Portal:Baseball/Selected player archive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] July 4 to July 21
Image:Pujols3.jpg
Albert Pujols (born January 16, 1980) is a Major League Baseball first baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals organization, commonly referred to as a five-tool player and notable for being the first Major League player to have hit at least 30 home runs in each of his first five seasons and for having won the 2001 National League Rookie of the Year, 2005 National League Most Valuable Player Awards, and 2001, 2003, and 2004 Silver Slugger awards, as well as election to five MLB All-Star Games and the MLB Latino Legends Team.
Born in Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Dominican Republic, Pujols immigrated with his family to the New York City, New York, United States in the early 1990s; the family subsequently moved to Independence, Missouri, where Pujols attended high school. As a high school player, Pujols developed a love for the sport, posting a batting average of better than .500 during his freshman season, and he eventually matriculated at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City, Missouri, where he recorded an unassisted triple play and hit a grand slam in his first game.
Pujols was drafted by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1999 first-year player draft; having turned down a signing bonus of $10,000 from the Cardinals, Pujols elected to play in the National Baseball Congress Jayhawk Collegiate summer league, but settled on a $60,000 bonus with the Cardinals before the 1999 season, during which he was assigned to developmental leagues. In 2000, Pujols was assigned to the Peoria Chiefs of the class-single-A Midwest League, where he earned league most valuable player honors. Pujols quickly advanced through the levels of minor league baseball, playing with the Potomac Cannons of the class-high-A Carolina League and the Memphis Redbirds of the class-AAA Pacific Coast League; in just seven games for the latter, he struck two home runs and posted a .367 batting average.
Image:Pujols2.jpg
In spring training prior to the 2001 season, the Cardinals, without an available roster spot, returned Pujols to the Redbirds, but a preseason injury to utility infielder Bobby Bonilla open a place, and Pujols was added to the major league roster. In the team's second series, against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Pujols hit one home run and three doubles, batting in eight runs, cementing his place on the roster. In May, he won the National League Rookie of the Month Award and was named by New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine to the National League's All-Star Game.
[edit] May 27 to July 4
Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002), nicknamed "The Kid", the "Splendid Splinter", "Teddy Ballgame" and "The Thumper", was an American left fielder in Major League Baseball who played 19 seasons, twice interrupted by military service as a Marine Corps pilot, with the Boston Red Sox, often said to be the greatest hitter in the history of baseball. Williams was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. He is the last player in Major League Baseball history to bat over .400 in a single season. An avid sport fisherman, he hosted a television show about fishing, and was inducted into the Fishing Hall of Fame.
Williams was born in San Diego, California as Teddy Samuel Williams, named after Teddy Roosevelt and Williams' father. At some point, the name on his birth certificate was changed to "Theodore", but his mother and his closest friends always called him Teddy. His father, Samuel, from New York, a soldier, Sheriff, photographer and great admirer of the late president, and his mother, May, a Salvation Army worker of Spanish-Basque descent whose parents came from Mexico, were generally absentee parents whom he later came to resent. Early in his career, he stated that he wished to be remembered as the "greatest hitter who ever lived", an honor that he indeed achieved in many eyes by the end of his career.
He was also a world-class fisherman, who loved to fish just as much as he loved hitting a baseball — perhaps even more, because he didn't have to contend with boos and catcalls from fans while fishing on a river.
