Albert Pujols maybe the last true blue hope for Major League Baseball in the "steroid era."

                  Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and now Alex Rodriguez: all helped to bring baseball back from the bad memories of the mid 90's strike, and ushered in a new love for America's favorite past time. Now, all their efforts are revealed for what they were: an easy and cheap way to immortality through their use of performance enhancing drugs. A-Rod was carrying the banner for a while, and recently it was revealed that maybe our last true hero of our game had succumbed to the easy way to success. Were it not for several injury plagued seasons, Ken Griffey Jr. would have been our true knight on shining armor. As he still trudges along without the power and charisma he once had, who can baseball fans turn to now?

                  We can turn our hope for a baseball hero with star power who still has integrity and honor to one St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. During his eight seasons with the Cards, big Al has averaged 39.9 homers, 191 hits, 110 RBI's, and held a batting average of .334. All the while maintaining his family values, moral integrity and dedication to being the best in the bigs. Griffey Jr. is still plugging along and with his untarnished name he can pass this torch onto our next underdog winner. In all fairness, Pujols truly does not appear to be a threat to let us down, as most of his predecessors have. If we can have a chance at a guiding light, let us hope that a trust in Pujols will bear good fruit.

                   We, as the American sports public, risk our hopes on the swing of a bat, the drop of a pass, or the clang of a brick.  So in this new age sports world that we know, filled with greed and shortcuts, we still have some outlets we can truly stretch our faith of overachievement and underdogs on. Let's just let go of the doubt that clouts our minds and cheer with our 10 year old heart that began this love of sports in the beginning.