Week Thirty-One: April 5th

You cannot live where I do without giving some measure of respect to "El Hombre," Albert Pujols. The Cardinals have rarely had a corner man who mashes and hits for average, and NO, Jack Clark does not count. In the post-McGwire shakeout of all things baseball, with on-going fan speculation about juicers and non-juicers, we can hope that Pujols falls into the latter camp.

If only I had been the beneficiary of the discriminating eye that The Man has...maybe I would not have set a personal and team record in 14/15 year-old Babe Ruth with 13 strikeouts in 25 at-bats. Call me Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard before my time. Given a whole season to put up those kind of numbers, I might have set legendary Hudson Babe Ruth tallies that would be the Hall of Shame standards toward which all poor-eyesighted boys might strive.

Of course, I maintain, to this day, that my case was not helped much by my coach's insistence that I try to bunt on the first two strikes of every at-bat, using my "wheels" to leg-out infield singles. This was all good in theory, and during practices, when I could lay down nasty dying quail bunts on either baseline, almost at will. (I think it also helped that, as the third baseman on that same team, I was not at the position at the time, and was often replaced by someone just a shade better than a nose-picker and people-watcher.)

Never a master of plate discipline in the first place (my first Little League coach always told me to lay off the high ones, but neglected to give a nod to the fact that I could hit the high ones) I could do little more than flail at the third strike after putting myself in an 0-2 hole with foul-tips and dribblers that rode the chalk and fell foul before the base.

So, this facial tribute to a man whose coach likely never told him to lay one down, or take a strike of any kind. A man only "slightly" larger than me, and a man who never stole thirteen bases while wearing 1987 Air Jordans. Beat that one, El Hombre!