Albert Pujols Wins NL MVP.

Like many people around this part of the country (some call it ‘Red Sox Nation’…I just call it New England), I really don’t get to see too much National League baseball over the course of the season.

Sure, I watch the Red Sox play inter-league games and towards the end of the season, I watch just about every baseball game on TV, but this season, I don’t think I watched a single minute of St. Louis Cardinals baseball.

It’s not my fault. I can’t afford a baseball package that would give me every game and the Cardinals weren’t competing for a playoff spot down the stretch so I just didn’t see them.

And come to think of it, World Series appearances aside, I really haven’t watched much St. Louis Cardinals baseball over the course of the Pujols’ career.

I know his numbers were out of this world. His On base Percentage was absurd (.462) he put up typical Pujols power numbers (37 HR, 116 RBI) and had a .357 batting average.

This is his second MVP and he has finished in the top 3 in voting in 6 of his 8 years in the Majors.

But to me, all of those numbers are just numbers. I haven’t seen him play enough to know that he gets on base almost half the time he gets up to bat. I don’t even know what his batting stance looks like (off the top of my head).

I know things about Pujols. I knew he still wasn’t 30. I knew he had around 300 career home runs. I know what I’ve read about him.

I’d have to say, baseball is probably the absolute worst sport at showcasing talent.

Part of it is the ridiculous 162 game schedule where one game never means much in reality. It makes the idea of watching a mid-season Sunday Night Baseball game between the Cardinals and the Reds seem like less fun than watching grass grow.

Hell, unless I’m AT a Red Sox game or it is during the playoffs or I am watching it surrounded by friends while discussing other things or playing poker, I have a tendency to get bored then as well (and they are my home team!).

I’ve always felt that way. Baseball is so incredibly slow and so little actually happens. I could watch any Hockey or Basketball game because, the seasons are half as long as the baseball season and you get the sense that every game means something. Plus, even if it is early in the year (like right now), there is constant action. It isn’t like watching paint dry.

The NFL has the perfect sport though. 16 games. Every one of them matters. Constant action. Always something at stake. I would watch every NFL game every season if I could.

And all though I’m familiar with the sight of Pujols hitting a home run, I have SEEN and remember Adrian Peterson ripping through defenses.

I don’t watch the Pittsburgh Penguins regularly at all, put I know what Sidney Crosby can do.

I hate the Lakers, but I am very very familiar with how great Kobe Bryant is.

Yet with Albert Pujols, it’s hard for me to even remember a highlight from a home run he hit this season (off the top of my head…I can’t).

That’s not a knock on Pujols. Mostly, I blame Bud Selig.

Oh, and the purists who think that 4 hour and 37 minute games are what baseball is all about can go to hell.