HAS ANY GENERATIONAL ATHLETE BEEN MORE STAR-CROSSED THAN MIKE TROUT?

His days as baseball’s leading man are long past, with his latest injury pointing again to an Angels curse — and likely leading to the departure of Shohei Ohtani, which could prompt Trout to leave too

     If we’re attaching emojis to careers, Mike Trout’s ordeal always will have a teardrop. There are sadder and more tragic sports stories, but none with the relentless heartbreak of a player who has regressed from the greatest of his generation to one who can’t stay healthy and might never win a playoff game.

     And now, as he takes his usual place on the injured list, his absence likely will end a partnership with Shohei Ohtani that could have been the modern version of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. If the Angels proceed to miss the playoffs again — the 12th such failure in Trout’s 13 seasons — why would Ohtani stick around for more agony? He must flee Anaheim for an address befitting his standing as the most prominent two-way athlete ever and baseball’s biggest attraction. A dalliance with the Los Angeles Dodgers, 31 miles up the freeway, not only is sensible but necessary to regularly showcase his otherworldly dual threats in October. There are executives in Dodger Stadium who will load up the talent truck this minute, so he can join them for a postseason run and live happily ever after.

     Which would leave Trout behind to lick his wounds, his prime tumbling into midlife as the one superstar most hexed by factors beyond his control. Can you think of anyone recently in sports who is so blessed with talent and accomplishment — and so haunted by misfortune? This time, he could be out eight weeks with a broken hamate bone in his left wrist, a fracture that happened not from contact but when he fouled off a pitch on a routine swing.

     “I can’t describe the pain I felt,” said Trout, understandably distraught. “I never felt it before, ever, before this. I’ve never had wrist problems or anything. Freak thing, I guess. I don’t know.”

     Freak karma, actually. Not since 2016 has he played more than 140 games in a season. Last year, he missed five weeks with a back injury. The year before, he missed more than four months with a strained calf. He’ll again sit out the All-Star Game, despite his election as an American League starter for the 10th time, and it blows the mind that he hasn’t played in the showcase since 2019. A sports world that can’t see him in the autumn can’t see him in summer, either.

     “It’s really frustrating because my body is feeling great,” Trout said. “And then, just a freak thing happens.”

     Gradually, maddeningly, the memories of Trout’s three MVP seasons, four MVP runner-up finishes, nine Silver Slugger awards and two All-Star MVP performances have been dimmed by prolonged unavailability. His status as the sport’s highest-paid player ever — he’s in the fifth season of a 12-year, $426.5 million deal — cannot bring him solace. Ohtani’s departure would be the ultimate setback reminding Trout that he plays for a spooked franchise. This is a serious matter. Tragedies date back to the mid-1980s, when relief pitcher Donnie Moore committed suicide three years after giving up a devastating playoff home run. Trout and Ohtani were in Texas with the team in 2019 when starting pitcher Tyler Skaggs died of an overdose in his room, with drugs provided by the team’s communications director, the since-imprisoned Eric Kay. Trout, too, should be thinking about an escape hatch despite the no-trade clause he demanded in his record contract. The day after he broke his wrist, it shouldn’t have surprised him that Ohtani left a game in San Diego with a right finger blister, which will prevent him from pitching in next week’s All-Star Game.

     A family life in lovely Newport Beach brings contentment for only so long when a man is so gifted professionally. With Trout’s career evidently doomed to underachievement, a change of scenery would be uplifting — for him and the rest of us who still watch the sport. The team of his south Jersey upbringing, the Philadelphia Phillies, is one of MLB’s biggest spenders under owner John Middleton. When the National League adopted the designated hitter, it created new alternatives for a team to manage injury-plagued superstars such as Trout and Bryce Harper. Wherever he might land — Philly, Yankee Stadium, Citi Field — he must escape Orange County. Angel Stadium is no Disneyland, aging and bleak with no certain rehabilitative future in an ongoing legal swirl. Owner Arte Moreno might decide to sell the team once and for all after flirting with the idea last year. Don’t be surprised, should the Angels slide out of contention in July, if Ohtani is traded before the deadline. Slammed by injuries all year, they can’t win a wild-card spot in a competitive American League without Trout for two months. Anthony Rendon, the third big-money ticket in the lineup, fouled a pitch off his left shin Tuesday and also might be headed to the IL. “It doesn’t look great,” he said.

     It never does by the Big A, the 230-foot-tall shrine to the team in the outfield parking lot. A halo atop the structure can be seen from nearby freeways, and maybe to change luck, management decided to light the halo after every game — not just after victories. “I noticed that,” Trout told the Los Angeles Times. “When did they start doing that, last year?”

     Obviously, it hasn’t helped. The Angels are still in the dark, their terminal adversity belying their nickname. Ohtani laid down some truth about the days ahead: “I think the games from now to the All-Star break are the most important.” Trout will be watching in civvies, natch. 

     He has learned to emphasize positivity while hoping it isn’t delusion, saying he expects to return in four weeks. Never mind that the same broken hamate bone cost the Tampa Bay star, Wander Franco, two months last season. Never mind that Boston infielder Yu Chang still hasn’t returned since suffering the injury in late April. Even after surgery, which is likely, Trout vows to be back this season. “Of course,” he said. “It’s nothing crazy-serious. Obviously, I’m gonna miss a little bit of time, but it’s not season-ending. Some guys came back in four weeks. Some guys take a little longer. We’ll see how my body heals.”

     Angels manager Phil Nevin is more pragmatic. “Mike will be back at some point this season,” he said. “I know he’s hungry. I also know he’s hurting too. It’s tough to see.”

     Tougher to see without a hankie.

     Baseball can’t afford Trout’s continuing misery narrative. His career has been wasted, and if he stays put in Anaheim, it’s hard to believe he’ll ever find joy. He is part of the sport’s recent injury epidemic, which has sidelined Aaron Judge with a torn toe ligament and hobbles pitchers daily, including Clayton Kershaw and Shane McClanahan. The All-Star Game has so many omissions, the theme could be Starless in Seattle. Imagine if Macklemore, the local rapper, is the biggest spectacle.

     All Trout has to do is look across his own clubhouse to realize how life has changed. Ohtani is established as the sport’s greatest player now — and has been for a while. Judge dominated headlines last fall with 62 home runs. Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. is the best player this season. MLB Network is running a .400 display beside its news crawl as a nod to Miami’s Luis Arraez, who is batting .387 in pursuit of the hallowed plateau. New sensations, such as Arizona’s Corbin Carroll and Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz, are making waves. Scrolling down the OPS list — the new-age barometer of complete offensive mastery — we see Nick Castellanos ranked 19th, LaMonte Wade Jr. 21st and Isaac Paredes 22nd.

     Mike Trout is 20th. And unable to play.

     The halo is his albatross.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.