Poznanski SI cover story this week: Albert Pujols is the best player in Baseball.
 

The Power To Believe
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.c...1098/index.htm

Albert Pujols is the Best Player in Baseball, and he understands the curse that comes with that title. But the Cardinals' slugger has this message for you: He won't let you down

JOE POSNANSKI

RADIO ANNOUNCER
Babe Ruth has just made that same gesture again! With two strikes on him, he pointed to the flagpole in the centerfield bleachers, plainly indicating that's where he means to park that next pitch! (Camera closes in on sick boy sleeping in his hospital bed, his worried parents sitting bedside. Cut back to the Babe at the plate.)
BABE RUTH (to catcher)
Sit down and rest, kid, I'm riding this one out of the park.
CATCHER
Oh, yeah? You and who else?
BABE RUTH
Me and a young pal of mine. (Ruth connects.)
RADIO ANNOUNCER
He did it! It's a home run in the centerfield bleachers ... right where he pointed! (Camera cuts back to sick boy. His eyes open.)
—scene from The Babe Ruth Story

ALBERT PUJOLS knows that people do not believe him. He does not just know it, he lives it, breathes it, he takes it with him into the batting cage in Jupiter, Fla., on a hazy mosquito day at the St. Louis Cardinals' spring training complex. Pujols stretches out into his familiar batting stance—legs wide apart, bat quivering high above his shoulder, head up in an oddly proud way, like he's a soldier sitting on a horse, like he's posing for posterity. A batting practice pitcher throws, and Pujols rockets hard line drive after hard line drive. People marvel at how much louder and fuller the ball sounds coming off his bat than off the bat of anyone else. That sound used to make heroes. Now, it only cements his guilt in the minds of the most cynical in the great American jury.

This is the uncompromising math of 2009: The more Albert Pujols hits, the less those cynics will believe him.

He will not stop hitting, of course. That is no option. He hit his way out of the Dominican Republic. He hit his way into the American dream. In his eight years in the major leagues, Pujols, still only 29, has never hit less than .314, never hit fewer than 32 home runs, never driven in fewer than 103 runs, never finished out of the Top 10 in the MVP balloting. He is the Best Player in Baseball.

But this is not a great time to be the best anything in baseball. Barry Bonds was the best player, and now he is facing federal perjury charges. Roger Clemens was the best pitcher, and every other day another newspaper story takes him down one more notch. Mark McGwire was the best home run hitter, and after telling Congress that he did not want to talk about the past, he has all but disappeared into a Pynchon-like seclusion. Alex Rodriguez was the best player, and now he tentatively admits guilt while A-ROID! headlines splash and fans heckle and a hip injury shuts him down.

"We're in this era where people want to judge other people," Pujols says. "And that's so sad." He would like to leave it with those three words—that's so sad—but then people might wonder.

So he continues: "But it's like I always say, 'Come and test me. Come and do whatever you want.' Because you know what? There is something more important to me—my relationship with Jesus Christ and caring about others. More than this baseball. This baseball is nothing to me."
He stops cold. He shakes his head. Those words don't do him any good either. This is more of the uncompromising math of 2009: The more he denies, the less people will believe him.

This is the uneasy state of the new baseball hero. Albert Pujols knows he cannot prove to people that he has never used steroids. He knows that there will always be doubters. "Let's say I retire 15 years from now," he says. "They're going to say, 'Well, he probably did it back then. He just didn't get caught.' I know that's what they're going to say. And you know what, man? It is sad, but at the same time, it doesn't matter. I know who I am. I don't care."

Well, this is one answer. He could not worry about any of it. Albert Pujols makes a lot of money. He is the most beloved figure in one of America's best baseball towns. He is putting up baseball numbers that bend the imagination. Yes, he could just go about his business, play ball and leave the hero business to someone else. There's only one problem with that.
"I think deep down he does care," his wife, Dee Dee, says. "He really cares.... He wants to be a hero to people."

Baseball, perhaps more than any other sport, has been about heroes. Ted Williams went to war—twice—and hit a home run in his last at bat; Hank Aaron hit home runs by night while stuffing the racist letters he received into a shoebox during the day. Sandy Koufax refused to pitch on Yom Kippur, and Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in a World Series game, and Cal Ripken played every inning every day. There is a good story about every baseball hero, and the best of those have always involved a child, a home run and a corny ending. Will you hit a home run for me, Babe? Sure I will, kid.
Albert Pujols has a baseball hero story like that. He has just about the most amazing baseball hero story you have ever heard. But does anyone want to hear a baseball hero story these days?

Pete's a fan of yours, Roy. He got a scrapbook that thick fulla pictures of you. Yesterday, they lemme go see him and I said to Pete you'd sock a homer for him in the game tonight. After that he sorta smiled and looked better. They gonna let him listen a little tonight, and I know if you will hit one it will save him.


