Albert Pujols
Albert Pujols
José Alberto Pujols Alcántara, better known as Albert Pujols, is a Dominican American professional baseball first baseman for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Major League Baseball. He previously played for the St. Louis Cardinals, where he received three National LeagueMVP awardsand was a nine-time MLB All-Star. He was also an All-Star with the Angels in 2015...
NationalityDominican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth16 January 1980
CitySanto Domingo, Dominican Republic
CountryDominica
Who cares about my home run? I knew you were going to come to that. That's not what you play for. Home runs never mean more than a win. It would have been great if I would have hit it and we would have won. It was just another home run for me. It wasn't enough to help my team win.
It doesn't matter what the scoreboard says. I'm always having fun, talking to other guys. They even come to first base and ask me about hitting. I try to help them out as much as I can in the 30 seconds before the pitcher throws the next pitch. That's me. I don't think I will ever change that.
It's not how you start the season, it's how you finish. If you wind up helping the team make the playoffs, that's what you play for. You don't play to put up your numbers, but to try to get a chance to make it to the World Series.
St. Louis is still a special place for me. I still have my home there. I live there in the offseason. I enjoyed playing in front of 40,000 people every day. I tried to do my best to help the organization win. I had success there. We won two World Series. We went to three. That's something you can't take from me.
A lot of the fans and even the players miss Barry, ... I wish he would've been healthy and played, but I don't think about (his absence). I don't think about the past. I think about the present and the future and just try to stay healthy during the year, hopefully, and help my team to win like I did.
It's great to have my name with those guys, the superstars, great players, All-Stars. But my job is to help my team to win and that's what I did.
Those guys had great years, either of them could have won the award. You couldn't go wrong with any of those guys.
You have to find a way to win. You can't win with the long ball. You have to find a way to win, to do something, to create something, to hit and run, get a bunt, steal a base. That's what we did all year long and we carried on in the playoffs.
Izzy, I know he wanted to get that save right there, and he made a mistake. But we came out with a win, and everybody will forget about what happened.
I would say it's the best base hit I've ever had in my career,
winning and getting back to the World Series and getting a ring.
This year was a tough year for us,
Hopefully, at the end of my career, I can look back and say, 'Wow, what a game it was in Game 3 in 2011.'
I'm going to be prayerful about it. Whatever decision I make hopefully is the best decision I can make for my family and the fans and everybody.