The first time I saw Mike Trout play at Angel Stadium, two White Sox fans threatened to pummel me in the name of Alsip — or East Hazel Crest, one of those Hawk Harrelson towns. The second time, the team was giving away Foam Trout Hats at the gates. The third time, during the pandemic, I saw Trout and Shohei Ohtani hit back-to-back home runs from the eighth row in rather empty surroundings.
“History,” I said to my friend.
It is astonishingly sad of the baseball gods that Trout still plays for the same awful team — after so many injuries that we’ve lost track, after Ohtani left to win two World Series and more trophies with the Dodgers, having made the postseason only once in 2014 without even a victory — and how his career has been wasted in Orange County. The owner, Arte Moreno, must sell the Angels after settling Tyler Skaggs’ wrongful death lawsuit. No one is certain what future arrangements will bring in Anaheim, which seems eight planetary stops from Dodger Stadium. And yet, there was Trout on Tuesday night, hitting his 11th homer of the season — in the same ballpark, against the same White Sox — and 415th of his career.
His on-base percentage figure (.436) ranks second in the major leagues. At 34, looking healthy, Trout would be the victim of an all-time sports crime if he remains with a 14-23 club beyond the trade deadline. Please. Try the Phillies, near where he grew up in south New Jersey, where he is a building a golf course — Trout National, The Reserve — with the help of Tiger Woods. Try the Yankees, who should return to the World Series. It is beyond belief that this man, once considered a Top 10 player of our lives, is stuck.
It will require a special team to spend around $175 million for the remainder of his deal, which lasts four years and change. That team must be out there, because if we’ve almost seen everything in baseball, we haven’t seen Trout win a real game in October. Last month, he hit five homers during a four-game series at Yankee Stadium. That had never happened in the Bronx, from Babe Ruth to Aaron Judge.
“I heard that after the game,” Trout said. “It’s pretty surreal. All the great players that came through here, so it’s pretty cool.”
You don’t think Judge wants him in the lineup? “He’s the greatest, the greatest of all time,” he said. “I know he’s had some tough injuries over the years, but to see himself back in a better spot this year — he puts on a show. I hate to see it, but it’s fun competing against a guy like that.”
Not that his teammates are surprised. “At this point it’s vintage Mike Trout,” Jo Adell said. “When he’s healthy and feeling good, there’s nothing like it. It’s special. It’s one of a kind. So for all of us to experience it, it’s special.”
“Honestly, not surprising,” manager Kurt Suzuki said. “When you’re with Mike every day, there’s nothing that you believe that he can’t do. He’s unbelievable. He really is.”
Never should we set Trout aside when we speak of history. He needs what could be called the most dramatic reset in baseball lore. The Phillies are having a down year. The Yankees make the most sense, just up the road from Millville. Can you imagine him in that lineup? in the month of October?
Against the Dodgers, with Ohtani pitching?
Next time I go to Angel Stadium, I need a new uniform. Or I will stop going.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.