Millville Senior High School product Mike Trout, 19, gets called up to the major leagues early Friday, July 8.
Trout crosses home plate after hitting his 15th homer in a Millville Senior High School game against Cherry Hill High School East back in May 2009.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, U.S.A. — ESPN.com is reporting that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim called up 19-year-old Millville Senior High School product Mike Trout to the major league earlier today.
The Angels promoted Trout in a pinch because, according to ESPN, the team was "in need of a center fielder after Peter Bourjos strained his hamstring legging out a double in Thursday's game against the Mariners."
Trout's case appears to be an anomaly.
According to ESPNLosAngeles.com writer Mark Saxon, "Teams rarely promote players before their 20th birthday, though there have been notable exceptions. Alex Rodriguez was 18 when he debuted with the Mariners in 1994."
Prior to his promotion, Trout was playing for the Angels' Double-A affilaite the Arkansas Travelers, of the Texas League. It is unclear whether or not this is a permanent or temporary move by the Angels, but regardless, he will be in uniform tonight (wearing number 27) for Los Angeles’ match-up with the Seattle Mariners.
Widely considered the top prospect in baseball, Trout was selected 25th overall by the Angels in the 2009 MLB Draft. Since then, the local product has been tearing up the minor leagues, which led to his call up.
The Angels face off against the Mariners Friday at 10:05pm (EST), in Los Angeles. Even if Trout doesn't play, it will be his first time back to Angel Stadium of Anaheim since last year's Future's All-Star Game.
Atlantic City Weekly recently had an exclusive interview with Trout, prior to his call up.
Here is Trout's fascinating story, which highlights the outfielder's journey from being a South Jersey baseball prodigy to becoming a big leaguer.
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It's Saturday morning, May 23, 2009, around 10am — just an ordinary spring morning almost everywhere in Cherry Hill, N.J.
But down at the David J. Martin Baseball Diamond, where Millville Senior High School (Millville) and Cherry Hill High School East are squaring off in a late season baseball contest, anything but ordinary is taking place.
A New York Yankees scout knows that. Many of the residents who woke up early for the ballgame do too.
That’s why they are all there: so they don’t miss out on witnessing the talents of a high-school senior who, some time down the road, may go down as the best ball player to ever grace the athletic playing fields of South Jersey’s high schools.
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Mike Trout steps to the plate. The second he enters the batter’s box, it's clear there is something special about this kid.
His tree-trunk thighs, his forearms that are nearly as big as the barrel on his bat, his thick neck and huge back — high-school kids just aren’t supposed to look like this.
Everyone in attendance stops talking and pins their eyes to his every move.
Trout gets a pitch low and outside, knee level and off the plate, an un-hittable pitch for most players.
Swinging with every pound of his massive body rotating in perfect unison, Trout sends a sizzling white pearl soaring into the sky.
By the time the ball lands over the right-center field fence, 400 feet from home plate, people in the crowd bring their attention back to the field.
What they see next may be the most astonishing thing of all.
Trout is already at second base.
“He just hit a no-doubter home run, why is this Millville mammoth sprinting around the bases? Better yet, how did he even get there that fast?” many members of the crowd are asking themselves.
Upon hitting the ball, Trout hustled full-speed out of the box, trying to get as many bases out of his hit as possible in case the ball didn’t land over the fence.
And now, as he sees the ball disappear behind the fence for his 15th home run of the season, Trout begins to slow down into his nonchalant, home run trot, better known as the “Trout Trot.”
Trout is not only playing like no other rookie in MLB history, he’s putting most Major League veterans to shame.
As a young child, Shawn Sanford thought his father, Jimmy Sanford, was an actual superhero.
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“It freaked me out. I don’t really know exactly what happened next, but I dug down deep and decided that I’m either going to stop baseball and get a job, or I have to do something here. My last few games, I took the ball and threw it as hard as I possibly could.”
In the eighth episode of this multi-part series, the distinguished panel of Atlantic City historians and authors start to discuss the wild history of sporting events in the resort — from boxing and cat boxing to indoor football and Yankees baseball.
The baseball bean counters love to crunch the numbers this time of year, to look at WHIP and a bunch of other new stats I’ve never understood, in order to over-analyze the outcome of the post season.
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AS MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL’S regular season winds down this week (c’mon Phils, nail that NL East title down already!) and most of the playoff match-ups have been determined (this Red Sox fan would like to thank rival AL West division winners the Los Angeles Angels for beating the Texas Rangers Tuesday night, thus helping the Sox clinch the AL Wild Card spot) there’s a lot of fantastic baseball watching to be had this month.
The ultimate goal of the draft was to put together a Top-30 list of who would be the best players to start a baseball team with, if the baseball experts in the draft had to build their franchise around one single player. Trout was the 12pick overall.
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1. Mark Cornell said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 01:47PM
“So if he's so good, why was he taken 25th?”
2. Nate Mulberg said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 02:00PM
“Mark-
Scouts knew he was going to be good. Truthfully, NO ONE thought he would be this good. And absolutely NO ONE thought he would be this good this fast.
He didn't go higher in the draft because at the time, scouts did not see him as a hall of fame talent. Up to this point in his career, he has proven that he has that type of talent.
Also, playing in the northeast didn't help his cause either. Traditionally, baseball in the northeast is not as prominent as in the South/Southwest. Because of this, its a bit more difficult to evaluate talent when the competition players are facing is overall not as strong as the competition in those other regions.
And it is especially difficult to judge high school hitters in the northeast- you can't judge how good a hitter is just by how far or frequently he hits the ball. Pitching is a bit more numbers based- if you throw a certain speed, teams are more willing to take a chance on you.
So that's part of the reason why Trout slipped in the draft.”
3. Anonymous said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 02:19PM
“prescient reporting Nate Mulberg
nice job”
4. Joshua Thomas said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 03:13PM
“Great answer Nate, better than the article somehow”
5. Guruberk said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 03:14PM
“awesome article! you tell a great story and write impeccably!”
6. Brian said... on Jul 8, 2011 at 04:18PM
“The reason Trout wasn't picked higher in the draft is he had a lot of games rained out his senior year. The teams with earlier picks didn't want to risk it so they took players who supposedly were better. The Padres picked 6th and selected Donovan Tate. I bet they regret that. He can't stay healthy. Draft experts now think Trout should have gone first or second. The Angels had several early picks so they took Trout. Too bad for the Yankees because it sounds like they might have wanted him too. The Angels used the Yankee's first round draft pick since the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira. That sure made it easier to lose Teixeira.
As for Mike Trout, it will be great to see Mike Trout and Peter Bourjos playing in the same outfield at some point. With those two playing together just give each half the outfield. I want to see which of them is faster.”