In his first game at Maple Woods, Pujols hit a grand slam and turned a triple play. In the regional playoffs against Jefferson, Pujols hit what the opposing pitcher later would remember to be "a bomb, an absolute bomb." The pitcher? Mark Buehrle, now the ace for the White Sox.

While teammates conducted themselves like college students, Pujols maintained his focus on the majors. He did not drink. On the team bus, he sat up front with the coaches and talked about hitting. He batted .461. Though he was assured by scouts he'd be drafted in the first five rounds, rumors lingered — Pujols would develop a weight problem; he didn't have a major league position; he was really two years older than he claimed.

So he dropped all the way to the Cardinals in the 13th round, the 402nd player chosen. "That," Kilgore says, "was very frustrating. I tried to tell him a lot of scouts in the Midwest don't know what they're doing. But that did not help."

And it did not stop there. The scout who drafted Pujols for the Cardinals, Dave Karaff, paid a visit to Pujols' house after the draft. He was bearing the team's offer: $10,000. Karaff politely suggested Pujols take it. After all, who knows how long he'd last in the big leagues? Pujols suggested, a bit less politely, that Karaff get out of his house.

"All that stays with him, absolutely," Mihlfeld says. "Albert is a hard-headed guy. He does not forget. He doesn't hold grudges, but there is no question that motivates him every day."

Later in the summer, with Pujols expecting to go back to college, the Cardinals upped their offer to $60,000 — enough to provide some security in case baseball did not work out. He married Deidre on New Year's Day 2000, then spent the year climbing up the organizational chart. After the season, Pujols was informed he'd earned an invitation to spring training.

"When he said that, I was kidding him about how neat it was going to be, throwing to Mark McGwire during infield," Kilgore says. "I mean, no one expected Albert to be on the team right away. But Albert looked at me, dead serious, and just said, 'I am not going there to throw to Mark McGwire. I am going there to make the team.' "

He did. For Pujols, clearly, there was no way baseball would not work out.

After a win over Arizona last weekend, Pujols' 5-year-old son, Albert Jr., climbed down from the large leather sofa in the Cardinals clubhouse, guided by outfielder John Rodriguez, and slipped into the back room where the Cardinals' postgame buffet was laid out. He emerged laughing with Rodriguez and eating a large piece of bread slathered in butter.

Pujols shook his head. "You're going to get fat like (Rodriguez)," he warned. "You can't be a ballplayer if you're fat! You've got to eat good things." He laughed and scooped his still-munching son with one arm as he exited.

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