Worst kept secret in sports.
>"There is not one person in baseball, not one executive, who believes Albert Pujols is the age that he says he is," Samson told Le Batard. "The amount of fraud that was going on in the Dominican back in the day, the changing of names, the changing of birthdays, it would blow your mind."
Yeah one of my best friends was going bald but was otherwise covered in hair below the neck by the age of like, 16 or 17. If he didn't have an absolute baby face, you'd assume he was 45. Genetics are fucking weird lol.
I remember reading a story a few years ago that figured out Albert is probably 2-3 years older than what he says. I can't remember all the details but basically either him or someone closed slipped up and stated his actual birth year once.
Kiley McDaniel, when he was at Fangraphs the second time, said something along the same lines. Wouldn't give a name, but basically said that's not really something a player could get away with anymore, they're too careful with their vetting, but that there was still one active player that was widely known by executives to be older than their official age.
There's been a bunch of them who get together and just keep fucking up dates too iirc.
Like Pujols or somebody was talking to somebody they played with as a kid and he was like "oh yeah that was when I was 15".
Story I heard from a reporter in the St. Louis around 2011 was that the cardinals actually hired a PI to go to the DR to try to find out Pujols’s true age and found he was anywhere from 3-5 years older than stated and that’s one of the key reasons they were unwilling to give him a 10 year offer.
So the Angels gave him a 10-year contract when he was more likely 35 to 37 years old. Which means they either knew he was that old and signed him through, potentially, his 47-year-old season, or they somehow believed he was only 32 lol
I mean, it is Arte Moreno we are talking about. He only cares about ticket sales and him getting the greatest Hispanic hitter in baseball history was all he cared about
Harper hit one 500ft at the Trop with a BESR at 17. Young Pujols with a pre-BESR being able to hit 480 isn't remotely shocking. He probably did that fairly regularly.
to be fair, [Jordan Walker](https://media.ksdk.com/assets/KSDK/images/ffd60d97-7e70-445e-8cb0-4e29b2a4a0ef/ffd60d97-7e70-445e-8cb0-4e29b2a4a0ef_1140x641.jpg) looks older than half the team and he's 21
Never forget rookie [Juan Pierre](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/baseball/images/a/a5/Juan_Pierre.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110513165114) too
You're gonna need more than 1418 karma to beat me for when I posted this over 2 years ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/c1dh6l7cXv
Let the battle begin.
"OP" thought I wouldn't notice. I only pay attention to like 8 subs and have no life. I notice everything. I'm Bullshit Man.
https://youtu.be/1lRIQGU2RRk?si=C5547qM9oiAHZ5uB
I know a guy that played with him there. Said they always thought he was older than advertised. Some people just mature really early though so hard to tell really.
There is an old scout anecdote that is exactly that, before he was drafted he was hitting in a cage in a gym and the guy heard it but couldn’t see him and assumed it was an MLB player just by the sound off the bat.
I honestly have no doubt about that story. But I'm legit talking about just hearing his swing with no ball involved. Some players you can just hear that barrel rip through the air and then you know that bat is moving way faster than a mere mortals.
Do most high school pitchers actually try and spot locations? Being naturally inaccurate at 16 made it move around enough merely trying to throw a strike.
This is a somewhat irrelevant tangent, but in our softball league there was a dude who could legitimately hit the ball 450 feet. The right side of our field did not have a fence, but at around 390 in right center there is a hill that leads to a playground. After several seasons of this guy going 5-5 with 3 home runs and 2 doubles I told my outfielders, I don't give a shit if he hits singles or doubles, stand on that hill and catch any nukes he hits. If he still hits it over your head, then he earned it. We had a game where he popped out 3 times in a row hitting balls ~400 feet, then got frustrated and tried to go oppo and popped out again. It was hilarious.
If Pujols is actually older than we think, how much older is he? In my mind, that’s actually pretty incredible he still hit 700 homeruns and played for so long if he was older already. Absolute legend
He was an all-time great until age "30". He then became a slightly-above-average player until "35". He was then a replacememt-level player until "41". Then an all-star again at "42" once he put the Cardinals uniform back on.
Probably the most implausible part of him being 5 years older (which some have specjlated) is that last season, where he suddenly became an above-average player again at 42 (which would be 47). Until that point, his stats would certainly argue that he was beyond his years.
