Los Angeles Angels slugger Albert Pujols is 35, and he’s signed with the team through the 2021 season. But Pujols may just retire a year early. He has a pretty good reason.
For a few minutes on his first day in Angels camp on Sunday, Pujols stopped being a major leaguer and became just a 35-year-old dad excited about his daughter Sophia’s recent gymnastics accomplishments.
Sophia is apparently good enough that she’s in an elite program training 35 hours a week. She has her sights set on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, even though the current rules for Olympic women’s gymnastics have an age limit of 16 and she would be 14.
The Games, which would fall right in the middle of the penultimate season of Pujols’ 10-year, $240-million deal with the Angels, could prompt a radical move by the slugger.
“That might be the year I have to retire,” Pujols said with a smile. “You can put that in paper. I don’t want to miss it.”
But what if Pujols — who is completely healthy entering spring training for the first time since 2012 — keeps hitting home runs at the pace he’s hit them over the course of his career (he has 520 at the moment)? That would put him at 705 homers after the 2019 season, just 57 behind Barry Bonds. Of course, Pujols hasn’t hit more than 30 since the 2011 season, so it’s probably a moot point, but still, something to think about.
After spending the first 17 years of his Post career writing and editing, Matt and the printed paper had an amicable divorce in 2014. He's now blogging and editing for the Early Lead and the Post's other Web-based products.
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