prince albert's career is in the can

22 years ago today, albert pujols made his major league debut. he was 1 for 3 with a single off of mike hampton, and he was caught stealing with his team down by six runs. in his fourth game, he broke out and was hitting .370 when april 2001 came to an end.

his 2023 topps card, a fantastic final tribute, 

was one of the cards i bought from the last dealer i visited at the february card show. i actually bought two of them, since the photo used on the card was taken in dodger stadium.  here's the back:

that's a lot of stats!

if you'll recall, the first dealer i bought from at that show had boxes of 2023 topps inserts for fifty cents each. i grabbed three pujols parallels - rainbow foil, gold foil, and gold #/2023

to include in my final tribute collection as well. i am very happy that topps kept pujols in the checklist even though it was well known that he was retiring.  it seems that perhaps things are changing with fanatics taking over as far as player representation? i understand that tom brady will get a card in a bowman release this year due to his relationship with fanatics. time will tell, i guess.

i am old enough to remember pujols coming out of spring training that year and starting his career off with a bang - he was hitting .360 in early june for goodness sakes! unfortunately, i was too slow to pick him up in my fantasy league and missed out. i did have the foresight to draft another rookie that year, however. some guy named ichiro suzuki.

time marches on, and as vin scully said "it's a mere moment in a man's life between an all-star game and an old-timers game". thankfully, i am not old enough to have made crank calls asking about prince albert in a can - i heard that one from my dad.