What did you say that for?" Roy said bitterly. "The way I am now I couldn't hit the side of a barn."
Holding to Roy's sleeves, Mike Barney fell to his knees. "Please, you gotta do it."
"Get up," Roy said. He pitied the guy and wanted to help yet was afraid what would happen if he couldn't. He didn't want that responsibility.
—from The Natural, by Bernard Malamud

THE THING Albert Pujols remembers is the weight. It's a helluva thing to carry your father. Forget the emotional part. First, you have to balance the weight just right. Then you have to walk at a steady pace. And, more than anything, you have to keep going, keep moving, even as the crushing weight of a man twice your size bears down.
Bienvenido Pujols was a great softball pitcher in the Dominican Republic. Albert idolized him; he would wear his father's jerseys around his neighborhood in Santo Domingo. After a softball game was over, Bienvenido often stayed around with his friends, had a few drinks. When Bienvenido was done, Albert would drag and carry his father back to the house. Albert was 10 years old.

The memory does not haunt him—Albert Pujols still idolizes his father. Rather, it explains him. "God made me older," Albert says, and this is the defining quality of his life. At every stage, you will find people who marvel (or gripe) about how old Albert Pujols seems. It was that way when he was 18 and he played high school baseball in Independence, Mo., Harry Truman's hometown. Opposing coaches walked Pujols 55 of the 88 times he came to the plate that year. They walked him out of respect, of course, but they also walked him in protest. They did not believe their pitchers should have to throw to a grown man. Albert hit eight homers in the 33 at bats he was given; one of those crashed off a second-story air conditioner some 450 feet from home plate. That did not dissuade anyone from believing Pujols was older than 18.

"It wasn't my age," Pujols says. "It was the way I grew up." An only child, he was primarily raised by his grandmother America Pujols and by 10 uncles and aunts he still calls his brothers and sisters. He grew up on baseball, lived the archetypal life of a Dominican boy. He remembers playing catch with limes, using a glove made from a milk carton, playing in games with players four and five years older.

"Pitchers were throwing 90 miles per hour, 93 miles per hour," he says. "When you're 13 years old, that's not that easy."

Baseball, though, was the easy part. He felt like a man on the baseball diamond. Pujols still talks emotionally about how lonely he felt after he and his father moved to Missouri, where his paternal grandmother had settled, when he was 16. He can still feel the torment of sitting in a classroom across from his English tutor, Portia Stanke—"She didn't know any Spanish, and I didn't know any English," he says—and wishing he were anyplace else in the world.


It wasn't like that on the baseball field. His first day at Fort Osage High, his new baseball coach, David Fry, tried to speak to Pujols using Albert's cousin as interpreter. Pujols says, "I told my cousin, 'Tell him that I am here to play baseball. Let's go play. I'm not here to talk about anything.'"
His rise to the big leagues is now baseball lore. He hit like crazy in high school when pitchers actually gave him a chance—"I put up sick numbers," Pujols says. "I was a monster"—but he did not even make The Kansas City Star's first-team all-metro baseball team. He went to Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City, Mo., and in his first game he homered and made an unassisted triple play at shortstop, then his regular position. After a breathtaking 1999 season there (.461 with 22 homers), he did not get drafted until the 13th round by the St. Louis Cardinals that June.

"We all saw Albert about the same way," says Allard Baird, who was then general manager of the Kansas City Royals. "We weren't sure he had a position. He didn't have a great baseball body. We all saw him the same way, and we were all wrong."

They weren't just wrong. They were spectacularly wrong. It isn't as though Pujols made himself into a great player after he signed with the Cardinals. He was a finished product. He was older than his years. He played just one season in the minor leagues, as a third baseman, and he was so overwhelming that at the end of that season the Cardinals jumped him from A ball to Triple A, where he hit .367 in the Pacific Coast League playoffs and was named the postseason MVP. The next spring, he was a nonroster invitee to Cardinals training camp, and he was so impressive that within days manager Tony La Russa was telling St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz, "I've never seen anyone quite like him."
In 2001, playing four positions, Pujols had one of the greatest rookie seasons in history. He hit .329 with 47 doubles, 37 homers, 130 RBIs and 112 runs scored. No rookie had put up numbers like that since his Cardinals teammate Mark McGwire did with the Oakland A's more than a decade earlier.

Pujols has been at least as good every year since. He says he judges himself not by his best seasons, but by his worst. The thing is, it's almost impossible to pick Pujols's worst season out of a lineup. Pick any season you want. It's fair to say that Pujols's worst big league season, repeated over an entire career, would get him elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He's like pizza: Even when he's bad, he's good.
It is more than his offense. He has made himself into a defensive marvel. Baseball analyst John Dewan has invented a video-based defensive rating system that breaks down every play a defender makes. Since its creation three years ago, the system has ranked Pujols the best defensive first baseman in the National League in each season.

