By Greg Primm
Albert Pujols is regarded by many as the best player in Major League Baseball. You wouldn’t know it though by the amount of publicity surrounding him. He doesn’t make the tabloids or the entertainment shows. He doesn’t get into trouble with the authorities like other athletes. He just plays baseball at an unbelievably high level. Pujols has never had worse than a .314 batting average. Never hit less than 32 homeruns. Never driven in less than 103 runs. These stats would be career years for most major leaguers. But for Pujols, life’s about more than stats. In fact, it’s not even about baseball.
He is the cover story for Sports Illustrated this week. I was flipping through the magazine today and couldn’t believe the statements that Pujols made in the article.
In responding to questions of steroid use that swirl around him:
“We’re in this era where people want to judge other people,” Pujols says. “And that’s so sad.” He would like to leave it with those three words—that’s so sad—but then people might wonder.
So he continues: “But it’s like I always say, ‘Come and test me. Come and do whatever you want.’ Because you know what? There is something more important to me—my relationship with Jesus Christ and caring about others. More than this baseball. This baseball is nothing to me.”
It was shocking to me to hear a professional athlete, not to mention one of the greatest athletes in his sport, to essentially quote Matthew 22:37-39:
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ‘This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Pujols doesn’t just pay lip service to this message. He invests his time and money in numerous worthy causes and lives a quiet life with his family that’s downright boring by the standards of most pro athletes. I was already an Albert Pujols fan, but this sealed the deal. In this age of self absorbed athletes involved in numerous scandals, this is a guy you can believe in.
When asked how he wants to be remembered, he responded:
“You know how I want people to remember me?” Pujols asks. “I don’t want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. That’s the guy I want to be remembered as when I’m done wearing this uniform. That’s from the bottom of my heart.”
What a great goal for all of us.
Photo credit: SD Dirk
