Baseball great Albert Pujols found himself in the middle of a bizarre controversy in the Dominican winter league championship series. 

Pujols was managing Leones del Escogido against Tigres del Licey in the championship series. 

GUSTAVO NÚÑEZ HR #SerieFinalLIDOM@TigresdelLicey en la 9na entrada con 2 outs del Juego 6.

El Pichitazo se une a grandes éxitos jonroneros como el Pepelucazo, el Tulilazo, el Furcalazo y el Franciscazo.

Le pusimos un audio de @Elreydelaradio 🤣🐯💙😬⚾️🔥🇩🇴💙💙 pic.twitter.com/xN2wAj20K0

— Baseball For Today ⚾️ (@BaseballFor2day) January 27, 2025

The controversy came on Sunday night when Leones found itself one out away from winning the championship when Gustavo Nunez — a former Mets minor leaguer — hit a two-run homer that tied the game for Tigres, who eventually won in 13 innings to force a Game 7. 

Pujols, a three-time NL MVP, questioned the legitimacy of the home run and requested that Nunez’s bat be checked to make sure he wasn’t using an illegal bat to hit the homer. 

“Bat is inspected, and dissected, this morning. Bat is found to be legal,” baseball reporter Shawn Spradling posted on X. 

Several posts on social media showed just how thoroughly the bat was inspected, with one video showing workers chopping the bat up into little pieces in order to determine if it had been corked. 

Momento en el que abren bate de Gustavo Núñez, jugador de los Tigres del Licey, para verificar si estaba adulterado o no tras llamada a confiscación por parte del dirigente de los Leones del Escogido Albert Pujols.

Resultado oficial: Bate limpio. pic.twitter.com/jiyUfZJs1i

— Eliezer González Caraballo (@ElTioElie) January 27, 2025

The posts clearly showed that it was indeed clean. 

Regardless of the outcome in Game 6, Pujols still led Leones del Escogido to a championship in Game 7 with the ballclub coming away with a 6-5 victory on Monday night. 

Nunez was in the Mets farm system at Double-A Binghampton for the 2017 season.