Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Albert Pujols
I am an unabashed supporter of Albert Pujols. I continue to believe he is a clean athlete. He is also a great community contributor and somebody who has embraced the concept that athletes, whether they like it or not, are role models to some children (and even some adults). The man is the best pure hitter I've seen aside from Barry Bonds. In fact, I think I'll write a Barry Bonds post right after this. Albert Pujols just hit his 500th home run. Congratulations Albert Pujols. You are an awesome baseball player (and you even play some defense!).
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Bring me the Barry post!
ReplyDeleteBut really, kudos to Eric for taking a moment to appreciate a player who has been consistently incredible his entire career, benchmarks like 500 aside. This milestone does raise a question for me: round numbers are nice and all, but don't you wonder why that's any more impressive than 499? Would we really think less of the player if he walked away one short of a round number? Pujols of course will add to his total, but let's say he gets to 599 and retires. Would we rather he come back for a year, pass 600 and end up at 614 or something? Or would it be even more impressive for him to leave one short of 600, so confident that one more wouldn't change our impression of his career, disregarding a milestone that really isn't any more meaningful than the sum of what he has? Pujols came into the league as a great player, sustained that level for a decade, and even as he tailed off the last two seasons has been a solid contributor--do we need milestones to remember that? Or are they just a simple shorthand for greatness?
Puljos'numbers have been going down for about 6 straight years but that aside he has been a great player. One of his charitable works I believe is giving kids mattrasses. I remember a few years back when a rod seemed to be the slugger that could realistically surpass Aarons home run total and do it cleanly. That did not end well so I will take Albert's numbers with a grain of salt. As far as round numbers go round numbers are just easier to get behind. If you're selling a car for 10999 dollars that seems like a way bigger bargain than 11000. Same with stats. If you told me a player is a member of the 3000 hit club that's a huge personal milestone and I'd consider them elite. Same goes with all stats there are benchmarks that you consider to be more important than others. 50 homeruns. 20 wins. 100 RBIs. Etc etc.
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