Pujols Dons Halo •Angels Top 2011 Moments #1

I’m so pumped for the season! Still can’t quite believe Pujols is an Angel.

That’s going to be a fun day for Pre-game picks!

I had a seminar to attend in LA the next morning but I just couldn’t fall sleep. I finally did pass out (very late) and woke up super tired the next morning at 7A.M. As soon as I got out of bed I bolted to my computer to check if anything had happened. It felt like I was a kid again, waking up on Christmas morning rushing to see what present was waiting for me under the tree. I clicked on twitted & all of a sudden I wasn’t tired anymore… the present I had been waiting for was finally here… Pujols was an Angel!

But my dad grew up a HUGE Reds fan, and when the Angels signed Pujols, he compared it to the Midnight Massacre and the Reds acquiring Tom Seaver. Unexpected, completely elating, and nothing short of the greatest gift baseball could give.

I saw MLBTR with the update, started shaking and completely forgot everything about post civil war reconstruction… Albert Pujols was an Angel

even though I had to wake up in Sierra Madre to be in Santa Clarita for work by 6am.

So I got like 4 hours of sleep in order to read every single bit of news and every Twitter update the night before about the Winter Meetings. Then I listened to sports radio the whole way in.

Got a text from a friend that said nothing more than “hmm, a bit pricey, but enjoy” around 8:00am in the morning or whenever it broke. I wasn’t near a computer forever, but I just said “who and how much?”

When he said “Pujols” a few minutes later, I literally dropped what I was doing and found a co-worker with a smart phone to confirm. By noon or so when I finally got to sit down in the office at my computer, I spent more time reading about it than working.

Day was only made better when he texted me later about CJ Wilson.

And was made my favorite day ever when I had to hear those retarded Lakers radio broadcasters were talking about how they just got CP3, and were making bets on how likely it was that Dwight Howard would be a Laker by Christmas. Literally just going on and on about OMG, CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW AMAZING IT’S GONNA BE WATCHING THAT FRONT COURT. OH BABY I CAN’T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS. IT’S COMIN’ EARLY FOR THE LAKE SHOW.

I wanted to bomb their broadcast studio.

And then the trade died.

And I couldn’t stop laughing.

This would still likely top it.

got a call within 10 minutes from a brother in law in NoCal (Giants fan) in which he said “Dude, I can’t freakin believe you guys got Pujols, congratulations. I gotta go to work now” And that conversation was from a school teacher. I am still in denial until I see him take the field as I continually said "Pujols isn’t going anywhere, the Angels are not going to get Pujols. And I do have my “Day of the Panther” T-Shirt to remind me how incredible this off season has been.

Until opening day….can’t wait to see Pujols in OUR uni at the Big A.

It said the Angels had signed Pujols. At the bottom of the post it said “45 seconds ago.” I copied the link and made an instant fanshot to Halos Heaven. That was one good morning all around.

Unable to check on anything until around 830am. I stepped outside to have a smoke, checked my phone and saw a message from an A’s friend i have:

“Glad to see the Angels FO using the principles of Moneyball”.

Fired up twitter, and couldn’t believe what I was reading at first. My Team, who is always a day late and a dollar short on FAs had just signed the greatest player of this generation. Un-freaking-believable.

I was on cloud nine all day, simply could not wait to pick my daughter up from school and tell her the good news. I’m raising her to be a Halos fan in the shadow of her Red Sox mother. So being able to tell her that we have a new favorite player and his name is Albert Pujols was such a joy.

Ex-wife: Pujols signed this morning.
Me: With who?
Ex-wife: Angels
Nurse: “Good news?”
Me: “Yep. Very good news.”

I had been checking Twitter all morning while getting ready. Nothing. Decided to check it one more time at about 6:58am before starting work and saw the news. I was freaking out, sending texts to every Angel fan I knew…. longest shift of my life until I could get home and watch recaps of all the news on TV

1) Birth of my son
2) Marriage to second wife
3) Angels win Game 7 of 2002 World Series

After Pujols is:
4) The day after Game 7, watching grown men in red caps with tears in their eyes and all the cars with streamers
5) The day we signed Vlad
6) Divorce from first wife

My twitter account went crazy with posts. I turned on the radio and Roger Lodge said that the Angels had signed Pujols. I thought I was dreaming but even Angels players were tweeting about it.
I didn’t have anyone to get excited about this news with for another hour. But once I got to work it was great being so excited with Angels fans that I work with.

i was in Norfolk, VA on my ship, in my shop, and I was just telling a buddy of mine that it would be a wet dream come true if we managed both Pujols and CJ, and laughed, knowing we probably would not get either. Then I went on the interwebs and saw that we had both of them… I literally screamed “HOLY FU*KING SH*T!!!!!” I was nearly shaking and had tears in my eyes. The next words out of my mouth were “OMFG, THANK DEAR BABY JESUS FOR FIRING TONY REAGINS!” One of my guys from cali like me asked me what happened, I told him and we hugged like schoolgirls! BEST DAY EVER!

Especially after always showing up a day late, and dollar short for just about every big time FA we’ve gone after. I am looking forward to being realistically optimistic about the season for a change.

then reality set in…

Naked as a joy-bird when the MLBTR app pushed it out to me. I whooped, then put on my underwear inside out.

the angel pitchers perfer having him play first base.

typically I check Bloomberg first thing in the morning, but I hadn’t changed the channel from ESPN the night before. I yelled “holy shit” loudly enough to wake up my girlfriend and scare the hell out of her; she kept asking me what was wrong, but I was like Bluto in Animal House looking at the dead horse. All I could say was “holy shit.”