[外電] Pujols: The game's best player
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JUPITER, Fla. — Of all the absurdly implausible things to do, Albert Pujols
picked a May afternoon inside Miller Park last season for the topper.
Pujols stood in the fungo circle adjacent to the cage during pre-game batting
practice. Momentarily bored, El Hombre picked up a ball, flipped it into the
air and wailed away with his "bone-rubbed" Marucci AP5-A bat. Launched only
by Pujols' strength, the pelota soared to center field and kept arcing
upward. Cardinals and Brewers players alike paused to watch as the ball
easily scaled the center field wall 400 feet away and kept screaming, to be
interrupted only by the monstrous stadium matrix.
"Amazing," catcher Yadier Molina remembered earlier this week. "I've seen him
five years now. There's a lot that is amazing."
Pujols reaches his ninth major-league season as prolific author of the
unlikely. He also enters Monday afternoon's season opener against the
Pittsburgh Pirates a historical curio: a first baseman recognized as the
game's best player.
"It's simple. I don't think there's any question," insists Baltimore Orioles
manager Dave Trembley. "He's the best player in the game, not only for his
tools, but what he does for the team. He carries the team. He helps them win.
He can turn a game around with his bat, his glove and the way he runs the
bases. I don't think anybody — anybody— wants to face him with the game on
the line."
"He has always been this good physically," Molina.says "Mentally, he gets
better and better. He sees so much about the game. He understands, and he's
always willing to help."
Since the Cardinals last played, circumstance has elevated Pujols. He scored
the Roberto Clemente Award for public service during the World Series, was
named National League MVP for the second time a month later and watched as
scandal took down New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez in February.
No one need ask, "Where Have You Gone, Albert Pujols?"
He is still hitting third, playing a Gold Glove first base, and remains
untouched by five years of performance-enhancing sleaze that has left
everyone "playing in the dark cloud around this game."
Is Pujols the best player?
"I don't think there's any doubt where he stands," New York Mets manager
Jerry Manuel says. "From what I know of him as an opposing manager and what
little relationship I have with him, the man seems as good as the player. It
adds up to be a superstar, and that's what he is."
IN THE BEGINNING
Jose Alberto Pujols came to America at 15 unable to speak English. But he
became more than functional in three months, thanks to tutorials from a
teacher who spoke no Spanish.
Long before he became El Hombre, Pujols was a thick-legged shortstop who
smoked a 550-foot crank atop Fort Osage High but failed to "project" for many
scouts.
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays insulted Pujols by once asking him to try out as a
catcher.
The long-suffering Kansas City Royals whiffed on Pujols even though he lived
and played in nearby Independence.
Some scouts thought Pujols ungainly. Indeed, the first time a Cardinals
cross-checker watched him play, Pujols struck out in one at-bat and tripped
over first base hustling out a ground ball in the next.
Others disbelieved Pujols' age, a common suspicion of Dominican-born players
that still riles him.
The Cardinals eventually selected Pujols in the 13th round of the 1999 draft
with the 402nd overall pick.
"A lot of people thought I would never be here, much less do some of the
things I've been blessed to do," Pujols says. "But that's OK. I was too
heavy, I didn't have a position, all that stuff. I love proving those people
wrong. I want to keep hearing what I can't do. It motivates me, because I
know God has given me the ability to do special things."
Pujols knew he carried the stigma of a "minus" defender before moving to
first base. That was before winning a Gold Glove in his third year at the
position, an honor he attributes largely to third-base and infield coach Jose
Oquendo. He has become a maestro at the short-hop pick and loves ranging to
his right.
"Albert is going to get whatever he can get to. You're there to pick up the
rest," former Cardinals infielder Aaron Miles explained last season.
The last two years have simultaneously elevated Pujols and exposed some of
his most accomplished fellow union members.
A multi-count 2007 federal indictment shoved all-time home run king Barry
Bonds into de facto retirement. Rodriguez was spared legal entanglements,
suffering only public humiliation. Pujols, meanwhile, won the Clemente Award,
an honor he values more than his MVP bling.
"It's part of my life," Pujols says of his commitment to his Pujols Family
Foundation, his work with Down syndrome organizations and his annual
pilgrimages to the Dominican Republic.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
No one since 1949 has produced more than Pujols' 977 RBIs in his first eight
major-league seasons.