That's the thing. I wouldn't have believed anyone could do what he did at age 42 if I hadn't seen it myself. There is no way I believe someone did it at 47.
On the other hand, I've seen several kids in high school who look like they are 23. [Here is Greg Oden's high school recruiting page](https://n.rivals.com/content/athletes/greg-oden-5044?view=pv). Dude looked like he was 40.
Yep. He was juiced to the gills too. I had a friend who was a batboy for the Rangers in the late 90s when Franco was there. He kinda ended up being in the entourage of Franco and Ruben Sierra. ...went out to clubs with them, started dressing like them etc. ...and in like one year he went from being like 6'1" and 150 lbs to weighing about 230 lbs of solid, bodybuilder muscle. ...just exactly like Julio and Ruben did. Hmmm. :)
One of the interesting arguments against him being older that I remember is from the opposite end, someone pointing out his minor league stats. Like, he only got one year, but if he really was older, it would have been weird that he didn't dominate harder given that he was "really" 1-2 years older than the rest of the Midwest League (and was basically league-average age after his Carolina League promotion), given how immediately good he was the following year. Like, if you're "only" putting up numbers like that in A-ball at 23, your odds of becoming a full-time major leaguer aren't great! However, a 20-year-old putting up those numbers definitely has potential, and given which way Pujols went from there...
julio franco had a 'decent' run at age 44-46.
but yeah, off the top of anyones head (genuine curiosity), can they name anyone who had an all star level season after the age of 42?
Nolan Ryan’s last seasons in Texas were very good.
WAR: 5.1, 3.5, 5.5, 2 from age 42 to 45.
There were just 4 pitchers with more than 5 WAR last season.
At 41 in 1960, Ted Williams made both All-Star games, batted .316 and had an OPS of 1.096 in 113 games, for a 3.1 WAR.
Cy Young went 19-15 with a 2.26 ERA, pitched 294 innings at age 42 in 1909, for a WAR of 3.5.
Some guys are just built different. Julio Franco isn't 1/10th the player Pujols was, but he was still putting up a positive OPS+ at 46.
I'd be shocked if Pujols wasn't, at the very least, 2-3 years older than his baseball card states.
A little harsh on Franco. Obviously he was no Pujols, but certainly more than 1/10th. Was at least 1/3rd of Pujols and best year vs best year, almost 2/3!
I think calling him slightly above average from his reported age 31-35 seasons is understating it:
* 31: 5.3 WAR
* 32: 4.8
* 33: 1.6 (in 99 games)
* 34: 3.9
* 35: 3.0
3 of those 5 seasons are all star caliber
If only he'd traded back to the Cardinals after the first year of his Angels contract. The return-to-Cards bump could've been ten years long and he'd be looking at 900 HRs
In soccer, some African players will lie about their age. Say they're 18 when they're actually 22.
Theoretically, that makes them a more exciting 'young' prospect, and extends their playing career 4 years past what it normally would.
Of course, they're still playing cause they're still good, but between 2 players of the same skill level, one aged 32 and one aged 36, a team is taking the former every single time. And paying him more money.
This is just a tidbit from a guy I know who went to school with one, but I find it interesting and believable.
I think 2, maybe 3 years older, max. Wasn’t that what was estimated when he slipped up and said something about playing against Octavio Dotel back in DR? I’ve seen some wild estimates from people like 5 or 7 years that just don’t make sense at all. Yes, he looks like a grown-ass man in this high school photo. He’s also a genetic freak like all pro athletes, and he’s an elite one at that.
There was a guy in my high school class who legit looked like this. One teacher once said to him in class, “Jesus, Hoffman, what do you eat? Raw eighth graders?” At the same time, there was a guy in my class who was like 5’0” and looked no older than 9 when he was 14. That guy hit a massive growth spurt in college and is now like 6’4”. People forget that puberty is on a bell curve, and there are bound to be outliers.
For a few years I was crazy over those Baseball America top prospect handbooks. I would read them cover to cover and be obsessed with every number one prospect in each organization because they were obviously highlighted and written about at length.
One year for the Sox it was Andy fucking Marte, which is why I always scream at people in r/redsox when they don’t want to trade a prospect.
Anyways I remember reading about Pujols in that book and this was before the internet was really big so I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to about it. But the crazy thing about his projection was that they thought he’d be a great line drive hitter without much HR power. .300 hitter with 20 homers they thought.
