Cardinals Poznanski SI cover story this week: Albert Pujols is the best player in Baseball. - Page 5

**BigRedChief** · 03-11-2009, 07:18 AM

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

smittysbar · 03-12-2009, 01:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

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

And he has never been the same since.

smittysbar · 03-12-2009, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Third Eye

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.

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

Hootie · 03-12-2009, 01:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smittysbar

And he has never been the same since.

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

Coach · 03-12-2009, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smittysbar

And he has never been the same since.

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.

**Reaper16** · 03-12-2009, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hootie

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

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

Chief Henry · 03-12-2009, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHENZ A!

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

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.

Frazod · 03-12-2009, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reaper16

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

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

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

Stinger · 03-12-2009, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

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

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:

Quote:

On the way back to St. Louis to play the game 6 Brad Ausmus Houston's Catcher that caught for Lidge when he gave up the home run had the pilot to announce after takeoff:

“We've reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. I’ve turned off the fasten seatbelt sign and turned off the cabin lights. If you look to the left of the aircraft, in the next two or three minutes you might be able to catch a glimpse of Albert Pujols’ home run ball.”

POND_OF_RED · 03-12-2009, 08:33 AM

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

Pasta Little Brioni · 03-12-2009, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eazyb81

Hanley laughs at this article.

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.

Al Bundy · 03-12-2009, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

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

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.

DJ's left nut · 03-12-2009, 09:23 AM

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.

**BigRedChief** · 03-12-2009, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

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

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.

**Reaper16** · 03-12-2009, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chief Henry

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.

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

**Reaper16** · 03-12-2009, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

2) TONS of sour grapes among the Royals fans.

6) Lidge was the best reliever in baseball last season

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.

03-11-2009, 07:18 AM
BigRedChief Has a particular set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: On the water Casino cash: $-791038 VARSITY	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
Posts: 81,341

03-12-2009, 08:33 AM	#69
POND_OF_RED The talking stonehead Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Blue Springs, MO Casino cash: $-1926854	Just 10 years ago Cardinals fans were toting McWire as the greatest in the game. Let's hope for another story book ending.
Posts: 6,016

03-12-2009, 09:23 AM	#72
DJ's left nut Sauntering Vaguely Downwards Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Columbia, Mo Casino cash: $-850901	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.
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