Mike Trout’s Anaheim

Here’s something I always appreciated about Roy Hobbs from the movie* “The Natural:” The guy was never boring. He was either tearing the cover off the ball and smashing outfield clocks or he was striking out with the feeblest swings you ever saw. He was consorting with gamblers and out on the town with Kim Basinger (whose own uncle called her bad luck) or he was in a malt shop with his boyhood sweetheart Glenn Close (who just didn’t want to see him fail). The guy was epic. I’d say the whole season he probably never did something ordinary like go 1-for-4 with an infield single and a walk.

*We’ll talk about the book another time.

Of course, that’s the movies. Baseball isn’t really like that — sure, there are extremes, winning streaks and slumps, three-homer days and golden sombreros, but the game mostly takes up the space in between, bloops that drop and foul pop-outs that don’t, fielder’s choice groundouts and routine fly balls to left. Baseball doesn’t come down to good and bad, curses and blessings, an outfielder dying while running through a wall or a woman in white rising in the Chicago sunlight.

Except … apparently in Mike Trout’s Anaheim.