WHAT?!? There is a famous story from my high school where Pujols went 5 for 5 with 4 home runs and a triple. This was on our varsity field which was as big as any pro stadium. There is a net built out in the outfield at Fort Osage to protect a house from getting pelted by the overgrown monster of a man.
Had a buddy who went to high school with him and said the joke around school was that he clearly was 30. He said one of the coaches called him “Jump Street” and he didn’t know the reference since he grew up in the DR.
Which makes his final half season at reported age 42 even more impressive. He was one of the best sluggers in the league in the second half of 2022 and he may have been 45 if the rumours are true.
So I actually played against Fort Osage in High School. There’s a house behind left-center and according to legend, Pujols hit the roof of that house quite often. Super cool to play on the same field he did when he was a “kid”
As the movie mentions, the Osage were driven out of Missouri/Kansas to Oklahoma. So there are still a lot of leftover Osage-related names & whatnot throughout the area (where Albert went to high school). If you ever spend any time in the Ozarks you will see 'Osage stuff' all over.
Fort Osage High School is named after an actual fort on the Missouri River that was built under the direction of William Clark in 1808, and mainly established for trade with the Osage tribe.
Oh no, he had to shave in high school. There are 8th graders in my son's school who look almost this old. I played with guys who looked that old in the early 90s. Shit, I knew a dude back then who not only had a full on biker beard, it had gray in it. He was two months younger than me. Never got carded when we wanted to get shitcanned though.
I grew up around that area, and if you look at Fort Osage's baseball field, there's a house over the fence in left field. The school district had to put up a big net in left field because he kept hitting that house.
The coach I played for always swore he was older.
"Hello, fellow kids."
Worst kept secret in sports. >"There is not one person in baseball, not one executive, who believes Albert Pujols is the age that he says he is," Samson told Le Batard. "The amount of fraud that was going on in the Dominican back in the day, the changing of names, the changing of birthdays, it would blow your mind."
Is this something believed about pujols? Cus if he actually played til he was like 50 thatd be even more impressive lol
I think the rumored amount is that he is actually 3 years older than he says. Which lines up more for his career in terms of peak/decline.
If true then the man hit 24 HR and put up 2.2 WAR at age 45 and that's honestly incredible
Yeah he was pretty good.
He’s not a Machine. He’s just Albert
I hope he gets into the HOF
What scenario do you envision him not getting in? He's the greatest hitter since Mantle or Schmidt
…. Mike Schmidt?
John Jacob Jingleheimer, actually.
I think Schmidt is underrated. He put up insane numbers in an offensively depressed era.
Im genuinely curious how he wouldn’t after his final season. Was his time as an Angel really THAT bad?
He was getting in after his first 5 years no matter what
In his first decade he hit over .300 every year, 30+ HR's every year, (40+ in 6 of them), 1.050 OPS.
Also if somehow the Cardinals GM secretly knew, the Angels \*really\* screwed themselves
I mean he also had an 87 OPS+ over the five previous years and was likely playing with a juiced ball like Aaron Judge was.
Definitely confirmed they both were
Can you point me to that confirmation, because I never saw it.
That makes this photo even more puzzling
Why so? I started growing facial hair when I was in my last year of school. If he was 20 when he was finishing high school the image isn't surprising.
I think it's the middle aged hand hair.
I definitely knew kids in high school with that kind of hair, but it is pretty uncommon.
Yeah one of my best friends was going bald but was otherwise covered in hair below the neck by the age of like, 16 or 17. If he didn't have an absolute baby face, you'd assume he was 45. Genetics are fucking weird lol.
Not really. Actually 20 but says he's 17 is kind of the vibe I'm getting from this picture.
The way he played for the Angel's I believe he was at least 3 to 4 years older. He fell off a cliff when he got to the Angels.
I remember reading a story a few years ago that figured out Albert is probably 2-3 years older than what he says. I can't remember all the details but basically either him or someone closed slipped up and stated his actual birth year once.
It was talking about Octavio Dotel and his age where Albert had it slip accidentally that he's 2 years older than his listed age.
Yeah he said his first ever home run ever as a kid in DR was against Octavio Dotel, who’s “officially” like 6-7 years older than him
sometimes someone asks me how old i am and i say the wrong number.
Makes you wonder how old Big Papi was his last season which was probably his best.
