KANSAS CITY, Mo. – It's hard to fathom the trajectory of a ball hit from the plate at Liberty High School to an air-conditioning unit on the roof of a two-story building behind the left-center field fence.

The fence is 375 feet from home. It's another 50 feet up an embankment to the building. The metal air-conditioning unit is about 20 feet beyond the edge of the roof.

And Albert Pujols hit one up there? Yes he did – as an 18-year-old high school junior.

"The thing just went and went and went, and then you heard this, 'Bong!' " recalled Dave Fry, Pujols' coach at Fort Osage High School in Independence, Mo. "I thought, 'Jiminy, did he hit a ball that far?' It had to be 485-490 feet."

Like the famous Ted Williams shot marked by a single red seat deep in Fenway Park's right-field bleachers, the Liberty homer is a part of Pujols lore.

It's just one of many legendary shots on a Pujols power trip that began on the scraggly fields of the Dominican Republic, blossomed in the nation's heartland, took a detour this winter to Anaheim and probably will end amid the lush, rolling hills of Cooperstown, N.Y., home to baseball's Hall of Fame.

Marty Kilgore, Pujols' coach at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City, Mo., remembers a majestic 1999 shot Pujols hit at Highland College in Kansas. The ball flew over the 375-foot sign in left-center, over a street behind the fence and off a tree in the backyard of a house.

"It had to be more than 500 feet," Kilgore said. "Their coach still talks about it today."

It's tougher for Tony La Russa to single out a most prodigious Pujols blast. He was the St. Louis Cardinals' manager for every one of Pujols' 445 career big-league home runs and 18 postseason shots.

"There's about 20 tied for first," La Russa said. "It's impossible to pick one."

As for Pujols' favorite, he didn't say. Through his agent, he declined to be interviewed for this story.

Pujols a dominant force for Cardinals

When it comes to slugging, Pujols, now 32 and a strapping 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, always has been ahead of the curve – and the fastball, changeup and slider, for that matter.

He was deemed "a man among boys" in high school and community college because of his imposing size and power, and after a rapid rise to the major leagues as a 21-year-old in 2001, he was just as dominant at baseball's highest level.

In addition to those homers, Pujols had 2,073 hits and a .328 average, .420 on-base percentage and .617 slugging percentage in 11 seasons for St. Louis.

The first baseman won three National League MVP awards and a Rookie of the Year award, and led the Cardinals to World Series championships in 2006 and 2011. In December, he signed a 10-year, $240 million deal, the third-largest contract in baseball history, with the Angels.

With spring training beginning this weekend, what better time to judge Pujols against his peers – and history.

"In the conversation of the greatest players of all time," La Russa said, "Albert is in there already."

Yet, in 1999, despite Pujols' Herculean feats, talent evaluators deemed 401 amateur players better. That's how many were drafted before the Cardinals took Pujols, then a shortstop, in the 13th round.

"That's 401 picks where we all have a little explaining to do," said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, the team's scouting director in 1999.

One scout who has covered the Kansas City area for more than 30 years provided a frank assessment of a circa-1999 Pujols: "I didn't think he could play."

The scout, who spoke at a recent Maple Woods scrimmage, would discuss Pujols only if his name wasn't used. His club forbids him from speaking to reporters.

"First, there was his age – a lot of us thought he was older than he claimed," the scout said. "He could really juice a fastball, but he couldn't handle the slider away. Plus, he was athletic but not highly athletic. There was a question about what position he'd play.

"I missed, as a lot of scouts did, on his makeup and work ethic, OK? That's my fault. I'll take full blame for that. … The one thing I learned from Albert is, I never walk away from raw power with a fastball. That will play."

Kilgore, who took over as the coach at Maple Woods the year Pujols arrived, cringes as he listens. Thirteen years later, it still bothers him that the outside perception of Pujols didn't match the player he knew.

"What he's had to deal with, from jealousy from parents and umpires to all these people questioning his age … he's had to overcome a lot," Kilgore said.

As for the draft day snub? "I don't think Albert has ever forgotten it," Kilgore said.

Phil Caldarella, who works in the Fort Osage district business office, said Pujols' birth certificate was verified by officials from the NCAA and Major League Baseball. "People who were around him could tell he was just a teenage kid playing the game he loved," he added.

