Perhaps as much as anybody in baseball history, Mike Trout is ready for his close-up.
In a week, the playoffs start. Trout’s Angels are part of them, a substantial part if their probably best-record-in-baseball finish is any indication.
Trout is no secret. He turned 23 on Aug. 7 and already has numbers comparable to the early starts of Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams. He was the league’s rookie of the year in 2012 in the easiest decision voters ever had to make, and has been runner-up for most valuable player the last two seasons.
He made the All-Star game in his first season, not long after he started to shave, and was the game’s MVP this year in his third appearance.
Nevertheless, true legacy in baseball comes in the postseason. Every baseball fan knows Trout, knows how good he is. But that leaves millions of general sports fans, the kind who sneer at watching an NBA game before the last five minutes or disdain Major League Baseball’s standings before Aug. 15, to start paying closer attention now. Which they will.
Trout can go from Fox Sports West to, with a World Series advance, Fox Sports Everywhere. If you live on the East Coast, or even the Midwest, you’re usually in bed when Trout is blasting homers or stealing them from others with wall leaps in center field. You stay awake for the playoffs.
And so, a star can be born, even though he has been playing a lead role for three years. Reading about him and seeing an occasional national telecast isn’t the same. In the postseason, everything means more, everything is magnified. Even his All-Star game excellence isn’t quite the same as an extended run, if the Angels make one, under the brightest lights.
It might become kind of a twist on the Joe DiMaggio thing. A nation turns its adoring eyes to a kid in red, wearing No. 27.
Those of us who have watched him from the start and watch him closely now can predict that what fans are about to see is more than just numbers.
Certainly, those are impressive. Through the end of last week, Trout was among the league leaders in seven of the 11 batting categories and led in runs scored and runs batted in. His .291 batting average was one percentage point out of the top 10, with a week to go in the regular season.
But the poise and maturity of this 23-year-old is not likely to go unnoticed from coast to coast.
In this day of sports me-ism — look at me, watch my celebration dance, watch me pound my chest in self-congratulation after making that tackle after a six-yard gain — Trout will be a breath of fresh air.
He hoots and hollers less about personal success than team success. He is as happy after a 0-4 night and a team win as he is on a 4-4 night and a team win. He’s not a schmoozer, but he seems to always have a friendly word for everybody.
Angels Vice President Tim Mead puts it best, in the vernacular of the game: “Mike Trout never big-leagues anybody,” Mead says.
Trout has slumps, but he never seems to have emotional down-in-the-dumps.
A month or so ago, the Angels went to Dodger Stadium for an interleague series. Before the game, Trout didn’t just mingle with the kids in the red shirts and the No. 27 jerseys. He wandered over near the Dodgers dugout and signed some autographs.
Later, when the teams played, Dodgers fans booed him every time he came to bat. Asked about it later, he smiled and said, “They love their team, and I’m not on it.”
He has a gift of looking people in the eye, even just those seeking his quick scribble on the bill of their cap, and engaging them in conversation. Sometimes, you don’t just get a signature, but a question: “How are you?” And the way he does it actually leaves the impression that he’s open to an answer.
Sunday, at Angel Stadium, he met a 9-year-old cancer patient and it wasn’t just a photo op. Trout was inquisitive, patient, and made sure the youngster not only got some of his time, but also a picture with him.
He seems to like being one of the faces of the Angels, rather than the face.
In the clubhouse, you see him in earnest conversation one day with Albert Pujols, the next with Jered Weaver. He carries the numbers of a superstar and the demeanor of a team guy.
He is the antithesis of a publicity hound. He does more than his share of community things on behalf of the Angels, but also knows when and how to say no, when the outside stuff is squeezing his real job. He’s no media go-to guy, a la Torii Hunter, who was a flame to us media moths. But he is approachable, understands our role and cooperates. With Trout, Jim Hill gets the same treatment as Bob Costas.
Another fascination to those just coming to the Trout party will be his contract. When he signed through the 2020 season, many baseball experts said the $144 million he got was well below what he could have gotten. Conversely, he will be 29 when that contract runs out — not 31 or 32. That positions him well for somebody to back up the Brink’s truck.
For now, he is a young man, apparently raised right by Jeff and Debbie Trout of Millville, N.J., who is about to show his stuff to millions of sports fans who have yet to pay more than token attention.
What they will see is both incredible athletic ability and, for somebody in his situation, unusual normalcy.
That’s the ultimate postseason home run.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
