VIDEO: Albert Pujols slugs 499th career home run

By Drew SilvaApr 22, 2014, 7:51 PM EDT
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Watch as Albert Pujols hits his 499th career homer Tuesday off Nationals starter Taylor Jordan:

Albert’s seven home runs this year are tied with Arizona’s Mark Trumbo for the major league lead.

The 34-year-old first baseman boasts a strong .930 OPS through 89 plate appearances this season, and he now needs just one more long ball to become the 26th member of the 500 career home run club.

Jim Crane thought the heat over sign-stealing would blow over by spring training

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By Craig CalcaterraFeb 20, 2020, 3:57 PM EST
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The Astros’ sign-stealing story broke in November, a steady drumbeat of coverage of it lasted through December and into January, when Rob Manfred’s report came out about it. The report was damning and, in its wake, Houston’s manager and general manger were both suspended and then fired.

After that a steady stream of media reports came out which not only made the whole affair seem even worse than Manfred’s report suggested, but which also suggested that, on some level, Major League Baseball had bungled it all and it was even worse than it had first seemed.

Rather than Manfred and the Astros putting this all behind them, the story grew. As it grew, both the Red Sox and Mets fired their managers and, in a few isolated media appearances, Astros’ players seemed ill-prepared for questions on it all. Once spring training began the Astros made even worse public appearances and, for the past week and change, each day has given us a new player or three angrily speaking out about how mad they are at the Astros and how poorly they’ve handled all of this.

Why have they handled it so poorly? As always, look to poor leadership:

Guess not.

In other news, Crane was — and I am not making this up — recently named the Houston Sports Executive of the Year. An award he has totally, totally earned, right?