Can Albert Pujols Possibly Be Clean of Performance Enhancing Drugs?

I am a lifelong baseball fan and enthusiast. I grew up loving the game and will for the rest of my life. In the steroids era that has recently been exposed, many of us have had our hearts broken by the cheating nature of this era of baseball. We have few, if any, clean heroes. In a world where all of the top performers have taken steroids and performance enhancing drugs, is it possible that the best hitter in all of baseball could be clean? Is there any way that Albert Pujols has never taken performance enhancing drugs? For baseball's sake, I hope so, but my gut tells me that there's no way.

Pujols entered the league in 2001 with 37 home runs, 130 RBI, and a .329 average. In 2002 Pujols hit 34 home runs and 127 RBI. In the next 4 seasons (2003-2006), Pujols averaged 44.75 home runs, 125.25 RBI, and a .337 batting average. Could he really have had these kind of numbers without any kind of help? Why should we not assume that Pujols was on performance enhancing drugs when everyone who had any numbers close to him were? I want to believe in you Albert, I really do, but what hope can I really have at this point? I stood firm on my belief that Alex Rodriguez was the real deal and as clean as they come, I was sadly mistaken. I was sure that Manny Ramirez was clean and just an amazing hitter, I was wrong once again. I had high hopes, I now have no hopes at all.

We are just getting into the 100+ names of the 2003 MLB players who tested positive for a performance enhancing drug and already we no longer have trust for any baseball player. We have shifted from believing players are innocent until evidence comes out to all power hitters are guilty until the list of the names is revealed and their names are not on the list. The feelings are not any different towards Albert Pujols. Even if he is playing clean now, the confidence that baseball fans should have that he never took performance enhancing drugs is 0. Pujols has to be on the list of names who tested positive for PED's. If by some chance Pujols is not on the list, and has no positive drug tests, I will crown him myself as the best hitter to ever have played baseball. Guilty until proven innocent. It's sad it has to be this way Albert, but I'm just not buying that you're clean.