Albert Pujols on Retirement Rumors: “My Mind Is Not Even There”

Los Angeles Angels' Albert Pujols
Los Angeles Angels' Albert Pujols. Photo by Peter Joneleit/CSM/Shutterstock (10240170s)

Speaking in his first spring training interview over the weekend, LA Angels first baseman Albert Pujols used the opportunity to deny the rumors about his retirement after 2021. According to the 10-time All-Star, he isn’t even thinking about that at the moment and will only make a decision about his future after the MLB season wraps up.

The news about Pujols’ retirement was kickstarted by an Instagram post his wife Deidre made last week. Alongside a photo of Pujols, she wrote a lengthy caption that included the part saying: “[Monday] is the first day of the last season of one of the most remarkable careers in sports.”

After the post was interpreted as a retirement announcement, Mrs. Pujols modified the caption and said that she only wanted to send her husband “with blessings into the 2021 season” and was referring to the fact that the 42-year-old legend is entering the last year of his deal with the Angels.

When asked about the misunderstanding with the reporters on Saturday, Pujols said that he would never announce his retirement over Instagram, adding that his wife’s post had “just got blown out of proportion.”

“My mind is not even there,” Pujols explained his stance on retirement. “My mind is on staying focused, healthy, and hopefully trying to help this ballclub win this year, and that’s it. If I feel at the end of the year that that’s it, I’ll announce it [and] go home. But I’m not even there yet.”

Albert Pujols spent the first 12 years of his MLB career with the St. Louis Cardinals, winning two World Series with the franchise and earning three NL MVP honors. Pujols left the Cardinals in 2012 as a free agent, inking a 10-year, $254 deal with the LA Angels.

Pujols played solid but failed to have the same success with the Angels, earning just one out of his 10 All-Star nods in Los Angeles.