Only one man, Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, produced more home runs (329) than
Pujols (319) in the same span. He has eight consecutive seasons of 30 or more
home runs; no one else in the game's history opened his career with more than
four such seasons.
Only two men, Hall of Famers Al Simmons and Ted Williams, can match Pujols'
distinction of eight consecutive 100-RBI seasons to open a career.
Voted 2001 NL Rookie of the Year as a third baseman before transferring to
left field in 2002-03, Pujols stands as one of only four players to win
multiple MVPs at first base and the only one to do so in the NL. Jimmie Foxx
(1932-33, 1938), Lou Gehrig (1927, 1936) and defensively suspect Frank Thomas
(1993-94) make up the rest of the club. (Of Stan Musial's three MVPs, only
the '46 award came with The Man at first base.)
"He never stops," remarks Trembley, whose impression is galvanized every
spring. "You see him take flips from (hitting coach) Hal (McRae) before the
game. Then he takes batting practice. Then he goes behind the stadium and
hits some more in the cage. He's never satisfied, you can tell."
Offered Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker, who said he could not remember a
first baseman who enjoyed status as the game's best player: "I've told people
the first five-tool first baseman to play for me was Derrek Lee. He could
rake. He could run. He could pick it at first. Albert can do all those
things, too. You've got to watch him because he can 'sneak steal' on you. But
most of the time, you're going to think the best player in the game is a
shortstop or outfielder, who is forced to do everything."
Pujols' consistency may be the only attribute to outstrip his dominance. He
is positioned to become the only player in NL history besides Rogers Hornsby
to lead in all three Triple Crown categories — batting average, home runs
and RBIs — for an entire decade. Beginning in 2001, Pujols' cumulative .334
average easily bests Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton's .326 mark.
He has 41 more home runs than the Washington Nationals' Adam Dunn and 98 more
RBIs than Houston Astros first baseman Lance Berkman.
Last season both underscored Pujols' abilities and the fact his availability
is literally held together by a strand. Pujols made his MVP push by hitting
16 home runs with 49 RBIs after July. He was NL Player of the Week twice in
the schedule's final 36 days. All the while, he experienced tingling and
numbness in his right ring finger and pinkie due to an ulnar nerve that team
orthopedic Dr. George Paletta transposed on Oct. 13.
'PEOPLE LIKE TO JUDGE'
El Hombre remembers. He remembers it all.
He recalls those who dismissed his talents 10 years ago just as he hasn't let
go of those who several times have erroneously linked him to the game's
steroid scandal.
"I know that it's part of this game: People like to judge," Pujols says.
"They try to hurt your image. They say this and that and to them it doesn't
matter whether it's true or not. They say, 'Well, he didn't get caught.' It
happens a lot. It's happened to me. That's one reason it's very hard to trust
people around this game. They say or write what they want, whether it's true
or not."
Come test me, he says. Come watch me train.
Numerous publications have sent reporters to the Dominican Republic to
investigate Pujols' age, though his documentation passed muster for him to
gain U.S. citizenship in 2005.
Various reports connected him to the so-called Grimsley Report in June 2006
and the Mitchell Report in December 2007. Neither proved true.
"Why would I lie?" Pujols says. "I don't play this game for money, for my
family or for fans. I play to glorify God because of the talent He has given
me. Maybe some people don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. What you
do eventually will come into the light. So why should I lie now for the truth
to come out in a month, a year or five years?"
If he now shoulders more responsibility because of his status, Pujols insists
he does not feel its weight.
"My responsibility has been the same since my first day as a pro," he says.
"My first responsibility is to represent God. ... I fear God too much to do
anything stupid in the game. What else do I have to accomplish? What else do
I need to do in the game? If I can stay healthy, I can accomplish what I
want: to keep on winning and to one day reach the Hall of Fame."
Pujols is two years shy of the minimum 10 major-league seasons to one day
become eligible for induction. Other questions are more self-evident.
So can a first baseman be the best player in the game?
"I'd have to say yes," deadpanned Pujols' manager, Tony La Russa, "because
that's been the case the last two years."
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