Pujols moved to U.S. as a teenager

Pujols grew up in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, and like many kids in the impoverished, baseball-crazed nation, he used a stick for a bat and a milk carton for a glove.

His parents divorced when he was 3, and Pujols' grandparents, Papi and America, became his primary caregivers. The couple had 10 of their own children who, though they were aunts and uncles, became like brothers and sisters to Pujols.

Albert, his father, Bienvenido, an acclaimed softball pitcher, and grandmother moved to New York City in the summer of 1996, when Albert was 16. But they didn't stay long.

By the fall, after Albert witnessed a shooting at a grocery store, his grandmother relocated the family to Independence.

Pujols, speaking virtually no English, arrived at Fort Osage, a school of 1,400 students that draws from both suburban and rural areas. His first day, he sought out the baseball coach.

"Here's this big, strong, good-looking kid just standing there smiling, saying he wants to play beisbol," Fry said. "It was like a gift from the baseball gods."

Pujols was placed in the sophomore class and tried out for the team that winter.

"I was on the gym floor hitting grounders, and one of my assistants said, 'Come up here – you have to see this!' " recalled Fry, who retired in 2002. "We had a cage above the bleachers, and Albert was hitting shots that were tearing the end of the net out."

Fry moved an all-state shortstop to third to make room for Pujols, who hit .471 with 11 homers and 32 RBIs to help Fort Osage win a state championship in 1997.

The next season, Pujols hit .600 with eight homers – including that Liberty shot – in just 33 at-bats. He was walked in 55 of his 88 plate appearances.

"Nobody would pitch to him," said current Fort Osage coach Chris Walker, an assistant in 1998. "He might be lucky to see one pitch to hit a game."

At the urging of scouts who thought they'd get a better evaluation of Pujols at a higher level, Pujols left Fort Osage in the winter of his senior year and enrolled at Maple Woods, where he hit .466 with 22 homers and 76 RBIs in 1999.

Pujols hit a grand slam and turned an unassisted triple play in his community college debut. Kilgore was equally impressed by Pujols' dedication and maturity.

By then, Pujols was in a relationship with a woman he had met at a Kansas City dance club. A single mother, she had a young daughter with Down syndrome. But instead of being a distraction, it seemed to fuel him.

"I've never been around anyone that driven," Kilgore said. "He'd hit three times a day – before, during and after practice. He focused on baseball, his relationship."

In August 1999, Pujols signed with the Cardinals for $60,000, and less than four months later, on New Year's Day 2000, he and Deidre were married.

Prep coach is still amazed by slugger

Pujols played one minor league season, making the big-league club in 2001 and quickly establishing himself as one of the premier hitters in the game.

He is the only major leaguer to post 10 consecutive seasons with a .300 average, 30 doubles, 30 homers and 100 RBIs, falling just shy of 11 – he hit .299 with 99 RBIs and 29 doubles in 2011.

"Had I seen this, I would have quit coaching and become his agent," said Fry, the high school coach. "It makes you so proud. For two years I penciled his name in my lineup. Then, you hear people say he's in the same class as Babe Ruth? Golly."

Sitting in a booth at a restaurant in Blue Springs, Mo., Fry marvels at the money Pujols has made – $104 million with the Cardinals – and will make with the Angels.

The Pujols that Fry knew lived in the Hawthorne Place Apartments – a low-income, barracks-style complex where rent is often paid using federal housing vouchers – off Route 24 in Independence.

Pujols' ride back then? A beat-up, yellow Toyota with newspaper clippings hung on a string from the rearview mirror.

"I never thought I'd coach a kid who would make a quarter of a billion dollars," Fry said. "He has upped the average yearly salary for Fort Osage graduates by many bucks."

Those who coached and taught a younger Pujols are just as proud of the man he has become: a devoted husband and father of four (two girls, two boys); head of a foundation that ministers to people with Down syndrome and impoverished families in the Dominican; role model who doesn't smoke or drink and has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs; loyal teammate, clubhouse leader and mentor.

"He's a better man," Kilgore said, "than he is a ballplayer."

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