Fallen Angel

I’m starting to put more stock in the Mayan calendar. Perhaps the impending end of the world is the only plausible explanation for a season where Albert Pujols homeruns (all one of them) have become breaking news.

The curtain opens on the Pujols era in Los Angeles with historic futility. Thru thirty-one games the Angels $250 million dollar slugger is hitting a paltry .198 with one homerun. Many baseball minds questioned whether the future Hall of Famer could live up to a contract that will owe Pujols $59 million into his forty’s.

But it was hard to envision a scenario in which Pujols, a career .326 hiter, would fail to live up to his contract in year one. Which begs the question: What the hell happened?

Albert Pujols’ offseason was a blur. Fresh off a World Series championship in St. Louis, Pujols spurned his hometown Cardinals for Los Angeles – and one of the most lucrative contracts in baseball history. Perhaps the offseason became more about business and less about baseball. The tumultuous winter was a departure from the norm for a slugger renowned for his meticulous and regimented approach to weight training and practice. Maybe Pujols was so caught up in contract negotiations that hitting got put on the back burner.

But I doubt it. This is Albert Pujols we’re talking about. This is three-time MVP, nine-time All-Star, 445 career homerun Albert freakin’ Pujols. We’re talking about a guy that could crush opposite field longballs in his sleep – the best pure hitter of this generation.

But what does that even mean anymore: Pure hitter? It’s an oxymoron. The 90’s and 2000’s changed that. These days every towering homerun is tainted, statistics clouded with doubt. Pujols is no different. He’s a big, strong hitting machine. In his eleven years with St. Louis, Pujols slugged a homer every fourteen at-bats. This season with L.A.: one in 126. As baseball fans, we are perfectly justified in wondering if this is more than just a statistical anomaly – wondering why all of a sudden Pujols’ legendary power has shrunk to warning track power.

The baseball landscape allows us to be skeptics, to dissect every superstar’s statistical (and physical) variance. Just in this past year we’ve watched Ryan Braun fail a PED test, only to latter wriggle off the hook on a technicality. And Manny Ramirez, currently serving a 50 game suspension, back in the steroids limelight. At this point, it would be downright naïve to consider ballplayers innocent until proven guilty.

Which brings us to Pujols. One has to think he’ll eventually break out of his season-long slump and rebound to respectability. You have to believe that at some point he’ll be producing like the player L.A. dropped the $250 million on. But just keep in mind that Pujols has already set himself and his family up for life. Perhaps at this stage in his career, just months after scoring the big payday, it’s just not worth it anymore for Pujols to risk his health, his endorsements, or his legacy. Maybe he’s content with riding out the next decade as a good player, while evading the disgrace and scorn that has befallen countless superstars this generation.

Or maybe he just forgot how to hit a breaking ball.

Classic Western

It’s a deafening sound. Twenty thousand strong screaming fans, silenced in a heartbeat. This was the scene at the United Center in Chicago this past Saturday, as 2011 Most Valuable Player lay in a crumpled heap by the free throw line, knee shattered. Season shattered.

The Bulls, while amassing the NBA’s best regular season record for the second straight season, looked destined for an Eastern Conference Finals rematch with the Miami Heat. Primed to embrace an underdog role, Chicago needed everything to go just right to win their 7th NBA Championship. Already, just one game into the 2012 Playoffs, everything has gone wrong.

The proverbial deflating of the United Center is the just the beginning for the Bulls and Derrick Rose, who suffered an ACL tear in the waning moments of a game Chicago led by twelve. Rose faces upwards of eight months in recovery and rehabilitation. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau faces incessant questioning on why his fragile superstar was still in the game.

I for one blame Thibs – to a point. Yes Rose needed court time to get back in sync with his teammates after missing over a month with a strained groin. Yes these freak injuries can happen at anytime in a game. But with an entire series yet to play against the hapless Sixers, followed by a second round tilt with either Boston or Atlanta, the Bulls had the luxury of time for Rose to ramp up to full speed. Perhaps most damning is examining the top of the Western Conference Standings, and the quintessential model of a future Hall of Fame coach protecting players…from themselves.

The improbable San Antonio Spurs were guided to the top seed in the West by Gregg Popovich, who displayed mad-scientist like roster tinkering while navigating the most rigorous NBA season in history. With both Tim Duncan (age 36), and Manu Ginobili (age 34), Popovich was ordained with the task of his keeping his antique superstars upright and productive. He did so to the tune of a 50-16 regular season record.

Popovich drove beat writers and fans alike crazy with his unpredictable lineups and impulsive resting of key players. Despite being the poster boy for health all season, Duncan was held out of eight games, his minutes limited in others. One lineup card contained blanks next to inactive players names, presumably meant to list the nature of injury or ailment. Next to Tim Duncan, Popovich scribbled “old”. Ginobili too was preserved, playing in just nine of the Spurs final twelve games. Method to madness, Popovich’s San Antonio team endures.

Perhaps Thibodeau could take a lesson from the NBA’s most dogged coach. And as Chicago mourns the loss of their superstar, championship aspirations dashed in the blink of an eye, the Spurs look as good as ever.