- and how an organization, its culture, its ballpark, its blueprint to contend, and its city fit around him.
The Cardinals are a bit landlocked, figuratively.
Where can the Cardinals take Pujols that he hasn't already been?
I imagine something like this: "Come, see our ballpark, where, yes, over there will be your locker -- just as it's been since 2006. This is the weight room. Over here is ... oh, you've already found the batting cage, I see. You were there hitting this morning. You did help us organize it, like you did with the lighting on the field. You'll notice that we hung up action photos of you everywhere, but that wasn't special for this visit. They've been up for a few years. No, they weren't photoshopped. That picture of you holding the 2011 World Series trophy is new, though.
"Well, let's check out St. Louis. There's your house. Yep, that's the school your kids have already attended. Hungry? Let's hit the restaurant that is named after you. Watch out! Don't run into that statue of you. ..."
How do you roll out a red carpet to someone's home?
This is the question possibly facing the Cardinals as they endeavor to re-sign the three-time MVP. If Pujols wants to be courted, how do the Cardinals do that? Is the contract all they have to offer? Is the contract all they have to offer? Colleague Bryan Burwell explored what he believes is the waiting game the Cardinals are playing with Pujols in this morning's paper. I wondered if the Cardinals just need to find a place that serves stone crabs.
I wanted to open the floor to your suggestions. What would a recruiting trip to St. Louis include? How do the Cardinals' woo Pujols? Should they?
On Friday, Brian Stull and Chris Duncan took some suggestions on their local radio show, on WXOS/101.1 FM. Stull shared some of the listeners' ideas with me (I apologize that I'm not able to credit these suggestions with the people who texted or called them in):
Show Albert what the LF wall looks like with his #5 next to Stan's #6, and have HOFers present him with his red jacket
Show Albert the highlights of his career with Busch packed then show him the highlights with 30k people edited out of the video.
Go after (his wife, Deidre) & the kids. Offer (Deidre) her own cooking show on TV. Proceeds going 2 Alberts charity. Then whatever AJ & the rest of the kids want!
You show Albert pictures of the beach and then slam 2 world series rings on the table and ask him which one he wants more...
Charitable donations! Piece of the company. Build a town called Saint Albert in the Dominican. Rename the Arch the Albert
Take Albert to Crown Candy and Hodaks!
The last one sounds tasty, because we all know that Joe's knows stone crab, but does it have a Malt Challenge? Yeah, didn't think so. Crown Candy FTW.
How would you sell St. Louis to Pujols?
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