I am a fan of America’s favourite (spelt in a very un-American way) past-time… Baseball, you Kiwi!

And, one of the players who has captured my attention is Albert “Winnie the Pujols” (pronounced “poo-holes”), which is the classic=of-al nick-names given to the man, by Chris “Boomer” Berman… a.k.a. ESPN guy!  That he is one, if not “the” best ball-player on the planet, has also encouraged this attention!

Oh, and the fact that he is freakin follower of Christ may have something to do with such favouritism.

One of my baseball memories of the man is when he tomahawked Brad Lidge (I believe) in Houston, and I believe it was in extra innings to win a game/ series… It was beautifully brutal!

It looked a little like this…

I was going to point you in the direction of Worldmag who have a recent article on the man… Holy hitter: Albert Pujols loves baseball – and Jesus… but the article has now been restricted, but if you want to go all the way with the World, you will have to pay the damage!

However, in an article by Joe Posnanski in Sports Illustrated, Pujols is introduced this way…

The Power To Believe – 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

How do you the reader know this?  Read on a little…

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.”