A Baseball Player with Success in Mind

Anyone that is a baseball fan is familiar with the name Albert Pujols. He is currently a major league player with the St. Louis Cardinals and up until this point he has had a very successful career. Albert Pujols is currently 26 years old and has had five years of experience in the major leagues. He plays first base for the Cardinals and is a well respected player that bats right handed as well as throws right handed. Albert Pujols played his first major league game with the Cardinals on April 2, 2001.

Albert Pujols is considered one of the best offensive players in the game, mostly because he is very consistent and has a lot of power behind the bat and when he throws. Perhaps his power comes from his size, as Pujols is 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 225 pounds, and is in very good physical condition. Of course, the consistency would seem to come from practice, but natural ability is obviously at play, as well. While many major league players are known simply as offensive or defensive, Albert Pujols has a very well rounded game because he is known for his defensive as well as his offensive game.

 

Albert Pujols real name is Jose Alberto Pujols and he was born on January 16, 1980. Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Albert Pujols is now living far from his birthplace! Pujols is probably making more money than he had ever dreamed of making when he was attending Maple Woods Community College, as his 2006 salary is listed at $14,000,000! Not bad for a 13 th round amateur draft in 1999 by the St. Louis Cardinals!

This player may be far from his birthplace when he is playing ball, but he has wasted no time making a name for himself. In 2005 he made Major League Baseball history when he hit more than 30 homeruns in his first five seasons playing in the majors. It was that same year in 2005 that Albert also became known as the first player since the well known Ted Williams to reach the 100RBI mark in each of his first five seasons. These titles alone make Pujols stand out, but he hasn’t quit being a top notch performer in spite of this recognition. At the young age of 26, it appears as though Albert Pujols will continue to have a nearly perfect career for quite some time.

While Albert Pujols was born in the Dominican Republic, his family immigrated to the United States in the early 1990s. The family first lived in New York City and eventually moved to Independence, Missouri. It was when the Pujols family moved to the United States that Albert realized his love of baseball. In fact, his first year playing high school ball allowed Albert to show his talents with a batting average over .500! Albert didn’t waste much time moving up in the world, but he did stop to play college ball at Maple Woods Community College. In college Pujols again showed his talents by hitting a grand slam and turning it into an impressive unassisted triple play, and that was just his first game! His batting average for that year was impressive as well, at .461.

In 1999 Pujols realized his dream when he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. In the beginning, Pujols and the Cardinals could not agree on the offered $10,000 bonus so Albert decided to play in the Jayhawk League located in Kansas. It was not long until the Cardinals increased their offer to $60,000 and signed Pujols with the Cardinals and shipped him off to the developmental leagues.

Albert Pujols continued to impress in the developmental leagues, and by 2000 he had been assigned to the Peoria Chiefs, which is a Midwest League team. In 2000 Pujols stood out with this team when he was voted as the leagues most valuable player. Up the ladders Albert climbed on his way to the Cardinals as he played with the Potomac Cannons in the Carolina League and then the Memphis Redbirds in the Pacific Coast League. The spring of 2001 came quick, and the roster for the Cardinals was full, but Pujols was destined to play and he did.

Because of an injury to key player Bobby Bonilla, Pujols was called up and played with the Cardinals for the first time on the opening day of the 2001 baseball season. It was obviously a proud moment for Pujols, as this was his dream from the time he was a young boy and now he had made it happen. This game in Denver against the Colorado Rockies could have terrified him, but it proved to be a great game and just the first of many in a great baseball career.