The Albert Pujols Debate

[QBsILLEST1]

I kind of think he's clean as well but think about all of the other players that people had high opinions of but turned out to be liars. I mean Papi, come one, no one saw that one coming.

I know, its sad and you never know what to think. Its kinda almost like having a friend who is doing crack or heroine who persists that they are clean and arent doing it at all even though you can visibly see needle marks in their arms and yellowish green skin complexion. You believe them because they are your friend and you justify the symptoms somehow because their your friend (favorite baseball player) so you give them the benefit of the doubt. Then one morning you get a phone call from jail and its your friend and they got arrested for drugs. It breaks your heart , and even though PEDs arent heroine or crack, it is still a bad drug that will force you to lie and can cause life changing outcomes(Chris Benoit?)....

[Migrant Redbird]

... you as a cards fan saying that makes me lose slight confidence in my opinion that hes clean.....

My being a Cardinals fan shouldn't affect your confidence. My comment is general, in that I can't know that anyone is "clean", not specific to anything I know about Pujols personally.

There are clues that he's telling the truth when he says he's never used PEDs, but that doesn't prove anything. It's difficult to prove a negative.

I try to evaluate players I like and admire the same way that I evaluate players I detest. Before the revelations by McNamee (corroborated by Radomski, Pettitte, and Knoblauch), I had already expressed my suspicions about the ability of Roger Clemens to put up the best ERA+ of his career at age 42, but I made a point of emphasizing that it was only my suspicions

Back to Pujols, like I said, there are a few clues.

(1) While Pujols is from the Dominican Republic, by all reports a hotbed of PEDs usage among young ballplayers, he emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 16.

(2) He married a single mom whose daughter has Downs Syndrome. A lot of us wouldn't have taken on that "burden".

(3) His consistency has been absolutely incredible. For one example, his at bats in his first 5 seasons were 590, 590, 591, 592, and 591. Assuming that his BA doesn't slip, he will have hit above .300, with more than 30 home runs and more than 100 RBIs in every one of his 9 seasons. He has also scored over 100 runs in all but one of those seasons, just 99 in 2007.

(4) Each off season, Pujols leads a team of medical personnel to the Dominican Republic to provide medical, dental, and optical care to impoverished families. Albert and his wife participate as translators during the day, then cook up a meal for the team each evening.

(5) On October 23, there will be an "Autumn Prom" held at the Crown Plaza in Clayton (a St. Louis suburb). Attendance will be by invitation only to those with Downs Syndrome, aged 16 and over. (I wonder if that will conflict with any of the post season schedule.)