Independence, Mo. — 250 years ago, a room full of men in Philadelphia signed a piece of paper and told a king to go pound sand. Everything we are grew out of that afternoon. So on this Fourth of July, the country’s 250th birthday, you’re owed a baseball story worthy of the candles.
You could reach for the no-hitter from 43 summers ago — the one somebody tries to hand you every single year around now, the ancient Yankees-Red Sox relic. Respectfully, no. That game has been over longer than most of the people reading this have been alive. It doesn’t have a pulse. It has a plaque.
Here’s one that still breathes. And it happens to be the most American baseball story I know — which is a funny thing to say, because the hero was born about 1,500 miles south of here, in Santo Domingo.
St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols laugh in the dugout during a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
From Santo Domingo to Independence, Missouri
Albert Pujols came up poor in the Dominican Republic — the kind of poor where a milk carton becomes a glove, and a handful of limes become baseballs. His father was a softball pitcher who battled the bottle. He was raised in large part by his grandmother, a woman named — and you cannot make this up on the Fourth of July — América.
In 1996, at 16 years old, he crossed into the United States. New York first, Washington Heights, long enough to see a man shot in a bodega. Then the family did what generations of new Americans have done: they went looking for somewhere safer to build a life. They found it in a Kansas City suburb called Independence, Missouri.
St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire is congratulated by on-deck batter Albert Pujols following his fifth-inning three-run homer off Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Kevin Tapani that scored Placido Polanco (27) and Jim Edmonds (15) at Busch Stadium in St. Louis Monday, June 18, 2001. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)
Sit with that for one second. The immigrant kid who couldn’t speak the language landed in a town named Independence. He learned English in the hallways of Fort Osage High School and hit .449 as a shortstop, dragging the school to a state championship. Nobody wanted him. The Cardinals finally took him in the 13th round in 1999 — the 402nd player picked — and dangled a $10,000 bonus he was in no hurry to sign. 401 players went ahead of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols PLAYING THE OUTFIELD! Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Kyle Ericson)
The Fourth of July Knockdown — and Kerry Wood’s Long, Bad Idea
Which brings us to a running argument between Albert Pujols and the Chicago Cubs, and to a Cubs pitcher named Kerry Wood, who spent the better part of a decade conducting the same experiment: put a baseball somewhere near Albert Pujols and see what happens. The findings never changed.
St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols is hit by a pitch thrown by Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Kerry Wood during the eighth inning of a baseball game on Saturday, June 4, 2011, in St. Louis. Pujols hit a walkoff home run in the 12th inning to defeat the Cubs 5-4. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Exhibit A: July 4, 2003, at Wrigley Field — enemy dirt. Wood put a fastball up and in and knocked Pujols flat on Independence Day. Wrong guy, wrong day. On the very next pitch, Pujols deposited his 25th home run of the season over the center-field wall and into a bleacher full of suddenly quiet Cubs fans. Mike Shannon, the late, great voice of the Cardinals, was on the radio doing what Shannon did — losing his mind in the best possible way, hollering, “take a ride on that Fourth of July knockdown pitch, big boy,” and then handing down the only verdict that ever mattered: “That’s how you play baseball.” No glare, no bat flip, no charge to the mound. You take the next pitch, and you hit it into the seats. Go watch it.
Better yet, listen to the audio from the legendary MIKE SHANNON:
Mike Shannon calls Albert Pujols vs. Kerry Wood – July 4, 2003 #stlcards pic.twitter.com/URElul2imv
— Tom Ackerman (@Ackerman1120) April 30, 2023
Exhibit B: eight years later, June 4, 2011. Wood — now a Cubs reliever, memory apparently wiped clean — drilled Pujols with a pitch in the eighth inning. Pujols waited until the 12th and beat the Cubs anyway, with a walk-off home run, because of course he did. Then, in case anybody in Chicago had missed the lesson, he walked them off again the very next afternoon.
St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols is hit by a pitch during a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Saturday, June 4, 2011, in St. Louis. The Cardinals won 5-4. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols watches his walkoff home run during the 12th inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Saturday, June 4, 2011, in St. Louis. The Cardinals won 5-4. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
The Kerry Wood file deserves its own wing. This is a man who once struck out 20 big-league hitters in a single game — and the batter he faced more than any other in his entire career was a Cardinal, Jim Edmonds, who slugged .615 off him. Wood, it turns out, was a gift to St. Louis hitters. To Albert Pujols, he was practically a charitable foundation: 47 plate appearances, a .333 average, three home runs, and four — four — strikeouts, with a pair of hit-by-pitches thrown in for spite. Pujols hit 59 home runs against the Cubs, all told, more than he hit against any franchise but Houston. Somewhere, there is a version of Kerry Wood who simply stopped throwing at Albert Pujols. We never got to meet him.
