Real or not? Vintage Pujols was about as good as hitting gets

There are three old scouting reports of Albert Pujols on the Baseball Hall of Fame website. The first is from a Royals scout named Gary Johnson, filed in November 1998 after Pujols had gone undrafted out of high school in Missouri. This was the most positive of the reports. "Good bat spd. with very strong hands," Johnson wrote. "Can hit up the middle but tends to pull. Competes well & battles at the plate." Johnson gave him a future grade of 5 for his hitting and 6 for power and gave him a value of $80,000 and thought him worthy of a pick from Rounds 8 to 10 in the 1999 draft.

The second report is dated March 26, 1999, when Pujols was playing shortstop for Maple Woods Community College in…