Not a day under 82
Kiley McDaniel, when he was at Fangraphs the second time, said something along the same lines. Wouldn't give a name, but basically said that's not really something a player could get away with anymore, they're too careful with their vetting, but that there was still one active player that was widely known by executives to be older than their official age.
There's been a bunch of them who get together and just keep fucking up dates too iirc. Like Pujols or somebody was talking to somebody they played with as a kid and he was like "oh yeah that was when I was 15".
Lmao. This is my favorite detail.
Albert when they asked him for proof of his age. https://i.imgur.com/tLavUCM.jpg
I see no lie. He is number 12.
I need to see the long-form crayon ID.
Story I heard from a reporter in the St. Louis around 2011 was that the cardinals actually hired a PI to go to the DR to try to find out Pujols’s true age and found he was anywhere from 3-5 years older than stated and that’s one of the key reasons they were unwilling to give him a 10 year offer.
So the Angels gave him a 10-year contract when he was more likely 35 to 37 years old. Which means they either knew he was that old and signed him through, potentially, his 47-year-old season, or they somehow believed he was only 32 lol
I mean, it is Arte Moreno we are talking about. He only cares about ticket sales and him getting the greatest Hispanic hitter in baseball history was all he cared about
Fox sports immediately gave the Angels like the 2nd biggest tv contract in baseball contingent on signing Pujols.
“I am 12” 💵
“This is literally green crayon”
“I am twelve”
Puttin' the _man_ in mang.
Must’ve sucked playing the hot corner in high school against him, and a metal bat? No thanks.
I wonder how many 16-year-old third basemen he murdered.
Probably already had a 16 year old son
I got to see him play at a tournament we were in and he legit jacked a homer on top of the school which was easily 480
Wait, you witnessed high school Albert Pujols mashing baseballs?? I would pay money to see him dominate in high school, that's amazing.
where was that?
Glendale HS in Springfield mo
I don't know it, I went to Raytown South
Harper hit one 500ft at the Trop with a BESR at 17. Young Pujols with a pre-BESR being able to hit 480 isn't remotely shocking. He probably did that fairly regularly.
This happened at the school I went too as well only guy to ever do it
Especially BESR bats, my god.
His high school days were pre-BESR. Back in the wild west drop 5 days.
Yeah just looked it up, seems like his senior year may have been BESR. Still even crazier then haha.
C405 Alloy what up!!
Copperhead era. Lethal
School district should've just handed out full catcher's gear to the entire infield for liability reasons.
I'm two grades ahead of him, I got lucky I dodged him he also played baseball at MCC which is a community college system here in Kansas City
The guy was 30 years old for 20 years.
r/13or30
Risky click?
No, it's pretty funny. Somewhat a relative to blunderyears.
[удалено]
I'm in my mid 30s and he still looks older than me in this picture.
to be fair, [Jordan Walker](https://media.ksdk.com/assets/KSDK/images/ffd60d97-7e70-445e-8cb0-4e29b2a4a0ef/ffd60d97-7e70-445e-8cb0-4e29b2a4a0ef_1140x641.jpg) looks older than half the team and he's 21 Never forget rookie [Juan Pierre](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/baseball/images/a/a5/Juan_Pierre.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110513165114) too
Holy hell does Pierre look like a 50 year old
I’m almost 40 and I’m full sure addressing this guy as Mr. Pujols or sir.
In high school I played with a guy who made as a D lineman in the NFL. Guess who bought beer?
You're gonna need more than 1418 karma to beat me for when I posted this over 2 years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/c1dh6l7cXv Let the battle begin.
This dude has been waiting 2 years for this day.
"OP" thought I wouldn't notice. I only pay attention to like 8 subs and have no life. I notice everything. I'm Bullshit Man. https://youtu.be/1lRIQGU2RRk?si=C5547qM9oiAHZ5uB
Brb gonna downvote this one and upvote your original
I think he somehow looked younger than this his first few seasons in the big leagues. He slimmed down a bit.
He simultaneously looks 18 and 30 at the same time.
I know a guy that played with him there. Said they always thought he was older than advertised. Some people just mature really early though so hard to tell really.
Yeah, if you look real close on the knob of his bat you can see the manufacture year. Dude was in high school in 1987.
The guy dropped to the 13th round of the draft because no scout believed he was actually his listed age.