And it's more than his offense and defense. He runs the bases aggressively and successfully, especially for a man with below-average speed. And he is selfless. When Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus had to undergo shoulder surgery in January, Pujols went to La Russa and said he would play third base if the team needed him there. "I told him, 'No, that's O.K. I don't think we want to mess with you,'" La Russa says. "But he was absolutely serious. That's the kind of guy Albert is. He would do anything for this team."

Nobody in the sport works harder than Albert Pujols. But, again, playing baseball hasn't been the difficult part.

"I don't want to sound cocky or arrogant, but I was always great at this game," Pujols says. "I was a little disappointed that I got drafted in the 13th round and all that. They can say what they want now, but I always put up the numbers. It doesn't matter. It made me hungry. Everything happens in God's time."


"In 1971 I went to Orthopedic Hospital in Los Angeles to visit a boy named Ricky Williams. The boy just had an operation to remove the lower part of a leg, and he was in a bad way. It was a hollow feeling seeing him there on the bed. His mother said, 'Thank you for coming.' The doctors said he had an 18% chance of living. He was heavily sedated.
"I took his small hand in mine. His mother said, 'Ricky, Steve Garvey's here.'
"And I started to feel a little squeeze from that 10-year-old's hand. He started opening his eyes. Although he couldn't talk, when he opened his eyes it also opened mine. I could feel the strength in that little boy's hand. I knew then that Steve Garvey had a place."
—Steve Garvey, from a 1975 SI story, Born to Be a Dodger

IN ST. LOUIS, they still call Stan Musial the Man. Musial signed every autograph. He went to opposing clubhouses to visit pitchers he'd hit with line drives. He helped even opposing hitters with their batting troubles. He smoked under stairwells so kids would not see him (and then, realizing that there were kids under stairwells too, he quit smoking). He was and is, in every way, the Man.

In St. Louis they now call Albert Pujols El Hombre. That translates to the Man.

"Of course, Stan and Albert are a lot alike," says Musial's longtime friend and Hall of Fame second baseman Red Schoendienst. "The great ones are all a lot alike. They both love to hit. And they both are good people on and off the field. That matters."

This is where Albert gets emotional. This does matter to him. He believes deeply that God has given him the baseball platform to do good work. He met his wife, Dee Dee, when he was just 18 years old. She thought he was 21—they met in a Kansas City dance club that was for people 21 and older. On their first date he admitted being only 18. She said that she had a baby daughter, Isabella, who had been born with Down syndrome. He was in high school, still a ways from the majors. They fell in love fast.
In those early years, Albert would babysit Isabella while Dee Dee worked one of her three jobs. She got him a job in a pizzeria, and he would dutifully give her every penny he made. When Pujols was drafted so low, he briefly considered giving up baseball and getting a job so he could help support Dee Dee and Isabella. After his one season in the minors, he got a part-time catering job at a Kansas City--area country club. "We didn't have any money," Albert says. "It was hard." They spent $150 on their wedding. Their honeymoon was in Peoria, Albert's first minor league stop.
Of course, this is a common tale—the story of a young couple trying to make it in baseball—but what strikes Dee Dee is how Albert seemed entirely driven to be something more than just a baseball star. He did not drink. He would not even be in the same room as a smoker. He did not get tattoos. He never wore an earring. He wasn't interested in going out with the boys. He played baseball, and he went to church, and that seemed about all that interested him.

"I make fun of him all the time," Dee Dee says. "It's like he's as pure a guy as you could possibly get."

And that's why she really wants people to believe in her husband. Like she believes in him. Last year, Pujols won the Roberto Clemente Award, which is given to the major league player who "best exemplifies the game of baseball." Clemente, of course, died in a plane crash in 1972 while bringing supplies to earthquake-torn Nicaragua. Pujols, a two-time National League MVP, says it is the most meaningful award he has ever won, and in his speech he said that if he could ask one question of the great Clemente, it would not be about his brilliant arm, or how he paved the way for Latin American players, or even about his prodigious hitting. No, Pujols said, his one question would be, "Why did you go?"

And Pujols said, "I think I know the answer. He felt a responsibility. I feel that responsibility too."

Together, through the Pujols Family Foundation, Albert and Dee Dee have worked to raise money and the spirits of people with Down syndrome. Together, they have brought eye doctors and dentists and beds to villages in the Dominican Republic—Dee Dee remembers presenting beds to a mother of five who had been sleeping on straw and filth, and the tears in the woman's eyes because she had never been given something new. She remembers the tears in Albert's eyes too.

