When pitcher Brandon Backe got into it with Albert Pujols before Wednesday night’s Cards-Astros game in Houston, an obvious question arose.

Brandon Backe? Really?

Of all the major league baseball players currently employed in Our National Pastime, Brandon Backe wouldn’t have been the guy we expected to take on Albert. He is not exactly the Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale of his era.

“It’s apparent that we don’t like each other,” Backe told the Houston Chronicle. “That’s OK. There are plenty of other people I don’t like in this game. The competition between he and I just escalated.”

Backe was standing up for teammate J.R. Towles, the catcher Albert rudely toppled in the game before. Pujols called Towles after the game to apologize for his overly aggressive act.

But the tiff carried over to the next day, when Backe and Pujols exchanged viewpoints during a pregame chat.

“Such tension hasn’t been seen since the last time Bill and Hillary appeared together,” observed Chronicle pundit Richard Justice.

“I felt violated,” Backe told the Chronicle. “I felt he confronted me at the wrong time. I don’t think it was very professional on his part. (Astros manager Cecil) Cooper was there and heard everything. He had to say his piece to me, and I said my piece to him and that’s it.”

Well, it wasn’t quite it. Pujols awoke from his offensive slumber to whack two homers and an RBI single, leading the Cards to their 6-4 victory.

“Backe’s fight might have been better than his judgment,” Justice wrote.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering if Joel Pineiro is good to go:

• Must Joel Quenneville lead the Avalanche deep into the playoffs to keep his job?
• Are Vikings fans resting easier now that Gus Frerotte is in the fold in Minnesota?
• Is Matt Stover really the right guy to challenge NFLPA czar Gene Upshaw? Is anybody going to listen to a 40-year placekicker?

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times: “And the crazy thing is, we expect it. We don’t hope. We don’t speculate. We don’t wonder or ponder. No, we thoroughly anticipate Tiger Woods will win the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship, completing the calendar-year Grand Slam that represents one of the few challenges he hasn’t already obliterated in his dozen years atop sport’s Mount Rushmore. We expect it because, well, he expects it.”

Bill Simmons, ESPN.com, on Barry Bonds’ exile: “Opening Day came and went without Bonds for the first time in 22 years, and nobody seemed to notice. I didn’t think about him for more than two seconds all spring. Did anyone? Can you remember being a part of a single “I wonder where Bonds is going to end up?” conversation? Did you refresh ESPN.com incessantly in hopes of a Bonds update? Were fans in Baltimore storming Orioles headquarters to demand the team sign the much-needed slugger who had 28 homers and a whopping .480 OBP last season? Of course not. No one cared. The best hitter since Ted Williams is gone and forgotten. We wanted him to go away, and he did.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Miami is the worst team in the NBA, yes. But at least the Heat Dancers won a league-wide web vote for best dance troupe. Cannot confirm that a desperate Pat Riley, with Shawn Marion now out and short on healthy players, will start dancers Heather and Bambi in the backcourt against Detroit on Sunday.”

Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Too much is being made of the fact that Michael Vick was seen playing football with fellow inmates at Leavenworth. I’ll be more interested if he gets transferred to Folsom, just to see how he does in the West Coast offense. (I know. Cheap.)”

Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: “OK, tell the truth — did you watch the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship — or American Idol and Dancing With The Stars? Did you even think about the hoops? You did not.”

MEGAPHONE

“We would have loved to have done more, but Don Fehr wouldn’t do it. People should start to realize that we could have been testing for steroids years and years ago, but Don Fehr wouldn’t do it because he said it was an invasion of privacy, and the result of that is that Don Fehr is going to cost players entry into the Hall of Fame because if we could have been testing for steroids years ago, some of these guys who are now on the bubble who got themselves in trouble would have gotten off steroids. … Steroids is strictly a Don Fehr problem and creation.”

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, passing the buck during an interview with Comcast SportsNet.