Pujols and Change
Posted on December 9, 2011
Albert Pujols is part of that one-percent that the President and the Occupy Wall Street People hate so much.
He translated his enormous talent and hard work into hundreds of millions of dollars and instead of being faithful to a city, he decided to be faithful to his family, and take a huge pay increase.
A lot of St. Louis fans are going to be upset about Big Al’s decision, but I say more power to him. But that is just me. And I am a Republican.
Pujols is one of the good ones. He gives millions of dollars away to help kids in his home town of Santo Domingo. He has a daughter who has Down’s Syndrome, so he is especially active in helping kids in that community. 60 Minutes once did a story about Pujols and the prom he hosts for Down’s Syndrome kids. It was very moving.
Now, Pujols is moving to Anaheim, where he can become a Designated Hitter and terrorize pitchers in the American League. Keep in mind, though, that American League pitchers are better than National League pitchers, so the transition might be more rocky than he anticipates.
But Pujols understands that nothing stays the same forever. Things change, and you have to change with the times.
The world of sports is an obvious place to confirm that things change. Players get old. Leagues wear out their welcome. Strikes happen.
Look what is happening with college sports.
Revenue from football is killing the college part of college sports. It is quickly becoming one big fraud. Players are recruited purely because they can run fast or hit hard. Reading is optional. Writing is a luxury. Math? Forget about it.
The colleges recruit the kids and then don’t pay them. In fact, they have rules that are rigidly enforced to make certain that the kids can’t even get some extra benefits, like maybe a steak dinner or tickets to a concert. Most of these kids are desperately poor and wouldn’t know what to do with a college degree if they had one put in their hands tomorrow. They go to college because they want to play professional sports and make it big time. It rarely works out. But the colleges make a bundle, especially the college coaches.
You wonder why nobody wanted to probe a little deeper into the activities of Joe Paterno’s coaching staff? He was a money maker for Penn State, and not one dime of that was going to the kids.
But I digress.
My bigger point is that things change and how you succeed in life is all predicated on how you adapt to change.
For example, things are now changing for Mitt Romney. He thought he had the nomination in the bag. But something happened on the way to the White House. And that something is Newt Gingrich. The Newtster – the man who had the worst campaign start in history – is now surging in the lead. Will it hold? Will he win? Will he implode?
Who knows? But we do know that this campaign will change. And how Romney can adapt to that change will tell us a lot about how he will hold up during the Presidential campaign, should he get the nomination.
One more thing before I sign off for the week. Albert Pujols scored a perfect 100 on his citizenship test. He is a perfect example of why we welcome immigrants into this country, and the fact that he chose to become an American citizen tells you why America is still a great country.
Immigration is all about change. And it keeps the good old U.S. of A. fresh and vibrant and the leader of the free world.