Albert Pujols wins NL Most Valuable Player Award

Posted on November 24, 2009

Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals bats during the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California on Sunday, May 31, 2009. (Photo by Brad Mangin/MLB Photos)

 

It came as no surprise to any baseball fan this morning when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols was officially named the winner of the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award. This award was one of the easiest to predict in a long time as Pujols was a unanimous choice receiving all 32 first place votes to claim his third MVP award and second in a row.

The Cardinals slugger led the majors in home runs (47), runs (124), slugging percentage (.658) and intentional walks (44), and topped the NL in on-base percentage (.443). He is an awesome hitter to watch and seems to be going deep every night during the season when I watch SportsCenter on ESPN.

I first photographed a young Pujols way back in 2001 when Sports Illustrated assigned me to travel to Phoenix to shoot the season opening series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Albert’s Cardinals at Bank One Ballpark (see above). The second game of the series was on a Saturday and the roof was open- so I was able to shoot chrome! It was an great chance to shoot some nice light in a domed stadium with a retractable roof that was usually NEVER open. I was not very familiar with Pujols, especially since I cover spring training in Arizona and the Cardinals train in Florida. Pujols would not be an unknown player in my eyes for much longer.

The most frustrating part of being a baseball photographer on the west coast is that great players from the east coast or mid west like Pujols only come out west to play the Bay Area teams once a season. This means that many years I only have one real crack at shooting a superstar like Pujols one time in the sunshine, unless I travel somewhere else like Dodger Stadium (see above).

We have also had the chance to shoot Pujols and the Cardinals a second time in the Bay Area during the season during inter league play when the Red Birds have come to the Oakland Coliseum to play the Oakland A’s (see above). Whenever this happens pretty much all I do is concentrate on Pujols. As time goes on it does not take a baseball historian to realize that Pujols is one of the greatest sluggers to ever wear a big league uniform, and my job is to do the best job I can and document the living history that is playing out in front of my camera a few precious days a season.

Over the years I have had the chance to photograph Albert on the biggest of stage of the all- the World Series. I shot him and his team getting swept by the Boston Red Sox in 2004 (above) and beating the Detroit Tigers in 2006. Interestingly he did not perform well in either Fall Classic. I would say that this is one area where he needs to do better to ice his career as one of the greatest to ever lace them up.

I had the chance to photograph Pujols many times during this 2009 season and tried my best to shoot him doing everything on the field and in the dugout. Since I started shooting pre-game candid stuff of the players in the visiting dugouts this year it was only natural that I tried to shoot Albert getting ready for a game against the Giants in San Francisco (see above).

Once Pujols took the field I needed to try and move around as much as possible to get good angles of him batting from both sides of the plate, playing defense at first base and running the bases (see above). As funny as it may seem, photographing Pujols batting- from both first and third base- has been difficult for me. Maybe I have just run into bad luck but more often than not I get a bad swing or a strike out.

Since I have not had good luck shooting Pujols from the traditional spots outside first or outside third base I will often try and shoot him from one of my favorite spots at the Giants home park. This is a place we call inside first base. This is a great spot where I can shoot right handed batters from a low angle. This is where I try and get the batter hitting the ball while still being able to see his face. I finally got the image of Albert I wanted from this spot back in 2005 at AT&T Park (see above).

The absolute worst thing that can happen when the Cardinals come to town is for Pujols to take a day off and not play during the only day game of the series. This happens quite often on Sunday afternoons in the big leagues when many managers will trot out their “Sunday Lineups” full of scrubs in order to give their starters a day off after playing a night game on Saturday. I hate it when this happens. On days like this I then have to work the dugout to try and get a nice frame of Pujols (see above) and hope he pinch hits.

While gathering photographs to publish with this story today I had a nice look into my archive of Pujols images. I realized what I had and what I was missing. I am thrilled to have stuff of him playing in the first World Baseball Classic in 2006 (see above) and in his first series in the Majors back in 2001. I also see many holes in my collection that I hope to patch up in the coming years.

I photographed Pujols for the last time of the 2009 season during Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium (see above). The Cardinals dropped this opening game of the short series and ended up getting swept in three straight. Once again Pujols did not have a good post season series. As Pujols goes, so go the Cardinals and their offense never got going in this series.

I already have Saturday, April 24, 2010 and Sunday, April 25, 2010 circled on my calendar. Why you ask? Those are the two day games Pujols and the visiting Cardinals are scheduled to play against my Giants in San Francisco. I will be out there doing my best to document history and add great images to Albert Pujols to my archive. As for the Friday night, April 23? I will try and pick that game in my season ticket draft and attend the game with some friends.