{"id":393579,"date":"2026-07-10T16:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393579\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T16:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:45:15","slug":"amid-angels-playoff-drought-an-all-star-homecoming-for-mike-trout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393579\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Angels’ playoff drought, an All-Star homecoming for Mike Trout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mike Trout<\/a> last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It\u2019s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani<\/a>, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.<\/p>\n

Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.<\/p>\n

Next week\u2019s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout\u2019s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw<\/a> last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.<\/p>\n

That could have been Trout\u2019s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels<\/a> have failed to provide him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have done it,\u201d Trout said.<\/p>\n

Not even at home?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, I don\u2019t want any handouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.<\/p>\n

Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second<\/a> among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons \u2014 all but the previous three \u2014 he has posted a higher OPS.<\/p>\n

In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was clicking,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I first came up, that\u2019s how I felt the whole season.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it\u2019s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there<\/a> with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.<\/p>\n

Mark Gubicza<\/a> can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels\u2019 television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,\u201d Gubicza said. \u201cBut he was cheered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players all walk by him and say \u2018Trouty!\u2019 \u201d Gubicza said. \u201cBefore they all go out to get their heads beat in, they\u2019re all saying hi.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He\u2019s going there to root. That\u2019s why they love him: He\u2019s one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Trout: \u201cI know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it\u2019s just different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like win or die.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio<\/a>, and where a nice day is always a day away.<\/p>\n

No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)<\/p>\n

Roy Hallenbeck, Trout\u2019s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called \u201ca perfect day\u201d and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, coach, I couldn\u2019t live here,\u201d Trout told him. \u201c\u2018I need my seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National<\/a> golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.<\/p>\n

He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that \u201ctook a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey<\/a>\u201d and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.<\/p>\n

Trout was the last Angels player<\/a> to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014<\/a>. Even amid baseball\u2019s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s where it all began,\u201d Trout said. \u201cI think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that\u2019s the biggest key for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think \u2014 I said this last year around this time, but it\u2019s the same feeling I\u2019ve been having \u2014 I really haven\u2019t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there\u2019s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don\u2019t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all \u2014 as people that know him, love him and care for him \u2014 love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,\u201d Hallenbeck said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where. It doesn\u2019t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, it\u2019s with the Angels. They\u2019ve been so good to him. We\u2019d love to see it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It\u2019s crazy, really. The best player of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17957,158343,2736,18436,1426,158345,158341,1073,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,158342,5128,158340,9330,158344,72],"class_list":["post-393579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-12th-time","tag-al-outfielder","tag-albert-pujols","tag-all-star-game","tag-angels","tag-career-season","tag-distinguished-player","tag-home","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-mark-gubicza","tag-mike-trout","tag-millville","tag-philadelphia","tag-roy-hallenbeck","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}