Slugger Pujols ready to excel for Angels

PHOENIX -- His first swing as an Angel drove the ball against the leftfield fence, driving in a run. Albert Pujols arrived with the bang his new team thought was worth $240 million.

The Angels opened their Cactus League schedule last Monday against the A's, two days later than the other teams training in the desert. Pujols had been waiting.

"I prefer to get myself ready," he had said from the Angels' complex in neighboring Tempe. "I like to play a lot of games early, and then you can back up later rather than rush to get in shape before we break camp.

"It's a routine I kind of got used to for 11 years."

Those years all were with the Cardinals, for whom Pujols hit 445 home runs, compiled a career batting average of .328 -- best of any active player -- and won three National League MVP awards. But in December, when the Cards wouldn't give him the love or the dollars Pujols wanted, he signed a 10-year contract with the Angels.

"Time for a new chapter in my life," he said Feb. 20 when he showed up a week early.

"My dad told me, if you turn up early, nobody can accuse you as the guy who was late," he said. "This is my job. This is what I'm going to be doing for the next 10 years, hopefully.

"You have to take your job seriously. You have guys in the minor leagues waiting for the opportunity, like I did, and you just don't want to hand the position to them."

If he takes his work seriously, he doesn't take himself that way. Asked what effect he has on those who bat ahead or behind him, Pujols shook his head.

"I don't think about that," he said. "If I start getting caught up in that, I start losing focus on what I'm supposed to be doing."

His stature (6-3) and presence ("I was a little awestruck," Angels catcher Hank Conger said) make Pujols seem as much rock star as ballplayer. Fans, many dressed in Angels red even though the game was at the A's spring park, kept dashing down aisles to snap photos as he swung a weighted bat in an unmarked on-deck circle.

Pujols said he's not out to impress his new teammates -- who already were impressed -- but to produce.

"Everybody here knows what I can do if I'm healthy," said Pujols, 32, who played the final few months last season with a broken bone in his left wrist. "I don't get caught up in numbers."

He had played for only one manager in the majors, Tony La Russa, who retired after the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series and before Pujols left for the Angels. "Now it's Mike [Scioscia]," Pujols said. "Tony never took anything for granted. Neither does Mike. These guys know the game."

They also know Albert Pujols is a tremendous asset.