Through the years, even as they worked together in Cincinnati, Towers chided his good friend Jocketty for how close they came to acquiring the future championship cornerstone. Jocketty shook his head and said, “not that close.” The Cardinals bet on their scouting of Pujols.

“The rest was up to him,” Jorgensen said.

Pujols had a strong enough turn in Potomac that by the next month he was in Class AAA Memphis, where he hit a home run to win the Pacific Coast League championship. By December, the Cardinals were so enamored with Pujols that then-manager Tony La Russa suggested between Fernando Tatis and Pujols “one of those guys was going to be traded.” Tatis was.

Eighteen months after being a 13th-round pick, Pujols knocked.

“When you look at that point in time, I don’t think anyone saw him competing for a big-league job in the next eight months,” Mozeliak said. “The next six weeks were pretty remarkable. He goes to Potomac, does well there. He goes to Memphis, wins there, has a distinguished time in the Arizona Fall League and then everyone knows what happened in major-league camp. A meteoric rise. These things only happen to certain types of players. And the rest is history.”

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