Take stock in Pujols, not Bonds.

He’d have his photo plastered on the cover of every sports periodical at every newsstand in America, instead of having to wait for a slow news period to finally emerge last week on the cover of Sports Illustrated, not to mention his own reality TV show.

What Albert Pujols is doing through the St. Louis Cardinals’ first 45 games is staggering, absolutely numbing, and it’s a colossal insult to Pujols and, frankly, the game of baseball that ESPN seems to have this unquenchable thirst to trump the Cardinals’ slugger by bringing its audience all things Barry Bonds.

What Albert Pujols is doing is historically unfathomable in the world of Major League Baseball. We’re watching Super Man do legitimately what Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa duped us into believing was real eight years ago.

What Bonds is doing is a complete and utter fraud, and that he’s such a despicable human being only adds to the affront.

Pujols is threatening to have a season beyond the imagination of the baseball gods, a season far outdistancing the reach of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Lou Gehrig and the two greatest Cardinals of all time, Rogers Hornsby and Stan Musial.

That he has clubbed 23 homers and driven in 57 runs through 45 games (he has played in 44 of them) is nearly absurd. Projecting this over a full season produces cartoonish numbers. But if this onslaught were to continue, Pujols would finish with 82 home runs and 190 RBIs.

And this would be tacked onto a career that already ranks No. 1 in baseball history through its first five seasons.

That Pujols operates in the comparative anonymity of St. Louis is both a curse and a blessing.

The curse is being denied the publicity and attention he deserves. The blessing is staying just out of the white-hot scrutiny that would swarm a member of the New York Yankees.

I’m sure he’s getting enough adoration from Redbird Nation to make him feel warm and fuzzy.

As the season moves along, the pressure will build and Pujols’ record-breaking pace will, in fact, be subject to greater examination. Because he is helping carry the Cardinals to another potential division title, the national media will eventually be drawn to his side, in droves, especially if Bonds’ fragile physical condition makes catching Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record unlikely.

Pitching strategy will change. Remember how pitchers afforded Bonds so much respect in 2004, when they walked him 232 times including 120 times intentionally? Pujols already deserves that kind of reverence, even though it means less strikes to swing it and, probably, less home runs to hit.

Through 45 games, Pujols has walked 36 times.

For years, Musial has been regarded as the most beloved Cardinal of all time, even though "The Sporting News" actually ranked Hornsby as the better player (No. 9 overall on its top 100 list as compared to No. 10 for Musial).

Musial had a splendid 22-year career during which he won three World Series titles, and when Pujols’ career comes to an end, he will be judged largely on how he performed in those two areas: longevity and championships.

Musial was also the king of goodwill in St. Louis, and even to this day, the harmonica-playing legend is a Pied Piper with the fans.

Hornsby was superior to both Musial and Pujols when it comes to pure hitting. I realize that it’s difficult to compare eras, but in the six-year period from 1920-25, Hornsby posted batting averages of .370, .397, .401, .384, .424 and .403.

His .424 batting average in 1924 is the second highest in the history of the game.

All that said, Pujols is on pace to surpass them both. He already has a career batting average of .332, slightly ahead of Musial’s .331.

Doing it over time and doing it on baseball’s greatest stage, the World Series. That’s where someone must excel to end up in the same sphere with – or, perhaps, beyond – the likes of Musial and Hornsby, not to mention Ruth, Mays and Williams.

That’s the kind of season and career we’re watching. Unless, of course, you’re watching ESPN. There you get to see a fraud.