Todd Jones: Albert Pujols better hitter than Alex Rodriguez

Sporting News ^ | August 26, 2010 | Todd Jones

[EveningStar]

With St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols hitting his 400th career homer and Alex Rodriguez having recently reached the 600-homer mark, now is a great time for a guy who served up a homer to each slugger to compare and contrast the two future Hall of Famers:

[jessduntno]

"Albert is a much better hitter than A-Rod. That's my opinion, but if you ask other baseball guys, they will tell you the same thing. The fact that Pujols was 6-for-7 with three homers against me has nothing to do with it."

That's a funny line, right there...

[freebilly]

Best in baseball....

[Terpfen]

Best in baseball....

Which is sort of like being the tallest midget.

[freebilly]

If you don’t think Pujols is one of the best hitters to ever play the game then you’re obviously not a baseball fan....

[EveningStar]

ping

[tx_eggman]

Which is sort of like being the tallest midget.

Or the author of the day's stupidest post.

[Terpfen]

If you don’t think Pujols is one of the best hitters to ever play the game then you’re obviously not a baseball fan....

I don't care about Pujols because, like most of the country, I'm not a baseball fan. MLB has fallen behind the NBA, and both are well behind the NFL.

[freebilly]

His was a moronic post. I’ve never been a Cardinals’ fan, but if I were to start a baseball team today, Pujols would be the player I’d build the team around (and maybe Bryce Harper)....

[righttackle44]

Which is sort of like being the tallest midget.

HEY, MADGE! The contest's over. We found the stupidest post
of the day on FR.

[freebilly]

I don't care about Pujols because, like most of the country, I'm not a baseball fan. MLB has fallen behind the NBA, and both are well behind the NFL.

So you basically admit to being a troll-- How very 1998 of you....

[Terpfen]

So you basically admit to being a troll-- How very 1998 of you....

Not really. I saw the headline, I clicked out of curiosity, I read the article and the comments, and replied honestly.

[freebilly]

Honest responses are best mixed with intelligence....

[Terpfen]

MLB is the least popular of the big three sports. That’s not opinion, it’s fact. The most recent NBA Finals outdrew the most recent World Series, and both were dwarfed by the most recent Super Bowl.

[adorno]

MLB is the least popular of the big three sports.

How does anybody do relative comparisons when the number of spectators to any of the three major sports will differ tremendously because of the number of games played?

Football has 16 regular season games per team, and perhaps 3 or 4 after that in the playoffs and superbowl. The superbowl is just one game and with all the marketing and hype, will, for one game, draw close to a billion people worldwide, including mostly television watchers.

Basketball has some 82 games in a season for each team and a playoff system, with the championship being decided in the best of seven games.

Baseball has 162 games per year per team. During the year, the expected attendance per team per year will be many times that of any of the other major sports.

So, on attendance alone, baseball will have the most spectators/viewers/audience.

So, how are people determining the relative popularity of any sport?

Attendance:

Baseball (2009): http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2009
Football (2009): http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2009
Basketball (2010): http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance

[Terpfen]

How does anybody do relative comparisons when the number of spectators to any of the three major sports will differ tremendously because of the number of games played?

By using TV ratings.

[Artemis Webb]

EveningStar thank you for the ping.

I saw this column yesterday. Pujols is unquestionably the best player in the game today. I have to tell you though they mention Miguel Cabrera in the column so I looked at his career stats. He’s right up there with Albert on many of them but lacks the discipline Albert has as shown by a lot more strikeouts.

The Cardinals on the whole are going to have a very rough time getting past the reds for the division title.

freebilly, Bryce Harper is a big strong kid (think Mickey Mantle), but what’s yet to be seen, and won’t for a time, is if he can hit a BIG LEAGUE curveball or changeup. I remember about 15 years ago or so the Dodgers had this guy named Billy Ashley. Strong as a bull ox. He was dominant in the minors but as soon as he got to the majors they found out he couldn’t hit a big league curveball and that’s all he saw from then on. A lot of people seem to think Harper is the real deal though. Time will tell.

[freebilly]

Scouting reports say Harper’s ready to hit major league fastballs. I’m guessing he’ll be focused on hitting breaking stuff from now until he’s called up to the Nats....

[adorno]

By using TV ratings.

TV ratings for different sports don't tell the whole story.

When a sport has games every day of the week and a baseball team has 162 games to play versus 16 total for football team and games once a week, the TV ratings will fail to tell the whole story. It's apples versus oranges.

The total story is told with total audience, including stadium attendance, total viewers on TV, total listeners on radio, and more. TV ratings is just one component towards measuring the popularity of a sport.

[Terpfen]

TV ratings for different sports don't tell the whole story.

They do when you compare championships. The 2009 NBA Finals did better than the 2009 World Series, and both were blown away by Super Bowl XLIV. SBXLIV trumped the series finale of M*A*S*H as the most-watched television event in American history.