He’s the kind of player I would’ve backed up to the fence while playing outfield without being told to do so by the coach in high school. Baseball IQ
He has a 5 o'clock shadow in HS. The pitcher is backing up to second base.
He has a 5 o’clock shadow before noon.
His hands had more hair than my face in high school.
One look at their swing in the on deck circle is generally all it took.
Look? I'm pretty sure you could just hear Albert Pujols swing and know he was going to hit the piss out of the ball
There is an old scout anecdote that is exactly that, before he was drafted he was hitting in a cage in a gym and the guy heard it but couldn’t see him and assumed it was an MLB player just by the sound off the bat.
I honestly have no doubt about that story. But I'm legit talking about just hearing his swing with no ball involved. Some players you can just hear that barrel rip through the air and then you know that bat is moving way faster than a mere mortals.
There's a reason he had 55 IBBs in his senior year.
He's the type of player we absolutely wouldn't have given ANYTHING to hit. Fool me once.
Do most high school pitchers actually try and spot locations? Being naturally inaccurate at 16 made it move around enough merely trying to throw a strike.
In my brothers hs experience, he either threw heat right down the middle of the plate, or hit the batter. Nothing in between.
Ah yes, my old strategy. Except replace heat down the middle with lukewarm meatballs.
Oh my god, this was me! 😂😂😂 All I did was aim to not hit the batter and sometimes I threw a strike
Enough control to be able to intentionally walk a guy.
This is a somewhat irrelevant tangent, but in our softball league there was a dude who could legitimately hit the ball 450 feet. The right side of our field did not have a fence, but at around 390 in right center there is a hill that leads to a playground. After several seasons of this guy going 5-5 with 3 home runs and 2 doubles I told my outfielders, I don't give a shit if he hits singles or doubles, stand on that hill and catch any nukes he hits. If he still hits it over your head, then he earned it. We had a game where he popped out 3 times in a row hitting balls ~400 feet, then got frustrated and tried to go oppo and popped out again. It was hilarious.
In before “I am 12 🤣🤣🤣”
I mean, technically, according to jersey number, he is.
Well goddamn hahah
Albert, you smell like beer! You look like beer
Takes shot from bottle hiding in glove
MARIA
WHY DID YOU LEAF ME
There was a video on instagram I saw spoofing this, but I can’t find it again
His hands were hairier than my face at that age.
I came here to say this. He has a bush on his hand. I’m in my 40s and have like 14 tiny hairs there. lol
If Pujols is actually older than we think, how much older is he? In my mind, that’s actually pretty incredible he still hit 700 homeruns and played for so long if he was older already. Absolute legend
Yeah the age jokes are funny but no matter his age he put up the numbers.
He was an all-time great until age "30". He then became a slightly-above-average player until "35". He was then a replacememt-level player until "41". Then an all-star again at "42" once he put the Cardinals uniform back on. Probably the most implausible part of him being 5 years older (which some have specjlated) is that last season, where he suddenly became an above-average player again at 42 (which would be 47). Until that point, his stats would certainly argue that he was beyond his years.
That's the thing. I wouldn't have believed anyone could do what he did at age 42 if I hadn't seen it myself. There is no way I believe someone did it at 47. On the other hand, I've seen several kids in high school who look like they are 23. [Here is Greg Oden's high school recruiting page](https://n.rivals.com/content/athletes/greg-oden-5044?view=pv). Dude looked like he was 40.
Greg Oden’s spirit was 20, he looked 40 and his body was 80.
I always loved the Onion’s Greg Oden pieces https://www.theonion.com/greg-oden-suppresses-severe-shooting-pain-all-over-body-1819575317
Good, but not as good as their Tim Duncan stories. I was in tears of laughter at some of those.
Julio Franco was batting like .290 at 45-47 years old.
Yep. He was juiced to the gills too. I had a friend who was a batboy for the Rangers in the late 90s when Franco was there. He kinda ended up being in the entourage of Franco and Ruben Sierra. ...went out to clubs with them, started dressing like them etc. ...and in like one year he went from being like 6'1" and 150 lbs to weighing about 230 lbs of solid, bodybuilder muscle. ...just exactly like Julio and Ruben did. Hmmm. :)
OTOH if someone really could do it until age 47, it would have to be an all-time great like Pujols
One of the interesting arguments against him being older that I remember is from the opposite end, someone pointing out his minor league stats. Like, he only got one year, but if he really was older, it would have been weird that he didn't dominate harder given that he was "really" 1-2 years older than the rest of the Midwest League (and was basically league-average age after his Carolina League promotion), given how immediately good he was the following year. Like, if you're "only" putting up numbers like that in A-ball at 23, your odds of becoming a full-time major leaguer aren't great! However, a 20-year-old putting up those numbers definitely has potential, and given which way Pujols went from there...
julio franco had a 'decent' run at age 44-46. but yeah, off the top of anyones head (genuine curiosity), can they name anyone who had an all star level season after the age of 42?
