by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
If Albert Pujols didn't get hurt earlier this season, maybe baseball fans would really have something to celebrate.
Coming into 2006, the most overanalyzed and annoying storyline was Barry Bonds trying to catch Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time home run list. The most frustrating thing about that fiasco was that television stations kept interrupting shows for every single one of Bonds' at-bats.
At first this didn't bother me, because most of the time I was watching a "SportsCenter" rerun for the fifth time of the day when they would cut to the angry, bald, alleged steroid user with an oversized head trying to catch and surpass the Babe.
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However, I tried to avoid ESPN for a while for fear of having one of Maria Sharapova's matches interrupted, followed by banging my head against a wall and blacking out because of pure anger.
After Bonds finally passed Ruth and his stupid reality show fizzled away, all was right in the baseball world again. Plus, it was pretty entertaining to watch analysts talking over highlights of No. 715 while desperately trying to hold back from screaming, "That's not fair! That's not fair! He's a damn cheater!"
Really, though, baseball fans finally have to start watching games for the right reasons. By far the most intriguing player in the league is Albert Pujols - and that's not just because he's single-handedly carrying my fantasy team. The dude is just ridiculously good. Before his injury, he was actually on pace to break Bonds' tainted regular season record of 73 homers.
With 26 long balls already, Pujols still has a legitimate shot to be the first player in the "post-steroid era" to hit more that 61 home runs in a season.
The thing that is amazing about Pujols is his consistency. He seemed to hit a home run every other game, even though terrified pitchers were trying as hard as they could to keep him in the ballpark - that's another reason why his season has been infinitely more exciting than Bonds' in 2001.
When Bonds set the record that year, he would go two or three weeks without going yard, get angry and pump needles into his arms, legs, head and anus simultaneously - then go launch three home runs in one game.
On the contrary, everything about Pujols seems legit. Yeah, it's impossible to know for sure that he is clean, but Fat Albert seems to be just a classic, hard-working player who plays the game the right way. Besides, Pujols didn't come into the league built like Paris Hilton and then instantly bulk up to Ray Lewis' stature, as Bonds did.
That's why it was so frustrating to me when Pujols had to miss a couple weeks and lose any realistic shot of hitting No. 74 this year. If he stays healthy throughout the entire season one of these years, then maybe he can flirt with that number.
And hopefully ESPN will be forced to interrupt a rerun of "Bonds on Bonds" to show Pujols beating his record.