"If he ever got involved in that [steroid] stuff, I would be the first one to kill him," Dee Dee says suddenly.

She would not be the only one to be brokenhearted. Albert Pujols knows this. It is why he felt so betrayed when a local television station sent a crew to his St. Louis restaurant to follow up on the charge that Pujols was named in baseball's Mitchell Report, the findings of a 20-month-long investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. Pujols's name was, in fact, not in the report. "They tried to ruin my image," he says.

He has constantly denied using steroids. His reasoning has stayed consistent: "I fear God too much to do any stupid thing like that." He also knows that more or less every player has denied using steroids. "We are under a dark cloud," he says. "Nobody believes anything [players say]."
And that takes us all the way back to the point: Albert Pujols knows that people, many people, do not believe him. He knows that some bloggers out there simply assume that he has been using—if you Google "Albert Pujols" and "steroids" you will get about 100,000 hits—and he knows that talk-radio hosts have spent time breaking down his 6'3", 230-pound physique. He knows that by putting up good numbers, he gives many people all the evidence they need.

So how can you be a baseball hero in 2009?

"You know how I want people to remember me?" Pujols asks. "I don't want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. That's the guy I want to be remembered as when I'm done wearing this uniform. That's from the bottom of my heart."


KRAMER:It's about a little boy in a hospital. I was wondering if you could do something to lift his spirits.
PAUL O'NEILL:Sure, I could help you there.
KRAMER:Sure, well, I promised you would hit him two home runs.
O'NEILL:Say what?
KRAMER:You know. A couple of dingers.
O'NEILL:You promised a kid in the hospital that I would hit two home runs?
KRAMER:Yeah. Well, no good?
O'NEILL:Yeah, that's no good. It's terrible. You don't hit home runs like that. It's hard to hit home runs. And where the heck did you get two from?
KRAMER:Two is better than one.
—scene from Seinfeld

The rest of the article:



SO HERE'S that amazing Albert Pujols baseball hero story. Every year in St. Louis, there is a Buddy Walk to raise money and awareness for the National Down Syndrome Society. Pujols is the chairman of the St. Louis Buddy Walk, and every so often, as he fulfills his duties, a child with Down syndrome will ask him to hit a home run. Actually, kids ask him just about every year.

In 2002, 10-year-old Kathleen Mertz threw out the first pitch to Pujols on Buddy Walk Day. As he walked over to give her the signed ball, she said, "Hey, Albert, hit me a home run."

In the first inning he blasted a long homer off Houston's Kirk Saarloos.
In 2003 Niki Cunningham threw out the first pitch on Buddy Walk Day. Of course, she also asked Albert to hit her a home run. In the 13th inning Pujols crushed a walk-off dinger against Florida's Dan Miceli.

In 2006 Pujols found himself swamped with home run requests as he strolled with the crowd during the Buddy Walk. One after another, kids shouted at him, "Hey, Albert, hit a home run for me." "You're my hero." "You've got to hit a homer for me, El Hombre." That night, he faced Pittsburgh's Ian Snell, and Pujols did not waste any time. He hit a home run in the first inning. Then, in the third inning, he faced Snell again, and he hit another. In the fifth inning, he faced Snell one more time. And he homered again—Pujols drilled this one about 450 feet.

"I thought it was going to hit the St. Louis Arch out there," Snell said to reporters after the game. "I wanted to go high-five him. That's unreal. That's like Superman playing baseball."

Pujols knows that he cannot make people believe him. It is like Dee Dee says: "People just have to make up their own minds."

Last year, Buddy Walk was on a Sunday afternoon in September. The Cardinals were out of the race. It was a perfect day for La Russa to give Pujols a rest. That's exactly what La Russa had done on Buddy Walk Day the year before. This time, though, La Russa saw all the families walking around the stadium before the game, and he knew that Pujols had to play. He had a feeling too.

"The guy can do anything," La Russa says.

So what happened? What do you think happened? First inning, Albert Pujols hit another home run for another child on another Buddy Day. Of course he did. He has now hit six home runs for children. That has to be a big league record. There are things we do not know about Pujols, things we cannot know, but the question really is this: How much fun is it if you cannot believe?

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/bir...609_pujols.jpg

03.10.2009 12:42 pm
“Believe in Me” says Albert Pujols in Sports Illustrated’s cover story
By: Derrick Goold
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JUPITER, Fla. — A couple weeks ago Sports Illustrated contributor, Kansas City Star columnist and blogger extraordinaire Joe Posnanski visited the Cardinals looking for a baseball story he could believe in. The Alex Rodriguez soap opera was still playing to large crowds and another performance-enhancing drug fog — do they call it “marine layer” in San Francisco? — had settled over baseball. Posnanski was assigned to find the antidote.

