President Obama will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Tuesday's Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis. Earlier this afternoon, MLB announced that St. Louis player Albert Pujols will be catching the pitch.
Pujols, always a fan favorite, has dominated this year currently leading the league in Home runs, runs batted in, runs and is second in batting average.
Pujols is not just in my opinion the greatest player in the game, but a great person with a big heart exemplified in his charity work especially with Downs Syndrome. (Pujols has a 10 year old daughter diagnosed with Downs Syndrome)
He was named the Roberto Clemente 2008 award winner for his off the field efforts. That makes him a remarkable and appropriate choice to catch Obama's pitch.
In 2003, I had the opportunity to meet Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols on the field before a Cardinals game during batting practice. What a treat and you could not have been more impressed by Pujols always with a big smile and signing autographs of all the kids around.
With all of the controversy surrounding baseball related to former and current player steroid and other performance enhancing drug use, there could not be a better ambassador for the game than Albert Pujols. While I did not get a chance to see Roberto Clemente in person, he definitely has the same sense of pride in doing his best on and off the field.
Here is what Pujols said after winning the Clemente award.
"[This is] a blessing, and I'm really honored," Pujols said. "First of all, I want to thank God to give me the opportunity to be here tonight and receive this award. I want to thank Major League Baseball and Chevy to be a part of this great award of Roberto Clemente. I want to thank my teammates, obviously, for the support that they give me during the year -- every event that we do for Down syndrome or golf tournament -- the fans in St. Louis and all over the United States and the Dominican Republic for the support that they give to the Pujols Family Foundation. I want to thank the Roberto Clemente family. I'm truly honored to receive this award. It's an honor to be here.
"At the end of the day, when all is said and done playing this game ... it doesn't matter what you did in the field, it's what you do off the field and the lives that you touch off the field. And I try to do that through our foundation. I try to do that when I go back to the Dominican Republic. I try to do that when I'm on the field because those kids, they look at us as a role model and we want to be a role model to those kids, because you never know."
"It takes a lot of hard work for the Pujols Family Foundation, but it comes from our heart. I thank God every day for the opportunity he gives me to be in the big leagues and just take advantage of every little opportunity. I remember as a little boy in the Dominican Republic, all I want is to be in the big leagues. All I wanted was just to be a professional baseball player. I never thought this dream was going to come true and so quick in eight years.
"[Clemente] was not only a great baseball player -- everybody on this day remembers Roberto Clemente as a great baseball player, but we today remember him as a great man that loved other people and gave back to the community, whether in Pittsburgh or Nicaragua or Latin America or Puerto Rico. And I feel that's my responsibility, too, not just to be a baseball player, but to give back to others, whether in St. Louis or the United States or back in the Dominican Republic every year with our trip through the Pujols Family Foundation."
I was listening to sports radio the other night and there was a lot of criticism on how this should be Mark McGwire's event with the game being played in St. Louis. Yes it ended badly for McGwire and I don't think anyone would disagree that it is of his own doing. However, St. Louis has the best ambassador in the game with Albert Pujols. Pujols will be joined by the six living Cardinals Hall of Famers who will greet President Obama. Those players are Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Red Schoendienst, Bruce Sutter and Ozzie Smith. It's a shame Big Mac will likely never be on that list, but Pujols is a lock to join them in Cooperstown.