It’s an April afternoon in Kansas City, 15 miles from where Albert Pujols graduated high school, 250 miles from where he established himself as the best ballplayer in the first decade of the millennium.
Inside the visiting clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium, couches and chairs separate the expansive room in two. Pujols sits at the end of a row, next to his teenage son, A.J., who’s hanging around the team for the series. Adjacent to A.J. are several Angels, including Mike Trout.
A television suspended from the ceiling shows a game between Pittsburgh and the Chicago Cubs, which Trout and the others watch and comment on between bits of Words with Friends and other distractions on their mobile devices.