He came to interview St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols.
The thrust of Posnanski’s cover piece is tattooed on the issue of Sports Illustrated that reaches newsstands this week. There next to a profile picture of Pujols holding a bat is the headline: “Albert Pujols Has a Message”. And beneath that headline it reads: “Don’t Be Afraid to Believe in Me.” A copy of the cover (SEE BELOW) and the article were forwarded to media outlets this afternoon from Sports Illustrated. In the article, Posnanski writes:

Albert Pujols knows that people don’t believe in him. He does not just know it, he lives it, breathes it, he takes it with him into the batting cage in Jupiter, Fla…. A batting practice pitcher throws, and Pujols rockets hard line drive after hard line drive. People marvel at how much louder and fuller the ball sounds coming off his bat than off the bat of anyone else. That sound used to make heroes. Now it only cements his guilt in the minds of the most cynical in the great American jury. This is the uncompromising math of 2009: The more Albert Pujols hits, the less those cynics will believe him.

The opening spread of the article shows Pujols swinging, with the camera capturing almost every inch of his swing as it fans through the strike zone. But this article is far different from the technical one Sports Illustrated turned out a few years ago about his swing or the one GQ did on the reaction tests Pujols took years after Babe Ruth did. No, this article is a creature of its time, of the current environment in baseball.
In it, Pujols addresses directly the notion that he’ll have doubters even years after his career because of the era he played. He tells Posnanski:

“… They’re going to say, ‘Well, he probably did it back then. He just didn’t get caught.’ I know that is what they’re going to say. And you know what, man? It is sad, but at the same time it doesn’t matter. I know who I am. …”

The article recounts some of the highlights from Pujols career that locals know well, especially his flair for fulfilling promises with home runs on Buddy Walk Day at Busch Stadium. Posnanski attempts to address the question, “How can you be a baseball hero in 2009?” The Buddy Walk homers is part of how he answers it. But while that word — “hero” — is tossed around liberally, here and everywhere, Pujols answers the question in his own way. He tells Posnanski exactly what he wants to be.
“You know how I want people to remember me?” the reigning MVP says in the seven-page article. “I don’t want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. “

we go to the buddy walk every year. the 2006 game(mentioned above) was pretty amazing.
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Why do so many people think that Posnanski is a good sports columnist? His columns are usually lifeless, dull, fluff pieces that appeal to the lowest IQ level of sports fans.

Pujols is the next hope for baseball

Is that until people find out he's really 35?

see this is the crap thats tarred on all ball players in Poz's article.

Any player that can hit home runs is juicing. Any player thats from the Caribeann must have shaved a couple of years off his age.

Just because you can hit home runs doesn't mean your juicing.

No but I don't for a second believe that he was 22 or 23 or whatever when he came up...

You're welcome to that opinion, I guess. But as a fellow journalist, I'd put Posnanski up there with anyone. This guy is respected by all his fellow pros - and held up as an example to young writers.

His voice, his pacing, his versatility - all are excellent. And it's not as easy as you think to write uplifting features without forcing it (something Posnanski is able to do).

Bad news is the easiest news to tell...

Pujols gets a pass from you like A-Rod did from so many? Haha. You never know really. I like the guy, and don't care a bit myself. this "great hope" thing is bogus. Just appreciate the guy. I have wondered about the age thing myself. We shall see how long he lasts, but right now he is the best overall for sure IMO.

I would saywith the production that he has put out so far, who gives a ****

Or that he's on steroids

One of these days, them knuckleheads in the Cardinals' organization will figure it out and schedule Buddy Day on every freakin' day of the regular and post-season schedule!

i laughed.
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yeah, why would a fan care as long as he keeps producing. I think this is as good a start that any player has had.

Albert Pujols's Statistics Over His First Six Seasons

2001 Season: .329 BA, 194 Hits, 47 Doubles, 37 HR, 130 RBI, 112 Runs (NL Rookie of the Year)
2002 season: .314 BA, 185 Hits, 40 Doubles, 34 HR, 127 RBI, 130 Runs (2nd in MVP Voting)
2003 Season: .359 BA, 212 Hits, 40 Doubles, 43 HR, 124 RBI, 137 Runs (2nd in MVP Voting)
2004 Season: .331 BA, 196 Hits, 51 Doubles, 46 HR, 123 RBI, 133 Runs (3rd in MVP Voting)
2005 Season: .330 BA, 195 Hits, 38 Doubles, 41 HR, 117 RBI, 129 Runs (NL Most Valuable Player)
2006 Season: .331 BA, 177 Hits, 33 Doubles, 49 HR, 137 RBI, 119 Runs (2nd in MVP Voting)
Needless to say, those are some pretty impressive statistics. But just how good are they? Compared with the first first six seasons of every other player in history, where does the man who is nicknamed Phat Albert stand? Well, here is a statistical comparison of Albert Pujols against three players who are generally considered to have had the best 'first six' seasons in baseball.
The Statistical Comparison
Albert Pujols (2001-2006): .331 BA, 193 Hits, 42 Doubles, 42 HR, 126 RBI, 127 Runs

