Kyle Ericson / AP

Albert Pujols is not only a great player, he's "the perfect player," according to his manager, Tony La Russa.

He turned 29 in January, has a career average of .335 in his ninth season with the Cardinals, helped win the 2006 World Series and has won two Most Valuable Player awards.

“Just look at what he did,” La Russa said. “He’s got great instincts, just wants to win. Every 10 times he does something, eight times it works. He’s playing to help you win. The other day he was upset because he didn’t move the runner across.”

La Russa then muttered something about Pujols being in a “middle generation” and he ended with the names Aaron and Musial. He didn’t give their first names, but it sounded like a compliment to Pujols.

Oh, and Pujols is also a hands-on philanthropist. He and his wife, Deidre, who have a daughter with Down syndrome, operate the Pujols Family Foundation, giving help to similar families. Having moved from the Dominican Republic to Independence, Mo., to live with family members when he was 16, Pujols is a fixture in the region. He is approaching the careers of Brock and Sisler, Hornsby and Gibson, among the icons honored by two-thirds-scale statues outside left field. There are currently 10 statues, with Mark McGwire’s under lock and key for the foreseeable future.

Pujols is more often compared to another icon these days. On a very nippy opening day here, he was photographed buttoning the jacket of the 88-year-old Stan Musial, who was about to be receive an ovation.

“He called me over,” Pujols recalled Thursday. “He wanted to say hello.” It is good company to be keeping. Musial came here from the Monongahela Valley south of Pittsburgh, and stayed. Pujols looks as if he has staying power, too.

“Do I want to be in St. Louis forever?” Pujols said in spring training. “Of course, because that city has opened the door to me and my family like no other city is ever going to do.”

He reserved the right to leave, but said he did not expect any baseball town to ever compare with St. Louis. The organization might want to commission at least a few rough sketches for one of those statues.

This article, "For Now, Pujols Is at Home in St. Louis," first appeared in The New York Times.

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