St. Louis Cardinals vs. Washington Nationals - Recap - May 01, 2009 - ESPN

"The Cardinals' 17-7 start is their best since 1944."

Pujols: single, double, homer. Business as usual.

In his first 4661 at bats, Pujols is hitting .334 with 327 homers, 1005 RBI, OBP .426, Slug .625.

In Joe DiMaggio's first 4481 at bats (end of 1946 season), he was hitting an identical .334 with a nearly identical 1025 RBI, but with only 244 homers, and his OBP and slugging were "only" .399/.596.

Pujols just turned 29, but those were DiMaggio's stats on his 32nd birthday because he lost three full seasons to WW2. The great DiMag had only two and a half more good seasons left in the tank, plus one poor season that told him it was time to retire. It seems safe to say that Phat Albert has much more gas in the tank.

DiMaggio did have two significant individual achievements which Pujols has not matched. The first is obvious. The big 56. The other is Dimaggio's 400+ total bases in 1937. Pujols has come close to 400 twice, but no cigar. There have been only 29 individual seasons in baseball history with 400+ total bases. Lou Gehrig has five of them, Chuck Klein three. Nobody else has more than two, not even Babe Ruth, although Ruth does hold the all-time record at 457. The post-war record is held by Stan Musial, who had 429 in 1948.

Sidebar to the sidebar: Musial went nuts in 1948. He batted .376, led the league in doubles and triples, and missed by one homer! He also lad the league in every other important offensive category you can think of, except stolen bases and walks. Stasiu was always a great player - hell, he hit .330 when he was 41 years old, and they didn't call him "The Man" for nothing - but in 1948 he was supernaturally good. I remember well that he was virtually worshipped as a god by the Polish community in my home town of Rochester, where he played some 50 games during the 1941 season before the Cards called him up. Back in the day when scholastic ball was not considered adequate training for the pros, Musial spent parts of four seasons in the minors, starting at age 17. Even Mickey Mantle, who was considered a prodigy and a sure-fire major leaguer, put in a full year in D ball and another in C ball.