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The Pujols Awards: Week 11

The Alberts

Strength and conditioning coach Tim Buss experienced the agony and the ecstasy of life with the Cubs in a few short hours Tuesday.

When the Cubs began practice in the morning, Aramis Ramirez pointed to a wrecked '95 Nissan Sentra near the Cubs bullpen and asked: "Hey, 'Bussy,' what's your car doing on the ramp?"

Buss looked over at the wreck and replied: "That's not my car."

But then Buss did a double take.

"Dude," he said to Ramirez. "That's my car!"

Buss soon discovered his car was demolished beyond recognition, but this was no ordinary crime. The car windows all had been smashed in, the front, back and sides all were severely dented and the smoking guns—a couple of baseball bats and balls—were strategically placed in the windshield.

"I figured (Jon) Lieber, (Kerry) Wood immediately, (Ryan) Dempster …" he said. "Then I realized it was every pitcher we have."

The Cubs players played dumb while Buss silently fumed and wondered how he was going to tell his wife, who was the actual owner of the car.

"It's a shame," Lieber said with a straight face. "What kind of person would do something like that? It really just shocks me. I'm sure she'll understand."

After the workout ended, Dempster told Buss to "quit pouting" and come with him to the weight room to "see something."

As they walked out the back door, Buss saw several players and a 2008 Nissan Xterra parked in the walkway. Dempster gave him the keys for the new SUV, valued at about $25,000.

"I thought they lost their mind," Buss said. "I thought, 'I'm going to have to call Dr. Phil and have a team meeting.' I couldn't figure out what they were doing."

Buss nearly was moved to tears by the players' generosity.

"They're great guys," he said.

As much as it pains me to do it, I would like to nominate the New York Yankees for an Albert. They left the friendly/temperate confines of Florida for Blacksburg, Va. to face the Virginia Tech Hokies on Tuesday. One would have expected few of their elite players to make such an inconvenient trip, but all the stars decided they had to be there.

For three innings, the stars of the New York Yankees took the field with honor and integrity. They honored the school, the sport, and those who were tragically killed in last year's attacks. The organization showed itself to be the very definition of class. Alex Rodriguez called it his proudest moment in a Yankees uniform. If anyone is deserving of an Albert this week, it's the members of the New York Yankees from the front office all the way down.

Ichiro temporarily broke his hitless streak for ST. The streak has some people wringing their hands in
despair or sneering that he's over the hill (they're the ones who thought he was overrated to start with).

But Ichiro takes it all in stride, as he does everything. The streak isn't worthy of an award, but I thought his quote was:

"I'm not sure what my next challenge is but for today, my feeling is sad, sad to say goodbye," he said. "Part of me is sad that it couldn't have gone on a little longer. But part of me realizes I have to show some results."

Ichiro said that as far as he knew, no one with the team was commemorating the hit. "I was planning to keep the ball and send it to Cooperstown but I couldn't get the ball back and make it a reality."

It sounds like a cheap hit. From Geoff Baker's blog: "Call off those Ichiro burials. He notched a hit in his first at-bat. An infield single that probably would have been a routine 4-3 groundout had first baseman Justin Leone (yes, him) not gone wandering 20 feet off his bag for no good reason. Anyhow, it's a hit. We can stop tracking this silliness. Ichiro is now 1-for-22 this spring and even has a run scored, since he came racing home on a Raul Ibanez single that cut the Giants' lead to 2-1."

He went 0-2 after the hit.

The Luis

"I Will Not Slide Into Second Base With My Spikes High"

March 14, 2008, New York—Bob Watson, MLB's dean of discipline, has handed Shelley Duncan an additional punishment resulting from last week's Yankee-Tampa Rays flareup, ordering the Yankee first baseman to write, "I will not slide into second base with my spikes high," 500 times on college-ruled paper.

"Bummer," said a subdued Duncan.

Rays manager Joe Maddon, already incensed at the lightness of Duncan's three-game suspension, erupted again at this new penalty. "He pulls a punk-ass stunt and this is all he gets? Anybody can write!"

“The Bud”

As long as you're handing out "Buds" for slimy and sleazy conduct, I think Bud Selig and MLB as a whole should get a Bud for reneging on their oral promise to compensate the coaches and training staff. Selig is making somewhere in the ballpark of $15 million per season to turn a blind eye to the Jeffery Lorias of the world, and yet the sport itself cannot pony up somewhere in the nature of $1.5 million. The players are in the clubhouse, and it appears that no game will get played today. There is no joy in Mudville, Major League Baseball has struck out.

For blatant hypocrisy, attempts to rewrite history, profiting from the steroid era (to the tune of a $15 million-plus compensation package) while punishing players for doing likewise and ignoring his role (in the steroid era) I bequeath the following to the commissioner of baseball (well ... y'know).