Week 17: Mike Trout

At the tender age of 26, Mike Trout played in his seventh All-Star Game. He hit a home run in the game, and while he hits a lot of home runs, this one was notable for a couple of reasons. First, Jacob deGrom, who is one of the best pitchers in the baseball was pitching. The other is that it prompted Bryce Harper, who is not known for his lack of ego, to admit Trout is the best player in the Major League Baseball. Harper was giving an interview from the field when Trout hit his dinger, and you can hear his commentary in this video.



Mike Trout took to social media during the game and posted a selfie from the field with fellow American League All-Stars and MLBoyfriends, Aaron Judge and Mookie Betts.

#AllStarGame is always something special. Thank you for the hospitality DC!!!

A post shared by Mike Trout (@miketrout) on Jul 17, 2018 at 9:09pm PDT

I love this photo of Trout taking that pic because he looks little standing
next to Aaron Judge--and Mookie Betts looks tiny. FYI: Trout is 6'2", 135lbs.

On the very same day that Mike Trout was enthusiastically participating in the biggest promotional event in baseball, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said that Trout was not doing enough promotion. 

“Mike has made decisions on what he wants to do, doesn’t want to do, how he wants to spend his free time or not spend his free time,” Manfred said in the hours before MLB’s All-Star Game at Nationals Park. “I think we could help him make his brand very big. But he has to make a decision to engage. It takes time and effort.”

Pretty much everyone including The Los Angeles Times, Deadspin, The New York Post, and even frickin' Gold Digest called bullshit on Manfred's comments. Even better, lots of folks took to social media to show why Mike Trout is not only the best player in baseball, he might be the best ambassador of baseball. Here's one of my favorite tweets:

A couple weeks ago at Camden Yards, I watched Trout pull a 6-year old out of the pregame crowd. He spent the next 15 minutes with the kid by his side during BP. Stretched with him, chatted with him. Even gave him his bat. Never seen anything like it. It looked like this. pic.twitter.com/eZhagoXeb4

— Eddie Matz (@ESPNeddiematz) July 18, 2018

For more, check out the Twitter hashtag: #MikeTroutMoments. Or this post aptly titled "Here's a bunch of videos of Mike Trout doing nice things for kids" from the USA Today sports blog For The Win's weekly feature, "Mike Trout Mondays".

Week 12: Mike Trout

I would like to officially welcome Mike Trout back to MLBoyfriend after far too long an absence. Somewhat shockingly, the only time he has won the title was September 6, 2016. This Angel doesn't need to wait in the wings any longer--because he crushed it last week.

Two of Trout's stats from last week are almost unbelievable: he had a batting average of .684 average and a 2.118 OPS. He also had eight runs, four home runs and seven RBIs. Oh yeah, his fielding wasn't too shabby either.

Here's a Mike Trout highlight reel from one game, the Angels' June 12th game against the Mariners. Many players would be happy to have this be their highlights from a full week of play.



It's no surprise that Trout is had a great week last week. He is having a amazing season so far. This is also no surprise because he has had one of  the most amazing careers in MLB history. Just 26 years old, Trout has been a star player for will player for seven years. and is already on track to break a ton of records. Check out this excellent article/video on "How Mike Trout stacks up to MLB greatests as he closes in on 1,000 games."

Week 22: Mike Trout

Mike Trout has been a candidate for my MLBoyfriend almost every week this season--if for no other reason than I just wanted to use this picture.

Last week, he put up the numbers to earn the title. Last week, Trout had a staggering .556 batting average and 1.986 OPS with three home runs, eight runs and six RBIs. He even managed to steal a base. Very impressive numbers for a guy who has slumped in August in the past.

Unfortunately, there was some bad news for Trout last week. He was involved in a car accident on Wednesday in which a a woman was injured. I do not believe in lowering the bar for basic human behavior for athletes or other celebrities. That said, it seems this is not the type of tabloid story we are unfortunately used to with athletes. Trout rushed to help the injured person, cooperated fully with police on the scene and showed no signs of intoxication. Again, none of this is admirable per se; however, when I first saw just the headlines--especially the one in the New York Post--I was afraid it would be a deal-breaker. After "researching" the case (i.e., Googling "Mike Trout car accident"), this doesn't disqualify hm from being my MLBoyfriend. He had the day after the accident off, and was quickly back in form--hitting a home run at his first at bat on Friday.

