Cardinals Reveal Wild Story Behind Matt Holliday Blockbuster Deal

The St. Louis Cardinals have clearly had some success in the trade market over the years.

Recently, guys like Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt have been the big-name trade pickups. Goldschmidt is no longer in town after signing with the New York Yankees as a free agent, but Arenado is still impacting the team day in and day out.

The Cardinals actually have had a lot of success adding stars to the organization through the trade market. One that was pretty transformational was the team's acquisition of Matt Holliday from the Athletics way back in 2009.

Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak shared the story of St. Louis’ deal in a column in which executives talked about their best deadline stories from ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.

"In July 2009, St. Louis Cardinals executive John Mozeliak was getting ready to play golf when trade talks began to heat up," Rogers shard. "'I wasn't a golfer but I got invited by a friend to play at St. Louis Country Club,' Mozeliak recalled. The calls he was getting came from Athletics GM Billy Beane with the two sides discussing a deal involving slugger Matt Holliday. 'All of a sudden the skies open up, it's pouring, and I can't hear on my cell phone,' Mozeliak said. 'It was just disastrous. And by the way, I only played three holes because my phone was just blowing up.' Mozeliak headed back to his car -- to stay dry and find some quiet. And also to avoid trouble at the club...

"The conversation carried on through dinner time, when Mozeliak was due to be with his family and his friend's family. 'We're having dinner at Dewey's Pizza, which is a local pizzeria in New City,' he said. 'And so there I'm having to just not focus on this family dinner. I already missed 15 holes of golf, but by the time that dinner ended, we had a deal and we got Matt Holliday.' With the help of their new slugger, the Cardinals went on to win 91 games and the NL Central. 'You're not in your office, you're not in your normal environment to do it but we were able to complete it and obviously the rest was history when it came to having Holliday.'"

You can check out the entire column right here.

It was a great move then and it's even more interesting when you hear how it all came together.