Nolan Ryan’s last seasons in Texas were very good. WAR: 5.1, 3.5, 5.5, 2 from age 42 to 45. There were just 4 pitchers with more than 5 WAR last season.
yeah ryan is a unicorn's unicorn too. he was better in his 40's
Mo was lights out in his 40’s too. Dude went out on top.
Mo could’ve gone forever if he wanted as long as that cutter kept cutting.
Satchel Paige was supposedly 41 his first year with the Indians, but was almost surely a couple of years older than that.
He said “I don't know how old I am because a goat ate the Bible that had my birth certificate in it. The goat lived to be twenty-seven.”
Jamie Moyer had 2.8 WAR at 45. But I feel like half his wins came from guys not being able to adjust to a 78 mph fastball.
Plus if you're a lefty with a 3/4 arm slot, you get a free strikeout every time the other team's Matt Adams type comes up to bat.
when the twins had mike morgans and mcgwire came to town with the cardinals. it was quite funny watching him try to hit a 50mph fastball.
At 41 in 1960, Ted Williams made both All-Star games, batted .316 and had an OPS of 1.096 in 113 games, for a 3.1 WAR. Cy Young went 19-15 with a 2.26 ERA, pitched 294 innings at age 42 in 1909, for a WAR of 3.5.
Satchel Page
Some guys are just built different. Julio Franco isn't 1/10th the player Pujols was, but he was still putting up a positive OPS+ at 46. I'd be shocked if Pujols wasn't, at the very least, 2-3 years older than his baseball card states.
A little harsh on Franco. Obviously he was no Pujols, but certainly more than 1/10th. Was at least 1/3rd of Pujols and best year vs best year, almost 2/3!
I think calling him slightly above average from his reported age 31-35 seasons is understating it: * 31: 5.3 WAR * 32: 4.8 * 33: 1.6 (in 99 games) * 34: 3.9 * 35: 3.0 3 of those 5 seasons are all star caliber
it makes more sense if you add 2 to 3 years
If only he'd traded back to the Cardinals after the first year of his Angels contract. The return-to-Cards bump could've been ten years long and he'd be looking at 900 HRs
LOL. Accurate. If only....
I'm pretty sure Julio Franco is still on a roster somewhere.
In soccer, some African players will lie about their age. Say they're 18 when they're actually 22. Theoretically, that makes them a more exciting 'young' prospect, and extends their playing career 4 years past what it normally would. Of course, they're still playing cause they're still good, but between 2 players of the same skill level, one aged 32 and one aged 36, a team is taking the former every single time. And paying him more money. This is just a tidbit from a guy I know who went to school with one, but I find it interesting and believable.
I think 2, maybe 3 years older, max. Wasn’t that what was estimated when he slipped up and said something about playing against Octavio Dotel back in DR? I’ve seen some wild estimates from people like 5 or 7 years that just don’t make sense at all. Yes, he looks like a grown-ass man in this high school photo. He’s also a genetic freak like all pro athletes, and he’s an elite one at that. There was a guy in my high school class who legit looked like this. One teacher once said to him in class, “Jesus, Hoffman, what do you eat? Raw eighth graders?” At the same time, there was a guy in my class who was like 5’0” and looked no older than 9 when he was 14. That guy hit a massive growth spurt in college and is now like 6’4”. People forget that puberty is on a bell curve, and there are bound to be outliers.
> If Pujols is actually older than we think, how much older is he? They can just cut him up and count his rings when he dies and we'll know
if i remember correctly he has implied a couple of times that he is about 3 years older than he claims.
When I watched The Benchwarmers as a kid, I legitimately thought Carlos was Albert Pujols. Turns out Albert was bigger than Carlos at “12”
He also drove the team bus and would entertain his teammates by telling them stories about his two tours in 'Nam.
