I don’t remember the first time I saw Albert Pujols play. He just kind of slipped into my everyday consciousness in the early 2000s and stayed there for a decade.
Pujols was a phenom, the lead singer on the soundtrack to my summers from junior high to college. I was lucky enough to see him play at both old Busch and new Busch on many occasions.
I wore his T-shirt, once bright red, until it was faded and stained. He gave me two rings. The bobblehead version of him was my voice of reason during the 2006 World Series run.
Me: Will we score this inning?
Pujols: Nods
Me: Nods back
With Pujols, the highs were oh so high. The Cardinals were perennial contenders. It was almost shocking if they weren’t in the NLCS.
During his St. Louis tenure, he brought home two World Series championships and made it to a third, won three MVPs, made nine All-Star rosters, was named Rookie of the Year … I could keep going.
He hit for power and for average, and in some ways, that feels old school now.
He was (and still is) one of the good ones, a family man, a charity guy. His Pujols Family Foundation helped (and still helps) kids with Down syndrome.
I consider Oct. 27, 2006, one of the greatest nights of my life, the first time my team won a championship in my lifetime. I was 18, a senior in high school. I wrote a 15-page paper about that World Series run, and Pujols was instrumental in making it all happen.
He was never my favorite player. That would have been like picking Michael Jordan. Too easy. No, he was my hero.
My hero gave me too many memorable moments to count – playoff runs, multi-home run games, clubhouse celebrations.
Both World Series wins and the 2004 NLCS top my list for Cardinals moments involving Pujols, but my favorite purely Pujols moment came in Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS when he broke Houston Astros closer Brad Lidge.
The Cardinals were down 3-1 in the series and trailing 4-2 in the top of the ninth. A David Eckstein single and Jim Edmonds walk set the stage for the knockout punch, one of Pujols’ most dramatic home runs of all time.
He sent the ball into orbit, Lidge’s career into a tailspin and the series back to St. Louis for Game 6, which the Cardinals ultimately lost, but that night, he was superhuman.
Six years and two World Series wins later, I was on the receiving end of the gut punch.
The Breakup
On Dec. 8, 2011, I went to my graduate assistant job as usual. Cardinals fans (including me) were on Pujols watch, waiting to see when he’d sign a contract and where he’d end up.
I knew he would stay in St. Louis, be a lifer, get a statue equal in size to Stan Musial’s, become a legend. I just knew it. No amount of money would take my hero away from Baseball Heaven.
I was wrong. I got a text from my brother sometime that morning (or maybe I texted him), and everything went downhill from there.
At some point, I realized I had been pulling all of the tape out of the tape dispenser for no reason. I spent the morning staring off into space in a haze and apparently making a mess.
I remember someone in the office saying, “It’s OK. Pujols wasn’t even the best player anyway,” in reference to 2011 World Series hero David Freese. Girl, please.
Money, dollar signs, cha-ching – my hero is a sellout. Everyone has a price. Those were the lessons I thought I learned that day.
I went through the motions of my afternoon, narrating them as I went.
“This is the first time (insert action) since I heard the news.” Again and again and again. I was a really strong mixture of sad and angry.
I threw away my overworn Pujols T-shirt, once much loved by its owner as evidenced by its stains. It was an intentional decision, not just a spur-of-the-moment reaction. I wanted to burn it but refrained.
Life moved on, and so did I. It didn’t hurt that the Cardinals also moved on quite well. The Redbirds reached the NLCS in 2012, World Series in 2013 and NLCS once again in 2014.
Over time, just as Pujols slipped into my everyday consciousness in 2001, my animosity toward him slipped right back out.
In recent years, I’ve occasionally flipped to Angels games to watch him chase milestones. He still makes me smile.
He’s no longer my hero, but he was for some of the most formative years of my life, and nothing will ever change that.
Homecoming
There have been seven full seasons of Pujols-less baseball in Busch Stadium since he left, but it’s finally time to welcome back an old friend.
(Cue whatever homecoming-themed song is your preference. Mine will always be Diddy.)
On Friday night, Yadier Molina, one of three remaining Cardinals who played with Pujols, will slowly dust off home plate while we give Pujols an hourlong standing ovation. (If there’s a rainout, he better at least give the fans a tarp slide.)
It will be a final magical chapter in the Pujols saga, but I still like to think that in a different timeline, Pujols stayed.
I keep my stained and faded T-shirt packed away for special occasions – all seven World Series titles we’ve won since then. His plantar fasciitis keeps him out of the lineup from time to time, but there is never any question of who will be playing first base each spring.
He stayed in my everyday consciousness, and his bobblehead has stood on my desk the whole time. Cardinals fans lose their minds every time he nears his next milestone. His statue is already being built, and everyone knows which hat he’ll wear when he inevitably goes into the Hall of Fame.
He still gets regular curtain calls and messes with Fredbird once in a while. He’s a St. Louis legend, always a Cardinal, the greatest of all time.
A Pujols highlight reel still runs through my head every now and then, and on Friday, I’ll be looking at the real thing for the first time in a long time.
Someday, maybe I’ll watch a game with bobblehead Pujols again, reminiscing about the old times while witnessing yet another World Series championship run.
Albert, thanks for being a big part of my summer soundtrack for all those years. Thanks for the rings, the smiles, the stories, the memories. You’ll always be my generation’s baseball hero. Let’s forget the bad times and do this thing again. One more dance?