No shortcuts along Pujols’ path to 3,000-hit club
18-year veteran four hits away from reaching the exclusive milestone
ANAHEIM, CALIF.— When Tommy John beat the Angels for his 268th victory in May 1987, the left-hander, then a 44-year-old with the New York Yankees, was asked if he had a burning desire to win 300 games.
“The only thing that burns inside of me,” John said, “is Szechuan cooking.”
Such words would never be uttered by Albert Pujols, the Angels slugger with a seemingly endless reservoir of drive and determination and a work ethic that borders on maniacal — a combination that has helped push Pujols to the brink of another historic milestone.
With four more hits, Pujols, 38, will become the 32nd major-leaguer to reach the 3,000hit mark, and only the fourth with at least 3,000 hits and 600 home runs, joining Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Alex Rodriguez.
From his childhood in the Dominican Republic to his high school and junior college years in Missouri, his 11-year reign as baseball’s best right-handed hitter in St. Louis and his seven years in Anaheim, there have been no shortcuts on the path to baseball’s Hall of Fame.
“The one thing that is very un- derstated about Albert is the sense of how hard he actually works at hitting, the studying of the pitchers, the actual time he spends in the cage,” said David Eckstein, the former Angels shortstop who was a teammate of Pujols in St. Louis from 2005 to 2007.
“When the best player on your team is the hardest worker, it helps the club win … so when you take that work ethic and you add it to someone who has the skill set he has, the eyesight he has, the hand-eye coordination he has with hitting, that’s why he’s closing in on 3,000 hits and 600 home runs.”
Eckstein played with Pujols when the latter was “The Machine,” his nickname during a career with the Cardinals (2001-11) in which he hit .328 with a 1.037 on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS), aver- aged 40 homers and 120 RBIs a season and won three MVP awards and two World Series titles.
For all of Pujols’ power, he has never struck out more than 93 times in a season, and he’s had 10 seasons with 70 strikeouts or less. Rodriguez, who had 3,115 hits and 696 homers, struck out 100 times or more in 14 of his 18 full seasons.
“Albert is such an anomaly in so many ways,” said Rodriguez, who was in Anaheim for ESPN’s Sunday night AngelsYankees telecast. “When you think about the combination of power and contact, it’s a lost art in today’s game … It will be hard to find more of that combination of power and contact.”