How Albert Pujols has again become one of baseball's most feared hitters

ANAHEIM, Calif. – His son A.J. was asking just the other day about the All-Star Game, Albert Pujols said, about going to Cincinnati and sitting in that clubhouse with the great players, all those shiny baseballs and bats on the tables to sign, and then standing along the baseline with all those different hats and jerseys. It's been five years, after all, four All-Star Games at home with the family, which was great, of course, but nobody plays for a vacation in July.

Pujols told his boy he didn't know if he'd be an All Star or not, that he didn't decide these things, not really. Maybe people had just gotten used to him being something other than that Albert Pujols, the one who stood at first base for the National League for about a decade without peer, and maybe there were guys who were better than him now. Not better better, but better today maybe, however they measure these things.

If you do go, A.J. persisted, will you hit in the Home Run Derby?

On Tuesday afternoon Pujols stopped at the retelling to laugh warmly at a 14-year-old's curiosity, his stubbornness, his ability to hear only exactly what he wants to hear and then slog onward.

"I don't know," he said. "If I did it, I'd do it for A.J. For him and my 5-year-old boy."

Why not, he said. Doesn't mess up his swing. He just swings.

But now we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Pujols, at 35, is a conversation again, and by all appearances an All-Star again. You might say he's had one of those Pujols months, but that would not be quite right, because he's gone even beyond that for 25 games – .360 batting average, 15 home runs, 30 RBI, 11 walks and, most ridiculous of all, in 102 plate appearances, four strikeouts.

A scout who has seen plenty of Pujols over the years said he sees a hitter back into his legs again, sturdy in the box after the leg problems of recent seasons, and so short to the ball and long through the strike zone again. The same scout figured like many did, that Pujols still could be good, at times could be great, but likely would not be that Albert Pujols ever again. The legs go and the player with them. The years pass and there isn't a name or a game that has survived that. Those notions, real as they are, haven't yet occurred to Pujols, he said. It's too soon to surrender to just good, or just occasionally great, or just anything that isn't the daily work and the daily process and then living with whatever comes off the bat barrel.

His 23 home runs lead the American League, walking him past Ted Williams, Frank Thomas, Willie McCovey, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle on the all-time home run list – his 543 rank 16th – in not yet three months. Another 21 will have him past Mike Schmidt, Manny Ramirez and Reggie Jackson.

That's all a little too big for Pujols on a Tuesday afternoon in June, the Houston Astros in town, a hot streak to tend to. He's always said the job is in the preparation, which is why, halfway through a conversation, he already has a bat in his hand, is leaning toward the door, eager to get on with it. When his mind and body are properly arranged, he said, the results will be what they will be. Grand talk, he granted with a smile, for a guy who just led the major leagues in runs, home runs, RBI, slugging and OPS for a month.

The truth is, he hates to fail, and sometimes he lugs it around for longer than he should. Just, oh, a month ago, as a matter of fact, he got a call from Placido Polanco. A fellow Dominican, Polanco was one of the men who showed a young Pujols around the big leagues, who wrapped an arm around him and told him there was a path to survival and then even to greatness.

"Just before this run I'm in," Pujols said.

He was batting .235, worse with runners in scoring position. The ball was coming off the bat hard, if perhaps landing in the wrong places.

"He encouraged me," he said. "It was about, 'It's still a game. Be prepared. Be ready to hit. But have fun.' It was about knowing I'm still blessed to be doing this. Like David Ortiz said, 'You know who you are.' You really know who you are."

He's the guy who hits. He's the guy who believes. Who has to.

Is he an All-Star?

Pujols shrugged. Not for him to say. But, yeah, he'd like to go. And you-know-who is sorta counting on it.

He smiled.

"I think it'd be a great honor," he said.

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