For Angels' Mike Trout, this All-Star Game will be his most special one

Mike Trout’s most cherished All-Star memory is the 2014 game in Minnesota, where the Angels center fielder hit leadoff in front of boyhood idol Derek Jeter and had a locker next to the New York Yankees shortstop, who was playing his final All-Star Game.

Trout had a double, a triple and two RBIs in the American League’s 5-3 win over the National League that night and was named the game’s most valuable player, winning a Corvette Stingray that he still owns.

Trout led off the 2015 All-Star Game in Cincinnati with a homer and scored twice in a 6-3 AL win to earn his second straight All-Star Game MVP award and a Silverado Midnight Edition truck, which he gifted to his agent’s son.

But when Trout joins baseball’s best and brightest for All-Star Game festivities at Dodger Stadium this week, he will create a new set of memories that have little to do with baseball and everything to do with family.

Trout’s 10th All-Star Game will be his first with his son, Beckham, and the three-time AL MVP plans to include his near 2-year-old sidekick in as many events as possible leading up to Tuesday’s game.

“A few years ago, I brought my [then 5-year-old] nephew, Landon, to the game, and that was pretty cool, but it’s going to be a whole different story bringing Beckham,” said Trout, who did not play in last summer’s game because of injury.

“He’s starting to realize that I play baseball. … I don’t know if he realizes everything, but he’s starting to get a little bit, you know, when I come on TV and when I bring him into the clubhouse after the games. It’s going to be special.”

When Trout played in his first All-Star Game as a 20-year-old in 2012, he was so wrapped up in the hoopla that he barely noticed how many veteran players had their young kids in tow.

But the older he got, the more he interacted with the kids of such Angels teammates as Howie Kendrick and Albert Pujols, and the closer he and his wife, Jessica, came to starting a family, the more Trout began to anticipate bringing his own kid to an All-Star Game media session, workout day or home run derby.

“I’m gonna do as much as I can with him,” Trout, 30, said. “He’s still young, almost 2, but I’m sure I will take him on the field, see how he likes it. He’s been good with stuff like that. He loves fireworks, he loves being on the field and stuff, so I think the derby will be cool for him.”

Young Beckham has already starred in a social-media video in which he throws a pitch that Trout whacks with a toy bat in his Newport Beach home, after which the onesie-wearing toddler says, “Now Beckham do it!” Beckham is sure to steal some TV time away from his famous father this week.

“Beckham, man, he’s gonna be a little legend,” Angels utility man Tyler Wade said before being demoted to triple-A Salt Lake in early July. “I mean, Mike Trout’s his dad, he has no other option.”

If Beckham is to follow in his father’s footsteps, he’ll have some huge spikes to fill.

Trout was considered baseball’s best all-around player for much of the past decade until a calf strain sidelined him for most of 2021 and he relinquished the title to teammate Shohei Ohtani, who was a unanimous AL MVP selection after his historic two-way season.

But Trout has reclaimed a spot in baseball’s upper crust with a bounce-back 2022, entering this past week with a .268 average, .967 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, 24 homers, 17 doubles, 51 RBIs and 55 runs in his first 78 games.

Strikeouts have been a problem — Trout’s whiff rate has jumped to a career-high 29.3% this season, well above his career average of 21.9% — and he endured a pair of uncharacteristically long slumps, an 0-for-26 skid in late May and early June and a one-for-25 stretch in early July.

But Trout still entered this last week with the sixth-best OPS and fourth-best slugging percentage (.600) in baseball.

“I didn’t know Mike Trout personally before this season, but getting to know him as I have now, it just increases what you look at as star power, as the face of this game,” said Angels interim manager Phil Nevin, the New York Yankees’ third base coach from 2018 to 2021.

“I had [Yankees slugger] Aaron Judge the last four years, and [Trout] is in the same boat. The game of baseball couldn’t be in better hands with the stars we have.”

A consistent approach and a relentless work ethic have fueled Trout’s decade of dominance at the plate.

His upright stance and swing mechanics haven’t changed much over the years, though he did have a more pronounced leg kick as a youngster. Timing has always been the key. When Trout gets his front foot down on time, he sees the ball better and squares it up more consistently.

Trout usually destroys breaking balls in the zone — he has a major league-best .866 slugging percentage on such pitches since the start of the 2018 season.

He has been vulnerable to hard stuff at the top of the zone, a weakness that pitchers exploited often in 2014, when Trout struck out a career-high 184 times, and have had success attacking this season, with Trout entering this last week with 95 strikeouts.

Trout worked hard to close that loophole, learning to lay off or foul off more of those pitches, and he hit .243 with a .464 slugging percentage on fastballs at the top of the zone from 2015 to 2021 before slipping to an .064 average (three for 47) on such pitches this season.

“One of the earliest things that stood out for me with Mike Trout is that as a young player, even in his first full year, he knew exactly where the outside corner was, and he didn’t chase,” said Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais, an Angels assistant general manager from 2011 to 2015.

“So then people started pitching up and down more, and there was a little bit of a hole at the top of the strike zone, which, if you get it in those little corners up there, you can get him out. But you can’t miss. If you miss, you pay the price.”

Servais, in his seventh year in Seattle, knows this all too well. No player has hit more homers against the Mariners than Trout, who has a .327 average, 1.106 OPS, 53 homers, 37 doubles and 132 RBIs in 175 career games against them. “He’s one of the greatest players of our time, no question about it,” Servais said. “He’s done a ton of damage against us through the years.”

The Mariners have walked Trout intentionally 31 times, three during a June 24-26 series in Anaheim in which Ohtani hit behind him. Trout crushed a 111.8-mph missile to center field in that series that knuckled so viciously the ball sailed a good 10 feet over the head of Julio Rodríguez for a triple. “Off the bat, I thought Julio had a chance to catch it,” Servais said. “Then it took off on him.”

It’s common for hard liners to knuckle on infielders. On outfielders? Not so much. “You don’t see it very often because there’s not many guys who can do it,” Servais said. “Trout will do it. [Houston slugger] Yordan Álvarez has done it. They smoke the ball so hard and hit it so pure there’s no spin. It’s knuckling out there at 110-112 mph, and it’s not easy to catch.”

Trout will display his talents on an All-Star Game stage for the first time since 2019, after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 game and he sat out the 2021 game because of a right calf strain.

Although some veterans who have played in multiple All-Star games sometimes look for reasons to bow out, citing a need to rest or recover from minor injuries, Trout has never sought a midsummer classic escape hatch.

“It’s all for the fans,” Trout said. “It’s a fun week, being able to interact with the best players across the game. You have new faces coming in, guys who are getting called up and impacting the game, and you look forward to meeting those guys.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.