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. 
Postseason? Bay never had any postseason before this year, when he did hit .341 in 11 games. That hardly makes him better than Pujols, who has hit .323 in 53 postseason games. Ask Brad Lidge if Albert is clutch.
Wade wrote “and thank you for ignoring my great and valid point”
gotta love the irony and blatant double standard
I just looked up the post season numbers and when it is all said and done I would rather have Bay up with the game on the line. That still doesnt mean that I would rather have him on my team over Pujols but he is a better clutch hitter and a better defender.
“Ask Brad Lidge if Albert is clutch.” Why not ask the Red Sox how clutch he was in 04 haha and its so nice to see Craig finally coming around to his senses.
Wade just call up your Pittsburg sportscasters and FSN announcers and even Boston or New York sportscasters and ask them Pujols or Bay or Pujols or A-rod or Papi and they all will say Pujols. Thats not bias thats the facts. Papi is not the same player he was and if you watched this years playoffs you would have noticed that. And by the way Pujols won 2004 NLCS Mvp. He must have won that award because he was not very clutch??
Says a great deal about you Wade that you would stoop to make a post pretending to be someone else. It is also a violation of the terms of service to post false or misleading information. Since your ISP and email address are not the same as mine not difficult to expose your chicanery.
It is also pretty obvious from the content and writing style of my posts in contrast to the content and writing style of your posts that the post was not written by me.
Wade,
You still haven’t answered the simplest of questions. If Pujols is over-rated and other players are better, then why did 314 “major league baseball players” vote Pujols as the best player in MLB for the 2nd time in 8 seasons?
You keep saying that the board is biased because we’re Cardinal/Pujols fans, but how do you explain the vote of other players?
And as for the ‘04 series, Pujols hit .333. Someone who understands baseball might understand that Rolen and Edmonds going a combined 1 for 30 might have played a role in the series outcome.
Clutch? What do you mean clutch…? Hub do u even know what that means. You really need to get your facts straight before you start spouting out useless garbage.
I’ve always thought it’s easier to point out somebody who isn’t clutch than it is to identify somebody who is. Perhaps “clutch” is consistent performance in situations where others have been known to wilt.
Since Wade is such a fan of situational performance, maybe he’d like to explain why Bay was 1 for 9 in the 3 elimination games Boston played this post-season. Shouldn’t a “clutch” performance have done a little more?