Steroid-free Albert Pujols Returns Baseball to Its Wholesome Origins
By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Sunday is baseball's Opening Day. With the steroid scandal continuing to unfold—the commissioner and the owners seem to be blind to the massive cost of the scandal to the future of the game—I thought it might be an opportunity to talk to our daughters about steroids and their effects on baseball, from the records with an asterisk in the Hall of Fame to individual players' health.
We talked about Alex Rodriguez admitting to using steroids. Immediately, our 11-year-old daughter, who is a rabid St. Louis Cardinals fan, got a concerned look on her face and said, "Gee, I hope Albert Pujols didn't that."
As if in response to her, Pujols went on the cover of Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago with the headline: "Albert Pujols Has a Message: Don't Be Afraid to Believe in Me." You don't have to be a Cardinals fan—or even a baseball fan at all—to read this article, because it's such a great story that goes beyond baseball pretty quickly.
In it, the future Hall of Famer talks about the difficulty of being the guy Sports Illustrated calls "The Best Player in Baseball" in an era when everyone assumes he's using steroids. He doesn't drink, smoke, chew tobacco, or have tattoos, and he married wife Dee Dee when she was a single mom with a daughter who has Down syndrome. He regularly hits home runs at the request of kids with Down syndrome. He's got his priorities right, and baseball is only a small part of what's important to him:
"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."
My recommendation: Print out the Sports Illustrated article on Pujols for your kids. Read it out loud to them. It's a good way to get back to everything we used to love about baseball. Albert Pujols is a hero who won't let kids down. Happy Opening Day.
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Tags: sports | baseball | MLB | steroids
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Reader Comments
Correction
The "OBP" in my comment below should be "OPS", sorry for the confusion. Pujols is fourth all-time in On-base Plus Slugging, the best single statistic to measure a hitter's effectiveness.
I wouldn't be surprised if he juices
Anthony, the comparison of Pujols to Dimaggio or Hornsby is disingenuous. Dimaggio's numbers -- particularly his power numbers -- began to fade seven years into his career. And Pujols already has more home runs in eight seasons than Hornsby had in 23 seasons or Dimaggio had in 13 seasons.
If Pujols continues at the rate he's going, he'll have more home runs than Babe Ruth and probably more than Barry Bonds. His OBP isn't far off from Ruth's, and there's every indication he'll raise that number as he peaks.
Sorry, "just trust him" doesn't cut it. Big Papi and Alex Rodriguez both made comments similar to what Pujols is saying, with mock disgust at those who had already been caught using steroids: "I'm not like those guys, I don't need steroids to put up these numbers."
Of course, now we know they were lying too.
The thing is, Pujols is too good. He's fourth ALL TIME in OBP, the true marker of power and effectiveness. Only Ruth, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig are ahead of him, and it's probably he'll overtake Gehrig as well.
I agree with all who said this was a poorly written, poorly reasoned and poorly researched article. Go ahead and talk to your kids, Mary Kate. Just don't be surprised when you have to revise your little chat if it turns out Pujols has been juicing.
i hate racist people most of guys in the usa
Do worst thing then dominican this why I don't conciter myself american you people judging us latino dominican rep is not the reason arod was on roid he was because he was influence on it by people around baseball I bet most of people back in the 90 was on that. And, I person who mixed with dominican /spanaird by mother and columbian by far would say you guys who judge do it because u see manny being dominican so that why u judge pujous that on it plz. That like saying if bonds on it then ken griffey is on it too. Exactly I know most of you people have something against dominican if you judge him by races the way people do.
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