Week 16: Kole Calhoun

I have two reasons for selecting Kole Calhoun as my MLBoyfriend. The first is that I love a Cinderella story in baseball. To put it kindly, Calhoun's season so far has been mediocre. His batting average so far is a measly .182. Now suddenly in July, his bat is getting hot.

Calhoun had a really good week last week. On Tuesday, July 10, he went three-for-four, with a home run, two RBIs, and three runs scored. He hit two home runs on Friday, July 13, which meant he alone scored all two runs the Angels scored in that game. He scored the winning run in the tenth inning of the game on Saturday, July 14.

Kole Calhoun makes a leaping catch on Saturday, July 14.

For the week, Calhoun had a .364 average, a 1.355 OPS, six RBIs and seven runs. He has only hit nine home runs all season and four of them were last week. He had a much better week than his superstar teammate (and two-time MLBoyfriend winner), Mike Trout. Last week, Trout had only a .282 average, .730 OPS, three runs, and no RBIs or home runs. 

Mike Trout passes the MLBoyfriend torch to Kole Calhoun.

My Ethical MLBoyfriend

I've been thinking a lot about something, and I wanted to put it out there before the 2019 baseball season begins.* It's been on my mind since soon after I launched the MLBoyfriend blog, but I hadn't really put my finger on it. Then, towards the end of last summer, Will Leitch's piece "It Might Be Impossible To Be An Ethical Sports Fan" helped clarify the issue.

"Being a sports fan means signing up for shady capitalist practices, engaging in ugly tribalism, and very often, cheering for many human beings who stand for the opposite of what you believe in every possible way. You might not always be acutely aware that you’re doing these things, but you are. To successfully remain a sports fan, I’d argue a certain emotional alchemy is required."

So the question for me as I think about this MLBoyfriend blog is: Should I be celebrating players who are great on the field but might, in fact, be garbage people?

Leitch uses the example of the Chicago Cubs picking up Daniel Murphy in a trade despite his publicly stated homophobic views--which was a very problematic move. I've actually been following the Murphy story since it first broke. From the beginning, I have tended to defer to Billy Bean's opinion of Murphy. Bean, who came out as gay after retiring from baseball, is MLB's Ambassador of Inclusion and provides "guidance and training related to efforts to support those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community". It was a training with Bean that kicked off the Murphy brouhaha. At the time, Bean issued an incredibly gracious response:

Billy Bean throws out the first pitch at
Minnesota Twins Pride Night 2018

"I appreciate that Daniel spoke his truth. I really do. I was visiting his team, and a reporter asked his opinion about me. He was brave to share his feelings, and it made me want to work harder and be a better example that someday might allow him to view things from my perspective, if only for just a moment. I respect him, and I want everyone to know that he was respectful of me. We have baseball in common, and for now, that might be the only thing. But it's a start."

Last year, Bean said the he and Murphy have become friends. I guess that's why I couldn't get too worked up about the Cubs decision to bring Murphy on board--or the Colorado Rockies signing him on for two years this winter. If the person who was the target of Murphy's initial comments isn't calling for him to be drummed out of baseball, who am I to? Also, I must confess that I did put Murphy on my fantasy baseball team for a short period a couple of years ago. He might be a homophobe, but he's a really good hitter.

That said, I would never pick Daniel Murphy to be my MLBoyfriend. Expressing anti-LGBTQ+ views to the press is clearly a bridge too far. But what should I do if homophobic tweets of a past MLBoyfriend surface? This is the problem I faced with Trae Turner. Two years after I named him my MLBoyfriend, some troubling social media posts he had made became public. I'm hoping it's not too hypocritical that I gave him a bit of a pass. I think there's a difference between statements a professional player made on the record and things a high school student says in what he, mistakenly, thought to be just a messages to friends. I also felt Turner's apology was sincere. Another disclosure: Trea Turner was my first pick in my fantasy draft last week. (Yes, that's twice that I turned a blind eye to homophobia in order to win in a pretend sports league.) Still, unless he shows through actions and not just words that he has evolved into a true LGBTQ+ ally, Turner is almost certainly a one-and-done as my MLBoyfriend.