Don Mattingly (1984-1989): .327 BA, 203 Hits, 43 Doubles, 27 HR, 114 RBI, 102 Runs
Ted Williams: (1939-1947*): .353 BA, 184 Hits, 39 Doubles, 33 HR, 125 RBI, 133 Runs
Joe DiMaggio: (1936-1941): .347 BA, 194 Hits, 36 Doubles, 33 HR, 136 RBI, 122 Runs
All great statistics from great players. But who is the best. Well, to use a simple anayltical technique, one could assign four points to the player who scored the best in a category, three points for second place, two for third and one for fourth. Then, add up each total, and the player with the most points is tops.
Here is how the players compare: Albert Pujols (17), Don Mattingly (13), Williams (16), DiMaggio (17).
Under this analysis, Pujols is tied with DiMaggio for best initial six seasons in history. This is just a rough thumbnail sketch, of course, but when a player compares favorably with DiMaggio and Williams, that sure says a lot.

for once i agree with mecca here...

i watched him play as a "freshman" in high school at Fort Osage and he didn't look that much different from what he looks like now. a healthy five o' clock shadow on a "14-15" year old seemed a bit out of the ordinary.

doyers resigned manny...Wo0T!

People just say stupid shit like that to try and discredit what he has done, which is not possible.

uhhh have you looked at the players at a 14-15 year old baseball game? Some have full beards.

I'm a journalist hobbyist and I agree, Posnanski tells stories like few are able. He's spectacular.

I had that. Plus, I'm no Cardinals fan.

I don't care if he's 25-28. The numbers speak for themselves.

Ted Williams, Stan The Man, DiMaggio numbers.

maybe it's the married,God fearing, clean living....

Great player, but who gives a shit, he's a RedBird. Go ROYALS!

My college roommate played high school ball against him. He tried to spike him to break up a double play, but Pujols just verticalled right over him. Said he was a manchild then...didn't look 18, but that didn't mean anything.

Traitor! Everybody knows David DeJesus is the best player in baseball.

He's like 35+ has to be.

I remember watching him play against my best friend's older brother in Legion ball, my friend played on Fike, Pujols played for Hi-Boy out of Independence. I was like 14 at the time.

Pujols was so much bigger and looked way older than anyone else out on the field. Like a man playing against a bunch of children. Still to this day he hit the furthest HR I had ever seen......this was with a metal bat, but damn did that thing sail, had to have been over 500ft. Not even kidding.

This just in...Alex Gordon to have MVP Season and a breakout year. Pujols runner-up.;)

i don't care either way. i'm just saying that he looked significantly older than any other players out on the field.

So which one is getting traded?

Wrong! He's the best columnist KC has. I was wondering where he went.

Doesn't mean much. I had friends who had full beards in middle school. He may have shaved his age, but it takes nothing from his accomplishments. He just may not play 20 seasons.

Hanley laughs at this article.

One of my best friends played ball with him at Maple Woods. Hasn't told me anything specific about Pujols, but said the program is notorious for its use of roids, and I've heard the same from others in the region.

I am so sick of people throwing the roids thing out there. So far he has not been caught using anything, until he does, he should not be thrown in with the others.

Well most people don't actually get caught - someone has to narc them out.

And if you read my post, I said he didn't say anything specific about Pujols, but the program he came from is well-known is baseball circles for being a program that does not shy away from anabolic supplements.

Still IMO shouldn't be stapled to him, I wasn't necessarily meaning you, it is said all the time. An athlete in this day and age can't be clean and tear it up on the field is the conception of far to many.

**** the Cardinals. BOO THE POO(holes)!

I thought this was a KC sports message board, why the Cardinals talk?

Do you know what Homosexuals and Cardinal fans have in common?

They both love Pooholes.

never heard that one:rolleyes:

lots of cardinal baseball fans here...don't like it? don't click on the thread.
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http://farm1.static.flickr.com/209/4...36c006.jpg?v=0

That would be wrong .... Not everyone here is from KC and more importantly maybe since they are a Missouri team that has done something for over 20+ years..

:thumb:

I would also add that anybody who doesn't like it is free to get the **** out and find a BB for a professional team from Kansas.

Good luck with that.

I'm sure he is. I really hate him too, so when it comes out, I"ll feel like a RedSox fan who just found out that A-Rod was taking!

