Happy Homers and Happy Birthday!

When the Anaheim Angels arrived in Washington, DC earlier this week to take on the Washington Nationals, all the talk was about phenoms Mike Trout and Bryce Harper playing against each other.  Both young outfielders won the Rookie of the Year award for their respective leagues in 2012, and both are hard-working, hustling guys who play the game hard (except Trout is having a better season than Harper so far, plus he does commercials for Subway and Bryce does not).  Another reason that this series was under the radar of baseball fans was that José Alberto Pujols (known to everyone in the world except his family as "Albert"), was coming to DC with 498 career home runs under his belt.  After having the worst season of his career in 2013, most people (including me) thought that he may hit number 499 during the series, but 500 didn't seem likely for a few more days.

Well, at Tuesday night's game with the Nationals' Taylor Jordan on the mound, Albert Pujols became the only player to hit home runs 499 and 500 in the same game.  He is one of only 26 players to reach the 500 home run milestone, and is only 5 homers away from passing Hall of Famer Eddie Murray.  Pujols is only the fourth player in the 500 Home Run Club to be born outside of the US, with Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Manny Ramirez being the other 3 (with Pujols being the only one who has never been implicated in any kind of steroid scandal).  He's one of those Derek Jeter-type of likable guys who gives money to charity and loves playing the game.  Pujols is a true family man, having created a foundation with his wife to increase awareness of Down's Syndrome (a condition that one of his children has).  Oh, and I can say I saw him play twice - as a St. Louis Cardinal against the Nationals in 2012 and as an Angel against the Orioles in 2013.

Instead of filling my post with all sorts of statistics and listing all the accolades that Pujols has earned during his Major League tenure both with the Angels and the Cardinals, I surfed the Internet looking for the most interesting fact that I could find on Albert and here's what I found in Wikipedia (you can choose to believe it or discard it):  Albert Pujols scored a perfect 100 on his citizenship exam when he became a U.S. citizen in 2007.  Have you SEEN some of the questions on that exam?  Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Also worth noting is that Chicago's Wrigley Field, home of the sorry Cubs, is celebrating its 100th birthday.  "The Friendly Confines," with its ivy-covered outfield and manual scoreboard, is an icon of baseball history, having housed players like Ernie Banks (who I was surprised is still alive!), Ferguson Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg, and Andre Dawson.  Like Busch Stadium in St. Louis, I've only been to the outside of this historic ballpark, but I'm hoping to visit in the next couple of years.  I'm sure the bathrooms smell like 100 years of pee and the concession stands and concourse area are cramped, but it's a piece of Americana that all baseball fans must visit.  Happy centennial, Wrigley Field, and "felicidades" to José Alberto Pujols!