In the 1999 MLB Draft, Josh Hamilton went first to the Rays, Josh Beckett went second to the Marlins, and 399 other players were selected before the Cardinals finally took a chance on Albert Pujols, with the 18th pick in the MLB. round 13.
"It’s a chip in my shoulder that I’ll have for the rest of my career, until I’m out of uniform."Pujols said in 2016. "i still think about it".
Even the benefits of modern technology and the reams of analytical data collected by today’s headquarters cannot eliminate the subjective and uncertain nature of the process. Preliminary results are rarely kind to the benefit of hindsight. And the 1999 version remains a classic example of how easy it can be to overlook young players, because it took only 24 months for Pujols to go from an unannounced recruit to one of the best players in the game.
He thought the Rays would make him their second pick, after Hamilton, but they didn’t budge.
They told him he could go within the first five rounds, but it never happened.
He thought the Mets would catch him in the ninth round, but his manager at the time, a lawyer-turned-agent who allegedly scared teams with his financial demands, went overboard.
He thought the Red Sox would take him in Round 10, but they didn’t offer to pay for his education, which Pujols required as an alternative option if baseball didn’t work out.
The Cardinals ended up getting him a $30,000 signing bonus, with another $30,000 promised for college tuition that Pujols ultimately never needed.
"I told my wife I was going to play three years in the Minors, and if I don’t make it, I’m going to retire."Pujols said during his tenure with the Angels."I was frustrated at the time. If he was still playing in the minors, he would have kept playing. But it took me a year, man. And that was just to prove people wrong".
Of the 402 players selected ahead of Pujols, 290 never played a game in the majors. The Angels made the 401st pick, drafting a Mexican-born shortstop named Alfredo Amezaga, who carved out a modest nine-year career primarily as a utility infielder.
Amezaga still makes fun of Pujols for it.
"I say it all the time: every organization failed that year"Fernando Arango, a retired scout who was with the Rays at the time, said in Spanish."They all did, because not even the Cardinals knew what they had".
Arango remains one of Pujols’s closest friends, a man who Pujols says "understand my swing better than anyone".
It started at a baseball tournament in the small town of Republic, Mo., in 1997. Arango, then an area scout covering Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas, heard about a thick-bodied, powerful third baseman. at a high school about 150 miles away and felt compelled to meet him at a local tournament.
Arango introduced himself to Pujols that day. They made small talk, exchanged phone numbers, promised to stay in touch, and by the spring of 1999, Arango was hooked.
He sat in the stands to watch Pujols, at the time a shortstop, play for Maple Woods Community College and smash two baseballs into tall trees well beyond the 375-foot left center field fence. from the dish.
Arango said: "They sounded like two cannon shots".
That May, Arango met with Dan Jennings, then the Rays’ scouting director, and Stan Meek, one of his cross-checkers, at a hotel near the Houston airport. He told them with conviction that the kid Pujols he was following would one day hit 40 home runs in the Major Leagues and, as Arango recalls, "They looked at me like I was crazy".
Nevertheless, Jennings was intrigued. He told Arango to take Pujols to a presentation at Tropicana Field later that month, the only pre-draft event Pujols was invited to.
He ran the 60-yard dash in 7.1 seconds, hit a baseball off the top of the left-field foul pole and even ducked behind home plate for the first time in his life, producing a time of 1.85 seconds that was well below the mark. above average. for his age group, according to Arango.
Arango came out of that workout almost certain the Rays would take Pujols with their second- or third-round pick. But the Rays weren’t so impressed. They took Carl Crawford in the second round, then went with four pitchers: Doug Waechter, Alex Santos, Seth McClung and Eric Henderson.
"I could not believe it"Arango said."I’m like, ‘What’s going on here?’"
Arango saw a tough guy with a disciplined approach, a rocket arm, elite defensive instincts and off-the-wall makeup. Others worried that Pujols was older than he claimed, or that he was overweight, or that he didn’t have a job. So they passed it by.
Arango was so upset that the Rays ignored his recommendation that he resigned a year later, eventually spending time as an agent and making stops at a couple of other organizations until retiring last October.
Pujols spent the summer of 1999 playing in the Jayhawk Collegiate League. He signed in August, homered in his first two at-bats for the Cardinals’ instructional league the following fall, played one season in the minor leagues the following summer, and then began the longest 10-year streak in history. of the Major Leagues. .
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