Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the opportunity to sit back and check out some stats of the Cardinals’ players. With them having a day game on Wednesday and an off-day yesterday, I feel like I haven’t had much to do. During my delve into the stats of the players, I realized that there is one key player that I didn’t know too much about, and that’s Matt Holliday. To the googler!
So, what fun little tidbits have I found out about Matt Holliday? You mean, other than he has two nicknames? Yeah, I’ll get to that here in just a little while. Holliday was born and raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Not only was he a big baseball guy, but he was recruited out of high school to play quarterback at Oklahoma State. Fortunately for us Cardinal fans, he was drafted by the Rockies in the 7th round of the 1998 draft, and decided that his life was meant to go down the baseball path.
Ironically, Holliday made his Major League debut earlier than anticipated when he came up for an injured Larry Walker on April 16, 2004. He also made his debut when the Rockies were playing against the Cardinals, in St. Louis! Look at all these signs, pointing him in the right direction….
On November 12, 2008, he was traded from the Rockies to the A’s, who then turned around and traded him to the Cardinals on July 24, 2009. He had been wearing #5 on his jersey, but at that time, another player (who this girl refuses to name. Yes, I hold grudges) was wearing the #5 jersey, So, he took #15, which was at one time the number that Jim Edmonds wore while also playing outfield. Hmmm….
On January 21, 2010, Holliday signed his 7-year, $120 million contract, that was the most lucrative in Cardinals’ history. His contract includes: $15 million per season, plus $2 million per year in deferred payments with a vesting option for 2017, at which time the Cardinals can pick up the option at $17 million or opt to buy out his contract for $1 million. His contract includes a full no-trade provision and monetary bonuses for all-star selections and post-season awards.
So, during his career, what kinds of accolades has Holliday received? Just a few, including: All-Star selection-’06, ’07, ’08, ’10, ’11, and ’12; Silver Slugger Award- ’06, ’07, ’08, and ’10; NLCS MVP-’07; NL Batting Champion- ’07. A lot of the awards he has received were pre-current contract, but maybe if I talk loud enough, he will hear me, and start getting more of those awards. You know, take advantage of that contract.
2010 was also the year that Holliday changed his number from 15 to 7, to honor Mickey Mantle, who is also a native Oklahoman. Oh, and it’s important to note that Holliday hit the longest homerun in the history of Busch III on July 20, 2012. It was a 469 foot dinger over the “Big Mac Land” sign in left field.
Pre-looking up all of this information about Holliday, I began wondering why he doesn’t have a cool nickname. Oh, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Apparently, he has two. Apparently, he is not only known as the “Stillwater Stinger”, but he also has been known to go by “Big Daddy”. If you were asking me, I think I would stick with “Stillwater Stinger”. It’s more unique.
So, that’s it. My mini-bio about Matt Holliday. Yes, I purposely left out the whole moth-flying-in-his-ear incident from 2011 (although I’m giggling about it as we speak).
Here’s to the “Stillwater Stinger”.
Go Cards!
