While everyone is thirsting over Aaron Judge’s quest for the American League single-season home run record, they are neglecting an even bigger story in baseball.
Albert Pujols’ final season.
The 11x All-Star is winding down his guaranteed Hall of Fame career this year, yet the 42-year-old is putting on a show that deserves much more love and attention than it’s getting.
On Friday, September 23rd, Pujols joined one of the most elite clubs in all professional sports by hitting two home runs in the Cardinals game against the Dodgers.
Career home run 699 was exciting, but 700 was history-making for it granted him access to the exclusive “700” club occupied by only three other legendary men- Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755) and the homerun king, Barry Bonds (762).
Ruth founded that club in 1934. Aaron joined it in 1973 and Bonds followed in 2004.
Now, 18 years later, it has its newest member in Albert Pujols.
Yet while ESPN and other networks are begging and pleading with broadcasters like Apple TV and the YES Network for the ability to cut into Aaron Judge’s at-bats, even disrupting college football programming, Pujols continued ascent in the record books hasn’t received anywhere near the same attention.
Don’t get me wrong. Judge undoubtedly deserves the attention he’s getting.
All sports fans want to be able to witness history and say where they were when Judge broke Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record of 61. And equally, if not more, significant is the fact that Judge is in contention for the Triple Crown; he leads in home runs and RBIs but trails Luis Arreaz of the Twins in batting average, .311 to .315, respectively, as of Monday.
But, unfortunately, fans are missing the Pujols’ farewell tour that keeps supplying historic moments to the record books.
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