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A former MLB executive claims Albert Pujols has lied about his age his entire career.
David Samson, who was the Marlins’ president from 2002 to 2017, made the allegation during a recent appearance on “The Dan Le Batard Show.” Samson was mulling over the 2012 offseason when Pujols was a free agent, and the Marlins were one of the teams trying to sign the baseball star.
Pujols finally signed a massive 10-year, $ 240 million contract with the Angels. This is the 14th biggest contract in MLB history (by Cot’s Baseball), and that ensured that he would get paid everywhere. Despite weaker numbers in recent years, Pujols is still poised to make $ 30million this season – what many believe to be his last, though he says he didn’t decide.
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While recalling this contract, and proposing to the Marlins sent to Pujols, Samson lets slip that the baseball player is not the age he claims to be.
“We knew when we did the math for this deal that we didn’t care about 2019, 20 or 21. It was so far into the future that it didn’t matter,” Samson said. “We knew he would. Be unproductive, we knew he was not the age he said he was. We had all the information.”
Le Batard replied: “You just categorically pointed out that Pujols is older than he always claimed?”
Samson said: “There isn’t a person in baseball, not an executive, who thinks Albert Pujols is the age he says he is. The number of frauds that were taking place in the Dominican Republic at the era, change of name, change of birthdays, that would blow your mind. “
This is not the first time that Pujols, listed at 41, has seen his age questioned. As Samson notes, there is history with the players from the Dominican Republic not of the claimed age. Former pitcher Wandy Rodriguez turned out to be two years older than previously thought, and so was Miguel Tejada.
As for Pujols, Samson hasn’t given the age he really thought he was the baseball star, but there is a story using Pujols’s own words. Many people have noticed in a 2018 interview with Yahoo Sports when Pujols may have revealed his true age.
“I actually hit Octavio Dotel, I think I told you. I was about 12, 13, almost 13,” said Pujols, describing his very first home run. “And we’re going back, you know, 28 years later, and here I am.”
Using Pujols’ mathematics, 13 years plus 28 years later would have made him 41 years old at the time of the interview. In the same interview he said, “Well, Dotel, I think he’s three or four years older than me.” The same calculations led Pujols to be 41 years old.
So, using that context, Pujols would be three years older than the 41 years he’s currently listed (given that his birth date Jan. 16 is correct), which would theoretically make him 44.
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