Maria Adams

Albert Pujols was 18 years old when he went on a first date and learned the young woman across from him had a baby girl with Down syndrome. He did not walk away. He stayed for good. And that little girl ended up changing thousands of lives. Here is the whole thing. Pujols was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to the United States at 16. He ended up in Independence, Missouri, playing high school ball and then one season at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City. That is where he met Deidre. Years later, on 60 Minutes, she described that first conversation. She remembered his reaction. "He was like, almost in tears." Then she said the part that tells you everything. "But he didn't care." Pujols said the thought of leaving never even crossed his mind. He was still a teenager, and he started babysitting her little girl. He married Deidre and raised that little girl as his own. "She's my little girl, my big girl right now." Baseball was not easy for him either. In the draft, 401 players were picked before him. The St. Louis Cardinals finally took him in the 13th round. He became one of the greatest hitters who ever lived. But a few years into his career, the family started the Pujols Family Foundation, because of their daughter. They held cooking classes and golf outings for people with Down syndrome. They helped young adults land jobs as greeters at team stores. They invited families to games and into their suite. And every year, they threw a prom. Pujols did not just write a check for it. He showed up and danced. "It's almost like they wanna go all night long until the next day." Over the years the prom grew to a ballroom full of 500 to 700 kids and adults with Down syndrome. The foundation went home with him too. Near where he grew up in the Dominican Republic, it sent doctors, delivered new mattresses and built a baseball field. Here is the honest part. Not every chapter was perfect. His final years with the Los Angeles Angels did not go well, and they released him. Some families who loved him worried the foundation might leave with him. But he went back to St. Louis, and in his final season he hit his 700th home run. Only three players in history had done that before him. When he was honored for his charity work, he explained what mattered most to him. "As great as my career has been, my passion is what I do when the season is over and that is to serve and to give back." It started with an 18 year old on a first date who heard the truth and did not flinch. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap

A scout drove out to a junior college in Missouri to watch him throw, and he walked eight batters in a row. That is the story everybody tells. Somebody brought it up again this month and he corrected them. It was nine. They drafted him anyway. Fourth round, 2018. Aaron Ashby is from Kansas City, Missouri, out of Park Hill High School. His uncle Andy pitched fourteen seasons in the big leagues and made two All-Star teams. The Texas Rangers had taken him the year before that, in the 25th round, 764th overall. He turned it down and went back to the junior college. His first big league appearance was two thirds of an inning and four earned runs. Two seasons later he went 2 and 10 as a starter. Milwaukee signed him to a five year extension anyway, and then his shoulder went. Arthroscopic surgery. He lost all of 2023. He says he has never gotten the slider he had in college back, not once, not all the way. Then 2024 at Triple-A Nashville, a 8.04 ERA across 25 games. That is the number teams look at when they decide somebody is finished. In August of that year, still in Nashville, he started messing with a knuckle-curve. He was in Milwaukee about a week later. Last season he put up a 2.16 out of the bullpen. This season he went 13 and 3. And then October started and he just stopped giving up runs. Fifteen and two thirds scoreless innings to open this postseason. Five hits. Three walks. Seventeen strikeouts. He has pitched in eight of the Milwaukee Brewers ten playoff games and every single one at home. He is one out away from the record. Andrew Miller went sixteen scoreless to start the 2016 postseason and nobody has matched it. Ashby passed Goose Gossage and Andy Hawkins to get here. Pat Murphy watched him get a five out save in Game 2 Saturday and called it Goose Gossage-like. He is also the first pitcher in the history of the postseason to record at least five outs in six straight appearances without allowing a run in any of them. The pitch doing it is the curveball he was not supposed to have. Miguel Sano hit the fifth curveball he ever threw in the big leagues over the wall, back in August 2021. He has thrown 1,045 of them since. Not one has left the yard. They asked him how he stays that calm with the tying run on second in the ninth. "It's a lot of breathing." "Just kind of praying for peace, I guess." Be straight about where this sits. Milwaukee is up 2-0 but the next three are in Tampa Bay, the Rays won 94 games, and nobody finishes a postseason at 0.00. But a kid walked nine straight hitters with a scout in the stands, and a week from now he might own the record for the best October any bullpen arm has ever had.