After five outstanding years playing baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols finally won the National League Most Valuable Player of the Year. He is the seventh Dominican player to win the award and the second Dominican player to win the award in the National League. Yesterday, Alex Rodriguez won the award for the American League. For Pujols, who has posted outstanding numbers in each of his five seasons, and who had finished second in the voting twice, each time behind Barry Bonds, this was vindication for what some experts say is the finest first five years in baseball history. Playing with a nagging foot injury for most of the year, Pujols played in 161 of the 162 game schedule. He batted for a .330 average, second in the league, and hit 41 home runs, behind Andrew Jones of Atlanta and Derrek Lee of Chicago. Albert finished second in runs-batted-in with 11 fewer than Atlanta’s Jones. Pujols, talking to Dominican sports writers, said that he wanted to remain humble and that he did not what to disrespect the game. His sincerity and work ethic have caused some writers to compare Pujols with the likes of Joe Dimaggio or Ted Williams. With Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giant that has won the last four MVP awards, Pujols told reporters that he wished that Bonds had been playing because he (Pujols) considered him (Bonds) to be the best player in the league.
Sammy Sosa, playing for the Chicago Cubs was the first Dominican winner of the MVP award in the National League, back in 1998. Over in the American League, Vladimir Guerrero, Alex Rodriguez, twice, George Bell and Miguel Tejada have won the award.