Seven years, eight on the outside. That’s how long it’ll take. If his elbow holds out, if he avoids any major injuries, Albert Pujols will go down in history as the greatest first baseman of all-time, taking the title away from Lou Gehrig.

It’s a long ways away, but Albert Pujols is making a run at Gehrig. Furthermore, his is a historically remarkable challenge: Albert Pujols is the greatest threat to Gehrig’s title since Jimmie Foxx hung ‘em up in 1945.

Larrupin’ Lou 

In 1999 Major League Baseball asked baseball fans to vote for the All-Century Team, choosing the very best players at every position. It was a rather public spectacle, with over 2.5 million ballots cast. It wasn’t a great vote: Nolan Ryan netted the most votes of any starting pitcher, Cal Ripken, Jr., and Ernie Banks edged out Honus Wagner at short, and Pete Rose received more votes than Stan Musial. Still: the leading vote-getter at any position was Lou Gehrig. 

This, I think, reflects the general consensus of baseball fans: Lou Gehrig is the greatest first baseman who ever lived. His grip on the title has survived all comers, has outlasted scores of terrific players. His numbers have survived the sabermetric revolution that forced us to take second looks on peers like George Sisler and Bill Terry. And even as lesser players like Fred McGriff and Rafael Palmeiro pass some of Gehrig’s career numbers, his legacy has endured.

Two qualities define Lou Gehrig’s hitting: he was a truly great hitter, and he was a remarkably consistent hitter. From the age of 23 until he was 35, Lou Gehrig compiled 13 consecutive years of remarkable production. Benefiting from a terrific Yankee lineup, Gehrig scored and drove in 100 runs every single year. He walked between 95 and 132 times and posted an on-base average over .400, every year. He had eight 200-hit seasons in those 13 years, ten 30-homer seasons. He was great, and he was always great.

It is the second qualification that separated him from the other first basemen. Take Jimmie Foxx, Gehrig’s great rival for the title: Foxx made it to the majors at seventeen, and at the age of 30, it was Foxx who had the better numbers: 

But Foxx didn’t age well, and Gehrig caught up:

Two other challengers to Gehrig, Hank Greenberg and Johnny Mize, were comparable to Gehrig through their late twenties:

Unfortunately, Mize and Greenberg lost playing years to World War II, and with those lost years the title of Greatest of All-Time slipped away from them.

All three challengers, Foxx, Greenberg, and Mize, were direct contemporaries of Gehrig, men who were in the major leagues when Gehrig was pilling up numbers in the Bronx. They had their shots at the title: if Foxx had remained healthy, he’d be the greatest there ever was. If there hadn’t been a war, perhaps Greenberg or Mize would have given the Iron Horse a challenge. But they didn’t.

For a long time after that, no one really challenged Gehrig. McCovey might have challenged, but he started way too late, blocked by Cepeda at first. Dick Allen was as fine a hitter as anyone, but he was out of the game at a young age. Mattingly was, at least for a time, linked with Gehrig (left-handed Yankee 1B’s who set grand slam records and won MVP’s), but Mattingly was never the complete hitter Gehrig was. Eddie Murray certainly had the consistency of Lou Gehrig, but not the peak.

The Big Hurt

The next real challenge to Gehrig’s title as the best first baseman of all-time was Frank Thomas. For ten years, it looked like Thomas was going to join the ranks of the all-time great hitters in history:

Like Gehrig, Thomas was an elite young hitter, a power hitter who also excelled at drawing walks and making pitchers work.

Thomas had a slight edge in playing time: the Big Hurt arrived in the major leagues in 1990, when he was 22 years old. By the next year he was a regular player, already the best hitter in baseball. Gehrig wasn’t a full-time player until he was 23, giving Thomas a year’s head start on Gehrig.

But Thomas faded. At age 30 and 31 he was a good hitter, but he wasn’t the great hitter he had been. He had a fine season in 2000, finishing second in the AL MVP vote, but then he missed most of 2001, 2004 and 2005 with various injuries. He went from playing first base to being the team’s designated hitter, and has now played more games as a DH than as a 1B (1303 games to 971). Again, the brilliance and consistency of Gehrig’s career kept him ahead of Thomas.

Prince Albert

Which brings us to Albert Pujols. He is coming to the end of his Age-28 season, and he is holding his own against Lou Gehrig:

If there has ever been a first baseman more consistently great than the Iron Horse, it is Albert Pujols. This is his eight major league season, and short of an injury it will be the 8th season in which he hits 30 homeruns with 100 RBI’s and a .300 batting average. He will post the best on-base percentage of his career this year, and will certainly finish in the top-ten in the MVP vote, as he has every year he’s been in the major leagues.

Like Thomas, Pujols has an edge in playing time: he was a regular in the major leagues at Age 21. A look at season-by-season Win Shares illustrates Pujols’ edge:

At this writing, Pujols is sixty-one Win Shares ahead of Gehrig, the equivalent of two MVP-type seasons. He is an MVP season behind Foxx, but Foxx tails off dramatically at Age 32.

Pujols is 223 Win Share behind Gehrig, about seven good seasons behind him. Furthermore, Pujols shows signs of improving as a hitter: he will set a personal bests in on-base percentage this year, and has a chance to draw 100+ walks for the first time in his career. Additionally, Pujols is establishing a reputation as the finest fielding first baseman of his generation, a credential that Gehrig cannot claim.

Seven years….a lot could happen in seven years. Pujols’ elbow could give way, or he could suffer an injury from an errant fastball. He is approaching his decline, and while all indicators suggest that his will be a gradual one, it’s hard to predict the success of any player seven years out.

But Pujols is holding his own. Against the very best, against the immortal Lou Gehrig, Albert Pujols is making a case that he is the greatest player to ever play first base.

And I hope he gets there. I really do.

Lou Gehrig is one of my two favorite players of all-time, but if Albert Pujols passed him, well, I think that’s a good thing. Baseball is an enduring game: it has an old history and long seasons, and it has numbers that tell stories. Because of those factors, the game fosters a kind of discussion and debate that no other American sport can offer.  I love those discussions, those debates: it is those discussions that brought me initially to the game, those discussions that keep me watching today. 

Seven years from now, if Albert Pujols keeps on keeping on, we’ll have a good one to talk about.