Assisting Albert

Finally.

Albert Pujols hit his first homer as an Angel on Sunday. It’s about time. My softball team puts more balls over the fence than Pujols. At this rate, he’s on pace to hit a whopping six dingers for the season. Matt Kemp of the Dodgers had six before the season was a week old. Heck, Josh Hamilton just slammed four homers in one game.

I think Albert should thank me for his first homer.

You see, on Saturday, I emailed Tim Mead, the Angels Vice President of Communications, with a few suggestions on how the team could help poor (hah!) Albert. Tim is also good friends with my buddy Justin Robinson. I dropped Justin’s name in the email, so I’m quite positive Mr. Mead took my email seriously.

In case you didn’t know, or are not up on your baseball knowledge (like my sister Neb), Pujols spent 11 seasons in the National League as a St. Louis Cardinal. He basically started hitting homers and collecting RBI from day one until, well, joining the Angels. He has some of the best stats in history. If he retired today, he’d be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Anyway, here’s my list of how the Angels can help their struggling slugger:

1.     Have the St. Louis Arch cut into the grass at Angels Stadium like the Cardinals do at Busch Stadium.

2.     Tell Albert that the 57 freeway, which runs past Angels stadium, is really the Mississippi River.

3.     Have a wax statue of former Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa molded and brought into the dugout. Tell Pujols that LaRussa came out of retirement to be manager Mike Scioscia’s bench coach. For road trips, the equipment guys can fix some wheels to the bottom of the statue and Albert can push the wax LaRussa through airports and opposing cities.

4.     Change the team’s unofficial mascot from the Rally Monkey to the Rally Cardinal.

5.     Petition the league office to move up the start of inter-league play.

6.     Have Angel batters hyphenate their last names to include the surnames of the St. Louis players. For example, Torii Hunter can become Torii Hunter-Holiday. Erick Aybar-Furcal will be at shortstop and Vernon Wells-Freese will be left.

7.     Have owner Arte Moreno dress up like Mark Twain and deliver a rousing pre-game speech. In Spanish, no less.

8.     Bring back retired Angel Bengie Molina, older brother to current Cardinal catcher Yadier Molina. Then tell Albert that Bengie is Yadier, only fatter.

Obviously, Pujols is having quite a tough time adjusting to his new home in the American League. He’s batting below .200 and only has 9 RBI. The Angels are paying Pujols 240 million dineros to consistently fall behind in the count, watch fastballs down the middle, and hit weak grounders to third base.

Pujols had made several adjustments to try fix his problems at the plate, mostly to the style of his facial hair. We’ve seen a goatee-d Albert, a fully bearded Albert, and now a clean-shaven Albert. Also, as a show of team solidarity, for a few games the whole starting nine wore their britches hiked up to their knees. However, neither adjusting his razor or the length of his pants has done the trick. On Saturday, Scioscia benched big Albert for the first time this season. Mark Trumbo got the start at first base and promptly did what Pujols has been unable to do until Sunday, hit a home run. 

I’m sure it must be tough for Pujols, what with switching leagues, seeing pitchers for the first time, dealing with traffic on the 5, enduring all those long flights from the west coast, and finding a bank big enough to hold all that cash. Plus it’s got to be excruciating seeing his anemic stats on the scoreboard, constantly comparing them to light-hitting middle infielders and backup catchers who have more home runs and RBI than he does.

All the baseball talking heads continue to say that Albert will be alright and that he’s going to finish the season with his standard 30 homers and 100 RBI. I’m not so sure. Maybe he needs some more powerful motivation. I spent my Saturday toiling in a friend’s backyard. We busted up a concrete patio the size of Rhode Island and hauled it piece by piece with wheelbarrows into a dumpster. It was grueling work and it took me back to my college days mowing lawns and doing landscaping during the summers. There’s nothing like a little manual labor to remind me how nice I have it in my classroom.

I’m not suggesting that Albert join a gardening crew, but maybe on his next day off he could come by my school and see how I work. I bet having him stare into the eyes of my 23 cherubs like he used to stare down opposing pitchers would have a memorable, and perhaps frightening, effect on him. Maybe seeing what I do for the annual salary of what he earns per at-bat would light the fire he needs to return to his old slugging self.

I kinda like this idea. I see another email to Tim Mead on the horizon.