Here’s one way to grab a headline: write an article speculating that Albert Pujols will become Washington’s first baseman in 2012. That’s what Tyler Kepner did yesterday in the pages of the New York Times, fueling a kind of baseball mini-industry that is one misplaced quote away from becoming a national obsession. “By signing Jayson Werth for seven years and $126 million in December,” Kepner wrote, “the Nationals showed they will spend serious money. Adding Pujols to Werth and Ryan Zimmerman would give them an intimidating middle of the order. And the No. 1 overall draft picks Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper would presumably be in their superstar prime before Pujols’s deal runs out.” Of course Kepner’s article was speculation, but he has a point: if Pujols doesn’t sign in St. Louis (baseball’s fourth smallest market), then anything is possible — including the presumably impossible. But is Pujols-to-D.C. likely?

Adam Kilgore thinks so. Or did. Writing a follow-up to the Kepner article on his blog yesterday, Kilgore noted that the “Nationals’ money and their malleable first base situation makes them an intriguing potential suitor. Yes, they signed Adam LaRoche to a two-year contract this offseason. But in the pie-in-the-sky event they can land Pujols, they could easily trade him or just eat LaRoche’s contract and consider it part of the astronomical price to acquire one of the best hitters in baseball history.” Hmmm. Well, maybe. But a much more likely scenario (as Kilgore, in a second-thought moment, noted today) is that Pujols stays in St. Louis. That, or (as Phil Rogers says) the rich get richer and he ends up in New York or Boston.

None of this would be all that exciting except that the Pujols mini-industry is headline news in St. Louis and, of course, in baseball. There are internet sites focused solely on the Pujols contract, a handful of fan clubs vie for the allegiance of his followers, on-line artists play endlessly with his image (note: above) and notebook toting reporters follow him wherever he goes. Pujols has been on six SI covers, is the lead advertising card for Topps and fills the seats in St. Louis. All for good reason: if Pujols were to retire today he’d be a shoo-in for Cooperstown — and he has at least eight years to play. Still, the numbers are sobering. Pujols will command a $300 million contract, half the total value of the St. Louis franchise and nearly as much in one year (at $30 million) as the Pirates spend on their total payroll. Pujols is destined to make, in his lifetime, more money than any other ballplayer in history.

This is where the calculations get tough. Would you rather have Albert Pujols (and his tremendous talent) for one year, or Ian Kinsler ($22 million) for five? Would you rather spend $30 million for one player, or the same amount of money for three — let’s say Kinsler ($6 million in 2011), Hanley Ramirez ($11 million in 2011), and Alex Rios ($12 million in 2011). Pujols gives you a Hall of Famer at first, Kinsler, Ramirez and Rios give you a team that’s strong-up-the-middle and (arguably) an automatic contender. So Kepner’s right: adding Pujols to Werth and Zimmerman would be wonderful! And he’s wrong, because that trio (with Strasburg and Harper), couldn’t possibly last.

No one can read Mark Lerner’s mind, but I would bet that sooner or later, Nats’ fans would end up with an aging Hall of Famer at first — and not much around him. Which is only to say: the Nats would love to have Pujols (who wouldn’t?), but there’s a limit. The implications of a Pujols signing for any team (with the exception of the very richest franchises) is that the tried-and-true rule of building a contender (short term sacrifice, long term gain — and develop pitching) goes out the window.

Somewhere in the back of every fan’s mind is a list of baseball injustices. For Cubs fans it’s that Ron Santo isn’t yet in the Hall of Fame, for Pirate’s fans it’s that Roberto Clemente wasn’t named the NL MVP in 1960. There’s an argument on the net about whether Tim Raines, one of baseball’s great on base players should be in the hall, whether Jeffrey Maier or Steve Bartman should have been called for interference, whether Satchell Paige was justified in being irritated that Branch Rickey chose Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier. But in terms of pure injustice, few can top the unstated but embarrassing slight suffered by Texas Rangers fans who saw perhaps the game’s best second baseman (who came up as a shortstop in ’04) held out of the all star game. Even Boston Red Sox fans were upset.

It’s not any easier to talk about the Kinsler slight now that the game is over. Not only is Kinsler a possible AL MVP, the American League went into the St. Louis “Midsummer Classic” with (count ‘em) one second baseman – the well-deserving Aaron Hill (who’s an institution on my list of baseball’s most underrated players). Hill became a starter after Dustin Pedroia (here he is, in case you’ve forgotten) decided to spend time with his wife, who’s enduring a difficult pregnancy. To take Pedroia’s place, Hill was made a starter and Tampa Bay Ray Carlos Pena was named to the team. The naming of Pena meant that the AL might have fielded an all-Tampa Bay infield, particularly after Ray’s coach Joe Maddon named hometown favorite Ben Zobrist as a possible second baseman. Zobrist is a hell of a hitter, but Tampa Bay fans look at him as a “super-uilityman” — and he’s played nearly half his games in the outfield and shortstop. And since when does a “super-utility-man” get named to the all star game? Still, there was a chance that Kinsler might appear after Evan Longoria decided not to play, the result of an infection his throwing hand. But AL manager Joe Maddon picked Angels’ third baseman Chone Figgins to take Longoria’s place. Who knows, maybe there’s something about Kinsler that Maddon doesn’t like, but it certainly can’t be his qualifications: he’s hitting .337 with 14 home runs, 58 RBIs, 84 runs and 23 stolen bases — better numbers than any other AL player at the position. Not bad for a guy who finished second in fan voting and got to spend the all star break at a Starbucks in Dallas.

The slight of Ian Kinsler has rightly angered Ranger fans, but this isn’t the first time that a great player and potential MVP was overlooked in “the Midsummer Classic.” In 1954, feared Cubs hitter Hank Sauer was given three days off during the all star break, despite the fact that he was having a phenomenal year. Baseball’s older veterans still talk about the Sauer slight, noting that he’d won the rain-shortened 1952 classic with a home run — a year in which he’d led the league in homers and RBIs — and was one of the game’s most-feared hitters. In 1954, they note, he was having a career year and single-handedly carrying a bad team. Sauer (nicknamed “the Honker” for his big nose) was hardly a defensive whiz (he once misplayed a fly ball during a night game and explained that “I lost it in the moon”) and might have been the slowest outfielder in the National League. But his Wrigley Field blasts were the stuff of baseball lore and Cubs fans loved him: whenever he hit a homer, Cubs fans in the rightfield bleachers showered him with packets of tobacco. On Hank Sauer Day, a celebration of his career, there was so much tobacco on the field that it took five wheelbarrows to remove it. ”I loved playing in Wrigley Field,” Sauer remembered during his retirement. “Fans would throw tobacco to me. What I couldn’t put in my pocket, I’d store in the vines. I supplied the whole club with tobacco.”

The Sauer injustice remained unmentioned by the Cubs outfielder throughout his career and into his retirement. When asked about it he dismissed it with a shrug, adding that a lot of people in the league that year were more focused on Chicago’s new rookie phenom — shortstop Ernie Banks. Then too, as Sauer himself would have admitted, he hardly deserved to be on the starting nine in ’54. The NL outfield was packed: with Stan Musial, Duke Snyder and Jackie Robinson, a veritable murderers’ row, named as the league starters. But that Sauer should have been on the team is not in question. The same holds true for Kinsler.