http://tinyurl.com/bg8y86 “Believe in Me” says Albert Pujols in Sports Illustrated’s cover story JUPITER, Fla. — A couple weeks ago Sports Illustrated contributor, Kansas City Star columnist and blogger extraordinaire Joe Posnanski visited the Cardinals looking for a baseball story he could believe in. The Alex Rodriguez soap opera was still playing to large crowds and another performance-enhancing drug fog — do they call it “marine layer” in San Francisco? — had settled over baseball . Posnanski was assigned to find the antidote. He came to interview St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols. The thrust of Posnanski’s cover piece is tattooed on the issue of Sports Illustrated that reaches newsstands this week. There next to a profile picture of Pujols holding a bat is the headline: “Albert Pujols Has a Message”. And beneath that headline it reads: “Don’t Be Afraid to Believe in Me.” A copy of the cover (SEE BELOW) and the article were forwarded to media outlets this afternoon from Sports Illustrated. In the article, Posnanski writes: Albert Pujols knows that people don’t believe in him. He does not just know it, he lives it, breathes it, he takes it with him into the batting cage in Jupiter, Fla…. A batting practice pitcher throws, and Pujols rockets hard line drive after hard line drive. People marvel at how much louder and fuller the ball sounds coming off his bat than off the bat of anyone else. That sound used to make heroes. Now it only cements his guilt in the minds of the most cynical in the great American jury. This is the uncompromising math of 2009: The more Albert Pujols hits, the less those cynics will believe him. The opening spread of the article shows Pujols swinging, with the camera capturing almost every inch of his swing as it fans through the strike zone. But this article is far different from the technical one Sports Illustrated turned out a few years ago about his swing or the one GQ did on the reaction tests Pujols took years after Babe Ruth did. No, this article is a creature of its time, of the current environment in baseball. In it, Pujols addresses directly the notion that he’ll have doubters even years after his career because of the era he played. He tells Posnanski: “… They’re going to say, ‘Well, he probably did it back then. He just didn’t get caught.’ I know that is what they’re going to say. And you know what, man? It is sad, but at the same time it doesn’t matter. I know who I am. …” The article recounts some of the highlights from Pujols career that locals know well, especially his flair for fulfilling promises with home runs on Buddy Walk Day at Busch Stadium. Posnanski attempts to address the question, “How can you be a baseball hero in 2009?” The Buddy Walk homers is part of how he answers it. But while that word — “hero” — is tossed around liberally, here and everywhere, Pujols answers the question in his own way. He tells Posnanski exactly what he wants to be. “You know how I want people to remember me?” the reigning MVP says in the seven-page article. “I don’t want to be remembered as the best baseball player ever. I want to be remembered as a great guy who loved the Lord, loved to serve the community and who gave back. “ 封面: http://tinyurl.com/dlj7rr --

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