One last playoff push for Cardinals' Albert Pujols
THE 35-FOOT WALK from the on-deck circle to the batter's box at Busch Stadium has become habitual to Albert Pujols. He has made it more than 2,000 times throughout his career (4,000 if you count the old place). But something about it felt different on Sept. 2, when he was announced as a seventh-inning pinch-hitter in an otherwise nondescript game against the fading Chicago Cubs. The air was a little more crisp, the atmosphere increasingly more tense. October was approaching, but it seemed as if the entire city was already there in spirit, anticipating what was on the horizon. Eleven years had passed since Pujols last experienced the allure of postseason baseball in St. Louis, but suddenly it was all familiar again. In that moment, it almost felt as if he never left.
