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Not only did Maldonado get a Marucci-branded Pujols AP5 maple bat, he told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Pujols sent him a half dozen of his own bats. The 36-year-old catcher used one of them in Game 1 against the Philadelphia Phillies, but Major League Baseball quickly put a stop to that before Game 2.

Major League Baseball ruled that Maldonado could not use the bats because that particular AP5 model was no longer allowed in the majors by a player who wasn’t grandfathered in with a 2010 rule change.

An MLB spokesperson told ESPN that the use of Pujols’ bat by Maldonado was not considered a competitive issue. It was a player safety issue, with the concern being multipiece bat failures that happened on the field.

“I don’t think it’s strange,” Maldonado said of MLB’s ruling. “It’s a rule, and I’ll follow it.”

Asked if he felt it was weird that Pujols was allowed to use the bats, Maldonaldo said, “Well, that’s his bat. He’s got 22 years in the big leagues. He can use whatever bat he wants. I can’t use it.”

Ahead of the 2009 season, MLB and the MLB Players Association adopted a series of recommendations by a Safety and Health Advisory Committee, which investigated the sport’s broken bat incidents. A team of experts came to an agreement on recommendations to reduce the frequency of multiple-piece broken bats.