Albert Pujols wins Sporting News Award (update)
TOWER GROVE — Gathering award-season momentum, Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols was elected as Sporting News’ 2008 Player of the Year in a vote of 314 fellow players, the magazine announced Wednesday morning. To capture why Pujols was selected over other major leaguers, like Ryan Howard or Josh Hamilton, the magazine turned to the baseball person who knows him best.
His biggest fan. His boss.
Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.
“He is the classic complete player,” La Russa writes for Sporting News, in an edition that will reach bookstores and newsstands tomorrow. “I’ve never had a player who has a better attitude and understanding about why you’re in uniform. It’s a competition. Albert comes to the ballpark and he gets ready for the competition and to contribute in a complete way.”
Albert Pujols wins second postseason award in as many days.
Earlier this week, Pujols received the Players Choice Award as the NL Outstanding Player, and he is a finalist for two more Players Choice awards that will be announced this week. One of those is the Player of the Year award. The other finalists for that award are Manny Ramirez and Cliff Lee. While there was growing discussion about Ramirez’s candidacy for the NL MVP — especially aftering supercharging the LA Dodgers to a division title after his arrival — there was considerable sentiment that Ramirez, like Milwaukee ace CC Sabathia, would lack support because they didn’t spend the entire season in the National League.
Pujols chief competition for the award seems to be St. Louis native Ryan Howard, who led the majors in home runs and RBIs while also powering the Phillies to the NL East title.
Pujols numbers are known by heart now. He finished second in the league in batting. He hit 37 home runs and drove in 116 RBIs. He had 114 at-bats with runners in scoring position. He topped the majors in slugging percentage. Yadda. Yadda. Yowza. He is also a favorite to win his second Gold Glove at first base.
In a release from Sporting News editor Jeff D’Alessio, Sporting News states that Pujols “is on a trajectory to finish his career among the best to play the game.”
It continues:
At age 28, he has more homers (319) than Hank Aaron did at that age (298), a higher career batting average (.334) than Mickey Mantle (.307), more RBIs (977) than Frank Robinson (896) and more hits (1,531) than Lou Gehrig (1,350).
“You don’t want to disrespect other people, so to me, if you say Albert will be in the conversation of the greatest players to ever play the game, that’s enough,” La Russa writes for the magazine. “He doesn’t have to be the best, or two or three. All you need to know is, when you have that conversation of the greatest players of all time, Albert Pujols will be one of the guys you talk about.”
Pujols wins the Sporting News award for the second time in his career, and it is the eighth time a Cardinal has won the award since 1944. As far as Cardinals, only Stan Musial and Pujols have won the award more than once. The previous Cardinals to win it:
1944 … Marty Marion
1946 … Stan Musial
1951 … Stan Musial
1964 … Ken Boyer
1971 … Joe Torre
1974 … Lou Brock
2003 … Albert Pujols
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
nice measuring stick, you are aware that
A-Rod has 0 WS rings
Bay has 0 WS rings
and with your great logic of # of WS rings, Craig Counsell and Scott Spezio must be as great as David Ortiz since they both also have 2 WS rings
Wade - You’re wrong about Jason Bay. And you are wrong that a national audience would agree with you.
We’ve been distracted by Wade. Shame on us and enough already.
Pujols is, hands-down, the best player in MLB right now. There are people who are better at certain aspects of the game but no one is as good overall as Pujols.
KMac
Houston, TX
One also has to enjoy the irony of a Pittsburgh Pirate fan dissing anyone on the basis of the postseason (29 years and counting)
Dangerous measuring stick there, World Series rings.
Tino Martinez — 4 World Series rings.
Stan Musial — 3 World Series rings.
I could go on.
In decades to come, Albert will be talked about in the class with baseball’s greatest players of all time. I think everyone knows that. So with that, the Cardinals need to ensure the Albert never wears another MLB jersey, and should be a Cardinal from his first at bat until his last!
Wade is just a guy trying to stir you all up. Pujols is unfortunately (like Stan Musial was) going to always be viewed differently since he plays in “flyover” country. Musial NEVER gets the respect he deserves from the sports industry people that live on the East and West coasts.
You’d think with all the former StL sports people on ESPN, there wouldn’t be as much bias against anyone outside of NY, Boston, and LA (Chicago also gets a “free pass” since the Cubs are so perenially lame).
The new FM sports station needs a blabbering jerk for the morning drive and Wade has all of the qualifications to apply — skewed logic and half-$%# facts that he doesn’t want to apply in all cases. Go have another beer with your know-it-all loser buddines Wade.
Jason Bay?????????????????? Um. Maybe concentrate on the Steelers and leave the baseball alone. Probably wanna go ahead and sit the next few plays out.
Not trying to stir everyone up, I just think Pujols is overrated.
Yet you offer nothing in support of your assessment.
How is Pujols overrated? What is the comparison? What is the measuring stick to evaluate whether he is overrated or not?
Wade, Someone already compared the stats of Jason Bay…silly assumption by you. I thought I would compare the first 8 full season for A-ROD to Pujol’s first 8.
A-ROD: H-1491, RBI-969, HR-340, SO-933, AVG-.310, BB-550
Pujols: H-1531, RBI-977, HR-319, SO-506, AVG-.335, BB-696
Pujols beats A-Rod in every category except home runs, 21, and has nearly half as many strike outs. If you ask any manager in either league, “If you could have any active player, who would it be?” I can bet they all would say Pujols.
Grant it A-Rod is a Hall of Famer, you can put him up there with Pujols. But Jason Bay? come on…