February 7: The Day Albert Pujols Became an American
On Feb. 7, 2007, in a federal courthouse in St. Louis, Albert Pujols raised his right hand and became a citizen of the United States. He reportedly scored a perfect 100 on the test. He did not stop being Dominican to do it — he wore his country’s colors in the World Baseball Classic, and he still carries Santo Domingo in everything he does. He simply became both. That is not a contradiction. That is the whole idea. That is the country.
St. Louis Cardinals Albert Pujols watches batting practice before his team’s spring training baseball game against the Florida Marlins at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla. Friday, Mar. 9, 2007. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)
Still the Connective Tissue: Pujols and the World Baseball Classic
Which is why the most important photograph in this gallery isn’t the knockdown or the walk-off or even the 700th home run. It’s the one from Mexicali, February 2025: Pujols in Dominican colors, arm around Robinson Canó, celebrating a Caribbean Series title he’d just won as a manager. He clinched it on Feb. 7 — 18 years to the day after he raised his right hand in that St. Louis courthouse. The man collects Februaries.
Dominican Republic manager Albert Pujols named Johnny Cueto his starter for the club’s second game of the Caribbean Series against the Japan Breeze on Tuesday. (Photo Courtesy of the CBPC)
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Dominican Republic’s manager Albert Pujols, right, and Robinson Cano celebrate after winning the Caribbean Series baseball final game against Mexico at Nido de los Aguilas stadium in Mexicali, Mexico, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Title: Padres Cardinals Baseball
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Article: St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, left, greets former St. Louis Cardinals’ Stan Musial, a Hall of Famer, before the start of a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals on opening day Thursday, March 31, 2011, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)
Because Albert Pujols never left. He is the connective tissue between the game your grandfather watched and the game the whole planet plays now. Of the more than 900 Dominican-born players in major-league history, he ranks first in games, first in hits, first in home runs — and this past March, he stood in a dugout at loanDepot Park in Miami and managed his home country in the World Baseball Classic against the United States. The American hero from the Dominican Republic, wearing the other flag, in the country that gave him both. The D.R. lost that semifinal 2-1 on a called third strike low enough to make an honest man wince. Pujols refused to blame the pitch. “Once more,” he said, “we raised our flag high.” Venezuela took the crown a few nights later; nobody’s borders held.
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Albert Pujols and Plácido Polanco high-five as St. Louis Cardinals teammates during the 2001 season. (AP Photo)
He never did any of it alone, and Cardinal red doesn’t wash out. His old roommate Plácido Polanco coaches at his side for the Dominicans; Yadier Molina runs a rival LIDOM bench and manages against him all winter; Scott Rolen is already in Cooperstown, where Pujols will follow, first ballot, in 2028. These men won a World Series together in St. Louis — the trophy’s in this gallery too, a young A.J. Pujols riding his father’s shoulders — and then carried the game outward, past the borders, the way Albert always has. He now advises the Commissioner of Baseball himself, specifically on the Dominican game. Nobody had to ask him twice.
One Kid, One Milk-Carton Glove, One Town Called Independence
Twenty-two seasons. 703 home runs, fourth on the all-time list. More than 3,300 hits, more than 2,200 runs driven in. Three MVPs, two rings, a plaque in Cooperstown with his name already on the envelope. But the number I keep coming back to today is a smaller one: one kid, one milk-carton glove, one town called Independence.
FILE – St. Louis Cardinals Scott Rolen and teammate Albert Pujols celebrate as Detroit Tigers Ramon Santiago walks off the field after the St. Louis Cardinals defeated Detroit Tigers in Game 5 of the World Series in St. Louis, Oct. 27, 2006. Rolen could become just the 18th third baseman elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame, the fewest of any position. Rolen, Todd Helton and Billy Wagner are the leading contenders in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America vote announced Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023.(AP Photo/Tom Gannam, File)
America turns 250 today, and the argument at the heart of it — that it doesn’t matter where you started, only what you build — has been made and remade by people who showed up with nothing and gave the place everything. Albert Pujols made that argument with a bat, on the Fourth of July, off a pitcher who should have known better.
The Cardinals and Cubs are back at Wrigley Field tonight — first pitch at 8:08 p.m. ET on FOX (streaming on Fubo), Kyle Leahy against Shota Imanaga — 23 Fourths of July after the knockdown.
An American hero from the Dominican Republic. A Cubs killer. Happy Independence Day. Play ball.
