Saturday night marked another milestone for the Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout. With his most recent 485-foot deep fly, Trout joined the 400 home run club.
The 34-year-old is the 59th player in MLB history to join the elusive club of players to reach the milestone, and the third to do so in an Angels uniform. There is only one other active player in professional baseball who has hammered at least 400 homers, that being the New York Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton. It’s Trout’s most recent historic benchmark reached in a career that has been full of them.
“It feels good. Phew, it was tough man,” Trout said laughingly after the Angels’ Saturday’s win against the Colorado Rockies. “I had a lot of my buddies back home and family members and a lot of people texting me, ‘Hey, when are you going to hit this homer?,’ so I’m glad I got it out of the way.”
Trout, a 15-year veteran, has too many accolades to possibly acknowledge them all, but it’d be a disservice not to acknowledge at least a few. He has won nine Silver Slugger awards and taken home the MVP award three times in his career in 2014, 2016, and 2019. Trout was selected as an All-Star for 11 straight seasons, starting in his rookie season. That streak was finally broken last season due to injuries.
Number 400 –– his 22nd of the season –– comes as a rare light this season for Trout and the Angels, as it has been yet another losing season and a down year for Trout for the first time in his career. While still being a good player, Trout hasn’t been the juggernaut baseball fans have come to expect. In spite of the down year, his 400th home run is an achievement that is very worthy of celebration.
In what has been a season with sparse highs for Angels fans, seeing Trout smash a ball nearly 500 feet is, in a way, therapeutic. It brings fans back to a time of dominance –– to a time where no matter what else was happening, as long as you had the privilege to watch Mike Trout on a baseball field, it was a good time. Angels fans will certainly be looking forward to the many highlights and memories yet to come from Trout in the future.