Sean Doolittle, pitcher, LGBTQ+ ally, dreamboat

Turner was one of three players whose ugly past on social media was revealed over a short period last summer. It's no coincidence that as that controversy swirled around the MLB, I chose Sean Doolittle to be my MLBoyfriend. Doolittle had the best response to the issue of athletes' bigoted tweets that he shared, appropriately enough, on Twitter. He has also been a vocal and active supporter of the LGBTQ+ community throughout his career. Sean Doolittle is definitely on my radar for a repeat win of the MLBoyfriend title.

My concerns go beyond LGBTQ+ issues. I was saddened to learn that J.D. Martinez--who has appeared on MLBoyfriend multiple times--posted an anti-gun-control meme on Instagram, and then, when confronted about it, chose to double down. Worse yet, the extremely dubious "quote" implies that gun-safety advocates are like Nazis. So, that's really bad.

There is a precedent for me taking someone off the blog. Right after the 2016 election, a player gloated about Trump's victory with what could be interpreted as an antisemitic tweet. I was in no mood to put up with that shit, so I went back to the week he was my MLBoyfriend and simply replaced him with another player. The only evidence he was ever there is the web address for the post. I also completely deleted a post about another player after it was revealed he has a history of domestic abuse.

Why didn't I take J.D. Martinez off the blog after he expressed a view that is deeply offensive to me? I'm not sure. Part of it is laziness. It would have taken a lot more work than re-writing one post. Part of it is wondering if I'm punishing players for exercising their right to express political opinions that are opposed to mine. I'm sure many players have terrible politics but just keep them to themselves. Furthermore, Martinez's views were not widely reported when I wrote about him. The posts are accurate reflections of how I felt at the time--and isn't that what a blog is all about? So, I've decide to punt and go back a put this disclaimer in all the Martinez posts:

"I wrote this before J.D. Martinez posted something very problematic on social media that is in direct opposition to my values. He has a right to express political opinions, but words have consequences. In this case the consequence is that I no longer think he's hot--in fact, he's the opposite of hot. NRA propaganda is deal breaker for me."

I doubt anyone is going through my archives, but it will make me feel better.

I guess that puts me back where I started. What are the ethical trade-offs I'm willing to make to be not just a baseball fan but someone who puts his fandom out there for public consumption? I found an interesting response to Will Leitch's piece by Matt Bogdanow titled, "It Might Be Possible To Be An Ethical Sports Fan". Both Leitch and Bogdanow believe that sports fandom involves a bit of magical thinking regarding the relationship between players and fans.

"The deal we make with ourselves when we watch sports is that we will give outsize proportion to their importance, we will allow them to affect our emotions in dramatic ways even though no one involved has any personal connection to us at all, and we will, wittingly or no, finance activities and products and philosophies that are bad for the world as a whole." --Will Leitch 

"...We desperately want to believe that our rooting has some, albeit small, impact on the field. But if we accept that our feelings don’t actually affect the results, a whole new landscape of rooting possibilities emerges. Having a favorite team no longer needs to mean a blanket support of every member of that team. Watching sports becomes much like watching Game of Thrones: You can want good things to happen to your favorite characters (and vice versa), but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen." --Matt Bogdanow 

Bogdanow has found way to be a baseball fan that he feels right for him. His path is not a path for me, but it does show me that, if you're making conscious decisions, you can find your own way to ethical fandom.

I decided to keep this blog going for at least one more year. It may involve a little compromise and my choices might not always be perfect. Still, I think it's good that there's a little place on the internet where a gay man can post about Mike Trout and discuss both whether or not he's the GOAT and how frickin' hot he is.

Mike Trout at spring training.... *sigh*

Going forward, I will try to name more MLBoyfriends who reflect my values--players who support causes I believe in and express views that align with mine. I did it with Sean Doolittle and others, notably:

Adam Jones, MLBoyfried & hero

• Adam Jones for speaking out on racial politics in baseball in the midst of the NFL National Anthem protests.

Bruce Maxwell, MLBoyfriend & hero

• On that note, Bruce Maxwell, the first MLB player to take a knee, was a clear choice for my MLBoyfriend.

