Albert Pujols’ Pitching Debut Fells Behind Lena Blackburne


The fact that Albert Pujols first took the mound as a 42-year-old pitcher and didn’t set a record is all you need to know about the depth of Major League Baseball’s record books.

He was there on Sunday, a burly first baseman in the final days of his famous career, throwing 61 mph balls and 54 mph curves in the ninth inning. He lit up with three hits (two of them homers), a walk, and four earned runs by the San Francisco Giants, but came away with the title. second-the oldest player to take the field for the first time since at least 1929.

Sorry Albert, Lena Blackburne beat you.

Despite poor results and lack of superiority, Pujols turned into a much happier version of himself landed once with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season and it looks like who carried it return to LouisHe seemed amused by everything.

“To say I did it was a dream come true,” he told reporters. “It was fun. Giving up two bombs wasn’t fun. I think the fans were having a good time. I’m sure the guys who got me deep did, too.”

At 42, 119 days old, Pujols was 106 days behind Chicago White Sox manager Blackburne and threw himself into a blast in 1929, at 42 years and 225 days old. Both were older than Satchel Paige, who made her debut in an American League game in 1948 at 42 years and 2 days after starting her major league career in the Negro leagues in 1927.

At least Pujols can hang his hat on having 677 more infield hits than Blackburne, who was technically still a player-manager in 1929 but has only been in one other game since 1919.

Pujols’ appearance in the Cardinals 15-6 wins It was a hit on social media, and Giants’ Evan Longoria had so much fun after advancing two runners into a single that he asked for the ball to be reclaimed for him. That’s a much better welcome than the Blackburne and White Sox got after a 17-2 defeat to the Boston Red Sox in 1929.

The news in The New York Times was as follows: quite a fewbut Irving Vaughan of The Chicago Tribune looked absolutely disgusted with the White Sox in the newspaper the next day. But Vaughan hid his anger at the team rather than the manager, who warmed up in the bunker with backup catcher Buck Crouse before he went on clean-up duty.

“The White Sox is no longer funny; poor ones,” Vaughan wrote. “They came to this stage today when the Boston club in the back-end shot them like a pack of tin soldiers, the sight so disturbing to Manager Lena Blackburne that she took on the firing load herself in the eighth place and was eighth to stop the riot who shot. Dan Dugan’s It was beyond his control.”

It was a kind of gift for Blackburne to finish the game. He came in with two exits at the end of the eighth round and immediately gave two running singles to Jack Rothrock, the only hitter he faced. Rothrock, however, was kicked out when he tried to double down – whether this was a tribute to the White Sox was not discussed in the news at the time.

As for Pujols, although he finished his task by technically finishing without using another reliever, which is the gold standard of a position player shooting, it seems highly unlikely that he will retake the top. And in a sport where things have gone bad in sportsmanship, both teams have split without being accused of unwritten rules violations.

The only victims in this matter were Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina, who set the major league record for most wins together as a battery – 203 to 202 that Warren Spahn and Del Crandall had accumulated from 1949 to 1963 – only to have them. . success was marred somewhat by a soft wasteful slug.

Don’t worry: Wainwright and Molina got a pretty heinous celebration to honor the feat by pouring almond milk and soda on their teammates at the clubhouse.

“It’s a blessing to be able to do this with him for the time we have,” said Wainwright of Molina, who has been with him for 311 games and continues to count.



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