2001 Upper Deck Albert Pujols #295

I don't think I actually saw many Pujols rookie cards in his rookie year, so after all these years, I guess I'd like to add at least a couple to my PC - the 2001 Upper Deck and 2001 Bowman [#264] were the most 'widely' available rookie cards from Pujols' rookie year even though all his cards were in demand all season long.

While Pujols rookie card and rookie year issues were pumped out in mid through late season products, but I never had a chance to own but maybe two or three - including a factory set rookie year card from the 2001 Fleer Tradition, maybe an ugly Team Leaders subset card [#435] from 2001 Fleer Platinum RC Edition, a 2001 Topps Traded Pujols / Ichiro subset card [T99] and a 2001 Topps rookie card I bought at a card shop for a quarter maybe in 2002.

I remember finding the Topps Pujols in the particular card shop, when the quarter boxes were color coded with tabs - because the store owner was selling certain rows of cards on consignment.

The Topps rookie had a soft corner and I'd foolishly sent it to Pujols as a TTM autograph request - of course after 17 years, it never came back, even as a failure.

In recent years, the 38-year old Pujols hasn't been as relevant and still has at least 3 years left to go to play out his Angels contract [on the field] - however, Pujols' baseball accomplishments [short of a PED scandal] can't be taken away by what he has done away from St. Louis.

2018 Topps Living Set Albert Pujols #22

Pujols's Topps Living Set card maybe a topical pick-up since he collected his 3,000th hit and join three others with 3,000 hits / 600 home runs - it's not that I've completely warmed up to the Topps Living Set, but it's kind of a no-brainer to spend $5 on a Living Set card of a hot rookie or a guy from 'my team?'

Because it’s an ongoing set, I just don’t know if there will be any sort of completion or closure - but maybe a plan is to pick up Topps Living Set cards of Angels players when they pop up.

Congrats Albert Pujols on hitting 600 home runs

Go figure I was channel surfing between the Angels game and the NCAA regional baseball game in Long Beach when Pujols hit a grand slam for his 600th home run of his career - I may have missed the milestone by moments and figured something finally happened when I tuned back into the Angel game.

Maybe the coolest thing about the aftermath is when the Angels TV guys were interviewing the guy who caught the home run ball - the Angels fan was really excited and was just in awe as he was teased about asking for Mike Trout stuff [by Victor Rojas] once he gave the ball back to Pujols and then about getting a chance to breathe [by Mark Gubicza].