:clap::clap: Great Expections will be hoping for those from AAA Royals providing up and coming talent to the rest of major league teams for years....

Albert could have been on of those.

He is not on steroids while I knew him, but he is older then his listed age..

It does not take anything away.. It just means he will not be playing as long as everybody wants..

I don't know about roids at MapleWeeds, but it was a huge huge dope school..

You were probably a Rams fan win they were good too huh? Chiefs/Royals or Cards/Rams.

Do you like Duke in CBB and then Alabama in CFB?

effing noobs

:LOL:

n00bs.... complete with 25 posts. :rolleyes:

Here is a little hint n00b .... There are people who are able to root for more than 1 City. Growing up in SW Missouri you had a choice NL or AL. I choose NL because I am not one for the DH. Also I guarantee that that the Rams were not an option growing up, and I am guessing earlier than you, because St. Louis didn't have the F@cking Rams they had the Cardinals. And in Missouri at that the time the Chiefs and the AFL ruled the day. So they became my team at an early age.

Now in the spirit of CP:

Kill Yourself ....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...attachment.jpg

and this may be your only option.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...i-freezex2.jpg

Yeah we are all big bandwagon fans. That's why we are on a Chiefs board.


I see little red boxes in your future :D

JoPo's next article will be about the startling new development that water is, in actuality, wet.

Ban-worthy comment. This is lunacy.

I see no reason to trash the guy personally. In my lifetime, I've never seen a RH batter cover the plate the way he does. In-f'ing-credible.

HAH, with the type of product the KC pro teams have been displaying ,
especially the Royals !!!!!!!! Reading about the finest man in professional baseball just across the state is rather refreshing.

Royals baseball = AAA baseball

Didn't the Royals win the season series against the Cards last year? Yep. Cards fans are not the brightest bunch.

StcChiefs took the bait!

Is Stinger always a major D!cktuck?

That shot he hit in the playoffs against lidge is probably the hardest hit ball I've ever seen hit,

http://images.usatoday.com/sports/_p...olsx-large.jpg

Strange, I knew several people that played ball there at the same time, and I KNOW that none of them juiced. Hell, there was a kid there, Jeremy Ryan was his name I believe, who was drafted the year before Albert and was as skinny as a beanpole. Also knowing the AD at the time, it would really surprise me to know that this went on.

And he has never been the same since.

I agree....I bet he is cranking also, Independence and all.

If you're talking about Lidge...I'm going to go ahead and say he rebounded pretty nicely last year LMAO

If you are referring to Albert, it's because of his elbow. He keeps delaying that surgery for the elbow, which I think affects his game.

Its not like the Phillies won the World Series or anything.

It really doesn't mean much in the big picture.

The Royals have been a AAA ball club at best for the last 20 seasons.

The fans that aren't the brightest bunch are the Royals fans for putting up with that POS of an organization for all this time.

Yeah, that was kind of annoying. Lidge is a punk.

But So Taguchi got another ring, so that made up for it.

The night after that Home Run happened both teams had to fly back to St. Louis for the next game I have posted this before but a great story:


LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO

Just 10 years ago Cardinals fans were toting McWire as the greatest in the game. Let's hope for another story book ending.

LMAO Until he puts up numbers consistenly year in and year out "Hanley" does not belong in the discussion. A couple more years like last year and sure, put him up there. What Pujols has done every year he's played puts him on top.

Yep... Pujols seems like a decent enough guy, but if he busted for doing roids or HGH I wouldn't be surprised at this point. The only player that would surprise me is Griffey JR.

Just so many things to say and no way to nicely sum up.

1) I'm guessing KCChiefs88 also finds Grantland Rice to be droll, Heinz to be prosaic and Woody Paige to be an icon. Joe Posnanski is an absolutely brilliant writer. Failing to recognize him as among the best, if not the absolute best, sportwriters in the country is a pretty damning indictment of the person suggesting he's anything other than elite. Rick Reilly is a vapid hack, Posnanski is everything a sportswriter oughta be.

2) TONS of sour grapes among the Royals fans. Albert just put up his best season at age 28, the age he is actually supposed to put up his best season. If he were 30/31, he'd be in his decline years. Instead he fought through a pretty painful elbow issue to author the finest season of his career, especially considering his supporting cast.

Will he age well? No, probably not. He has a pretty thick trunk and has had some nagging leg issues throughout his career. With as much power as he generates with his lower half, I think his raw power numbers will start to decline here in the next season or two. He'll continue to be a good doubles hitter and OBP machine, but somewhere near a 25 HR guy in the next 4 seasons. I'm thinking Todd Helton. Helton's power #s began a steep decline at age 28 after having his best season at 27. Funny that nobody's screaming steroids or accusing him of lying about his age. Hmmm.....

