This should be the first line of Albert Pujols’s future plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame:
Only player in major league history with 3,000 hits, 600 home runs and multiple World Series championships.
There is more to say, much more. But the engraver could stop there and let the simplicity stay with each visitor. It is a truly astonishing distinction. Only one other 600-homer hitter, Babe Ruth, won a title more than once — and pitchers walked Ruth so often that they never let him get to 3,000 hits.
Pujols, who was designated for assignment by the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday, created similar fear in his prime.