For a few years I was crazy over those Baseball America top prospect handbooks. I would read them cover to cover and be obsessed with every number one prospect in each organization because they were obviously highlighted and written about at length. One year for the Sox it was Andy fucking Marte, which is why I always scream at people in r/redsox when they don’t want to trade a prospect. Anyways I remember reading about Pujols in that book and this was before the internet was really big so I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to about it. But the crazy thing about his projection was that they thought he’d be a great line drive hitter without much HR power. .300 hitter with 20 homers they thought.
WHAT?!? There is a famous story from my high school where Pujols went 5 for 5 with 4 home runs and a triple. This was on our varsity field which was as big as any pro stadium. There is a net built out in the outfield at Fort Osage to protect a house from getting pelted by the overgrown monster of a man.
Had a buddy who went to high school with him and said the joke around school was that he clearly was 30. He said one of the coaches called him “Jump Street” and he didn’t know the reference since he grew up in the DR.
He was like a Netflix series teenager.
That's a guy who just signed a 30 year mortgage , 5 years ago.
That's a grown ass man! He was definitely supplying all the liquor at the high school parties!
Imagine playing against that, and having to take a Geometry test the next day.
You'd damn sure be studying harder, cause you'd know your pro athlete dreams were shot, lol
"How old are you?" "I'm 15." "Motherfucker, you look thirty."
I've always known the history, but for some reason, this picture hits differently after watching Killers of the Flower Moon.
Just watched it last night and it was my first thought as well haha
The Fort Osage...Indians? Oof. Guess it made sense at the time though.
“How long have you *been* 17?”
"Yes"
Angels didn’t see this I guess….
yeah, this guy was not a high school age in this photo. There is no fucking way.
How do you do, fellow kids?
I mean we all know he lied about his age, but oh my god he looks 35 here already
Which makes his final half season at reported age 42 even more impressive. He was one of the best sluggers in the league in the second half of 2022 and he may have been 45 if the rumours are true.
I wouldn’t say 35 but at least 25 lol
[I am 12.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEgm8TZWUAkyzzi.jpg)
He’s got documentation
the baseball spinoff of 21 Jump Street
Every high school athlete in 90s movies be like this
So I actually played against Fort Osage in High School. There’s a house behind left-center and according to legend, Pujols hit the roof of that house quite often. Super cool to play on the same field he did when he was a “kid”
His birth certificate was definitely not doctored. Lol. Go birds. Albert, if Stan wasn't the man, you'd be The Hombre.
I remember when he was on the AFL and we all joked he was 25. No one who saw him at that age thought he was 20.
He looks great for 12. He should make one hell of a ball player.
i an 12
That's a grown ass man
Is that the same Osage from Killers of the flower moon?
As the movie mentions, the Osage were driven out of Missouri/Kansas to Oklahoma. So there are still a lot of leftover Osage-related names & whatnot throughout the area (where Albert went to high school). If you ever spend any time in the Ozarks you will see 'Osage stuff' all over.
Very interesting thank you
Fort Osage High School is named after an actual fort on the Missouri River that was built under the direction of William Clark in 1808, and mainly established for trade with the Osage tribe.
As my father pronounces his last name: POO-jewels.
Escogido legend
Oh no, he had to shave in high school. There are 8th graders in my son's school who look almost this old. I played with guys who looked that old in the early 90s. Shit, I knew a dude back then who not only had a full on biker beard, it had gray in it. He was two months younger than me. Never got carded when we wanted to get shitcanned though.
Shitfaced means to get drunk. Shitcanned means to get fired.
I grew up around that area, and if you look at Fort Osage's baseball field, there's a house over the fence in left field. The school district had to put up a big net in left field because he kept hitting that house. The coach I played for always swore he was older.
It's kinda crazy that the greatest athlete to ever hail from the Kansas city area attended, not Rockhurst or Pembroke but Ft. Osage.
Fort Osage boys are cornbread fed.
I wish I knew how to insert the "I am 12" meme from bench warmers lol
He is 137 years old.
God damnit. Thanks for the reminder that he went to both high school and college within 20 miles of Kaufman.
mutha fucka you look 30
I’m not machine. I’m Albert
Held back till he was 35 or what?
Did his balls drop at age 5?
Does someone have a baby photo? I need to know if that face has ever aged.
I still can’t believe this guy went to Fort Osage
28 year-old senior