BA. as in Batting Average

            In Albert Pujols’s eleven year career he has only had one season where his batting average did not exceed .300. I believe the reason he did not reach his career average this past year was due to injuries and constant stress of where he would end up this year. Throughout last year he had been struggling with the decision of whether or not to stay with the Cardinals and move on to another team. The worst part about his failure to reach a .300 was that he reached a heart breaking .299 batting average.  In his eleven years he has an average of .328 and a high of .356. These numbers may not seem too impressive to anyone who does not know baseball, because the stats only mean he has only gotten a hit once out of every three at bats. Since the first professional baseball league in 1871 there have only been 25 men who had a career average of .330 but with one stipulation of a minimum of 5,000 at bats. Of those 25 players, 22 of them are currently members of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. I believe that had he not had a season that was so far below what he was capable of last year then he would be among those prestigious men. Currently Albert Pujols has a total of 6312 at bats and 2073 of those at bats were hits. There may be men who have higher batting career batting averages, but none of those men are currently in the MLB or have not had enough experience to be ranked among the best hitters of all time. There is no doubt in my mind that Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the Major League today.