Albert's career arc has simply done what a historically great player's career arc should do. He had a great season in 2003, but it was clearly something of an outlier in his overal progression. Take away 2 HRS that season and his OPS+ is around 165, a slight tick over the previous 2 seasons and a notch below the next 3. He had an injury in 2007 that robbed him of a prime season but he still managed a great year. At age 28, he had his peak season. C'mon guys, that's exactly what he's SUPPOSED to do in his career arc. Nobody can argue that he's not one of the best hitters of the last 25 years. That level of ability comes with talent that simply sets him apart from other MLB players, so why is it so impossible to accept the fact that he's simply been a great player from the start?

3) I won't be a KU fan and claim that we don't care if STL wins the season series against KC. I absolutely hate it when we lose to you guys. However, I car far more about beating the Mets, Astros, Cubs, Brewers and Braves. I also care more about the results over 162 games...or 2 decades. Take your season series victory, I'll take my decade of sustained success, a couple of pennants and a WS title.

4) AL baseball sucks ass. The DH has done more to hurt the sport than 'roids, IMO. Baseball has always been about the chess pieces as much as the athleticism. The DH kills at least 1/2 the strategy and greatly damages part of what makes baseball great.

5) Manny covers the plate better than Albert. Manny's the best bad-ball hitter I've ever seen and likely the best I ever will. He doesn't have the focus Albert has, but Manny is a more talented hitter. Albert's better at keeping an inside fastball fair down the LF line, but Manny can take any ball within 8 inches of the zone in any direction and hit it hard. His lack of preparation will lead to him taking some akward swings and getting off balance(which Pujols never does), but I've seen him put a ball 425 feet while swinging off his front foot with one arm. Manny is possibly the most talented RH hitter of all time.

6) Lidge was the best reliever in baseball last season, I think he came back around nicely. He'll plummet to earth soon, however. The torque generated by his slider will eventually take its toll on his elbow. The Mets will learn this with K-Rod as well. If Lidge loses even a little bit of his slider, he's useless. He can't spot his fastball well enough to survive without an A+ slider.

7) Cardinals fans recognized McGwire for what he was. Most of us knew he was a steroid freak and a limited player. He had great power, a great batting eye and an underrated glove. Sure, there were the local fanboys and old women that came out to see him, but all fanbases have their bandwagon idiots. To say that the Cardinals fan in general held him out as 'the greatest ever' is another assinine strawman generated by folks just looking to knock down the next big thing.

dude if you were paying attention you would know most cardinal fans on here didn't think he was a true Cardinal and just a sideshow. Now, Pujols is considered by most Cardinal fans the inheritor of the legacy of Dizzy Dean, Stan the Man, Gibson, Brock and Ozzie.

Replace "Royals" with "Chiefs" and this sentence means the same thing.

2.) Tons of sour grapes from Royals fans? There was exactly one Royals fan, Great Expectations, a poster I've never seen before this thread. There were other posters, some Royals fans some not, that expressed doubts over Pujols' true age. But that's not sour grapes, that's legit concern. Posnanski's article is partly about that very issue.

6) Joakim Soria, with his .68 WHIP, disagrees.

Yeah, and his juice buddy Sosa wasn't getting any press at all, was he?

Hypocrite much? LMAO

At least McGwire didn't used a corked bat.

Soria didn't pitch in a playoff game or close out a game that really mattered all season. Oh, and Soria didn't go 41/41 on save opps.

Lidge, on the other hand, saved 7 in the playoffs alone and gave up 1 ER the whole time while striking out 13 and allowing only 8 baserunners. Did I mention he went an entire season without blowing a save? Nor did he ever take a loss. In a season when they made the playoffs by 3 games, that's huge.

When you did it matters as much as how you did it when you're talking about a closer. Soria had a great season, but he blew a few games and didn't ever face 'nut cutting' time. Had Soria been closing for Philly and blown the handful of games he did, they don't make the playoffs.

Lidge was better.

I'm not worried about a precipitous drop in Pujols' numbers because he's a line drive hitter. He's never been a guy like Jim Thome who needs to elevate the ball to get it out of the park. He has a ruthlessly efficient swing.

He's not like McGwire (all arms, which kills your back) or Edmonds (pure uppercut).

The thing about Lidge:

There's no point at swinging at any of his pitches. Just lay the bat on your shoulder. He almost never throws the slider for a strike, even if it comes out of his hand looking like one, and he can't put a fastball anywhere near the zone.

He's the rare instance of a guy who would be much worse as a middle reliever (where there is nowhere near as much pressure to get on base) than a closer.

As a Royals fan I care very little about beating the Redbirds, I am much more concerned with beating the White Sox, the Twins, the Tigers and the Indians as well as the Yak's. Beating the team from the other side of the state is midway down the totem pole.