Dominican-American Jose Alberto Pujols Alcantara is a professional baseball first baseman and currently the designated hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals.
He carries the nickname “The Machine” due to his unfailing efficiency in all things baseball from his rookie season in 2001 to 2010. Even now, at 42, Pujols is playing so efficiently that he outperforms players younger than him.
He played his first 11 seasons in Major League Baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals, then played for more than excellent seasons for the Los Angeles Angels, and then joined the Los Angeles Dodgers for half a season. However, he recently returned to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022.
Throughout his multi-decade-spanning career, Pujols has garnered many highlights and awards. Some of his achievements are being an All-Star 11 times, a World Series champion twice, winning a Golden Glove Award twice, a Silver Slugger six times, and many more.
How Many Kids Does Albert Pujols Have?
Albert Pujols has five children with his wife Deidre Pujols.
The five children are Isabella, the oldest from Deidre’s previous relationship, Albert Jr., Sophia, Ezra, and Esther Grace. Isabella has had Down syndrome from birth.
Isabella’s Down syndrome drove Albert and Deidre Pujols to start the Pujols Family Foundation in 2005, an organization that serves the down syndrome community and impoverished families in the Dominican Republic.
The organization is very active on Instagram, with 26.6K followers, and they share stories of many families with members with Down syndrome on their page.
Pujols advocates for people with down syndrome on his page and regularly celebrates his children, posting about them individually. He presents himself as a family man and has done so for most of his career.
Pujols’ wife, Deidre, also does a bulk of work sharing the efforts of the Pujols Family Foundation. With 58.3K followers on Instagram, she has worked hard to share the work of many foundations besides the Pujols Family Foundation, such as Open Gate International and Strike Out Slavery.
Explore Albert Pujols’ Married Life
Albert Pujols married Deidre Pujols on January 1, 2000.
They were married for 22 years, but Pujols filed for divorce on April 4, 2022, citing irreconcilable differences. He has requested joint custody of his three minor children.
The couple seems to be handling the separation despite how inopportune the whole reveal was. Just days before when the news broke, the media discovered that Deidre Pujols had undergone successful surgery to remove a brain tumor from the backside of her head.
Cancer had been found in October of last year, but Deidre kept delaying the procedure. Deidre is still resting from the surgery but seems to be doing well.
On Albert’s side, the news broke right around the corner from Opening Day, during Albert’s much-talked-about return to St. Louis. In a statement shared through his agent Dan Lozano, Pujols shared how the process had been complicated for him, and it wasn’t something he had decided to do overnight.
He shared how because of his faith, divorce wasn’t something he wanted to happen but that he could not avoid it. Whatever the irreconcilable differences between the Pujols may be, it seemed like it happened at the worst time for Deidre and was due to a decision that Albert agonized over incessantly.
What Nationality Is Albert Pujol?
Albert Pujol was born on January 16, 1980, in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic but became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
He was raised in Santa Domingo by his grandmother, America Pujols, along with 10 of his uncles and aunts. An only child, Pujols’ father, Bienvenido Pujols, was a softball pitcher but struggled with alcoholism.
He shared stories about how he had to take his father home when he got too drunk during games. In 1996, Pujols and his father and grandmother moved to Washington Heights in New York City.
Life in the city proved violent when Pujols witnessed a shooting at a bodega and moved to Independence, Missouri, two months later.
Pujols scored a perfect 100 on his citizenship test.