Anthony Rizzo, MLBoyfriend & hero

• Anthony Rizzo won his third MLBoyfriend title for going the extra mile for his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in the wake of the tragic shooting there and his support of gun safety laws. Rizzo is just the best.

Still, that's only four values-based picks in the three years of MLBoyfriends. I can do better. Don't worry, I'll still make sentimental picks and a smoking hot player will always be a contender. However, I'll do my due diligence and try to weed out the problematic and find the heroes off the field.

It's now up to the boys of summer to catch my eye, win my heart and become one of my 2019 MLBoyfriends. Play ball!

*I know the MLB season has already officially started. However, I find it hard to believe anyone buy die-hard Oakland A's and Seattle Mariners fans were paying attention to the "Season Opener" in Japan.

Week 4: Manny Machado

It was only a matter of time before Manny Machado became my MLBoyfriend. In fact, it's a bit odd that he's never won the title since he's been an outstanding player for the past few years. He's also pretty easy on the eyes.

The time has finally come. Machado had a .500 batting average and 1.833 OPS with seven runs, eight RBIs and five home runs last week.  He hit two of those home runs on Sunday, April 22, to cap off a great week.



Machado has now hit eight home runs this season--only Mike Trout has more with nine. His defense has been on-spot too. Check out this nice play he made on Friday, April 20.

Week 2: Shohei Ohtani

I usually like to start posts with an action shot of my new MLBoyfriend. However, this week, I couldn't choose between showing Shohei Ohtani batting or pitching because he was amazing at both last week.

Ohtani had a .462 batting average and 1.654 OPS last week with four runs, seven RBIs and 3 home runs.

Then, on Sunday, Ohtani was nearly perfect on the mound for seven innings--striking out twelve batter, walking just one, and giving up merely one hit earning a quality start and a win.

Week 9: Gleyber Torres

2017 was the summer of Aaron Judge--at least here at MLBoyfriend. 2018 looks like it might well be the summer of Gleyber Torres. The rookie is off to a great start this season.

Last week Torres had his best at the plate with .318 average, 1.400 OPS, nine RBIs, five runs, five home runs. Speaking of those home runs, he managed to set a couple of records with them.

• On Monday, May 21, twenty-one-year-old Torres became the second youngest Yankee to hit two home runs in one game--Mickey Mantle was twenty years old when he set the record in 1952. Fun fact #1: On May 6, Torres broke one of Mantle's "youngest" records when he became the youngest Yankee to hit a walk-off home run--he was 45 days younger than when Mantle set the bar. Fun fact #2: Torres hit both home runs off of Bartolo Colon--Torres was three months old when Colon made his major league debut in 1996.
• Torres became the youngest player in American League history to hit home runs in four consecutive games with his fifth homer of the week on Friday, May 25. 

Torres bat didn't really heat up until recently--he's hit all of his eight major league home runs in May and, as mentioned, five of them last full week of May. However, his defense has been on point from the start. Yankees manager Aaron Boone has been very impressed with Torres fielding. After Gleyber's first week in the majors, Boone said this of him:

"He looks like a seasoned second baseman with a shortstop’s arm. I knew he was a good defender but I think he’s been great out there. There’s a confidence, there’s a heartbeat, there’s a clock that he plays with out there that’s really impressive. More so than maybe I even thought."

I was watching the Yankees v. Houston game while writing this post, and saw Torres make two great catches--confirming why I chose him this week.

2016 MLBoyfriend Award Winners

Congratulations to my MLBoyfriends who won MLB awards for the 2016. Of course, no award is more coveted than that of MLBoyfriend, but the seven of you picked up some pretty nice things for your trophy cases.

Kris Bryant: National League MVP and the Hank Aaron Award (NL).

Mike Trout: American League MVP and a Silver Slugger Award.

Max Scherzer: National League Cy Young Award.

José Altuve: Silver Slugger Award and Player of the Year (Sporting News Players Choice Award).

Anthony Rizzo: Defensive Player of the Year (First Base), Silver Slugger and Gold Glove Awards.

Josh Donaldson: In addition to being the only player named as my MLBoyfriend twice, Silver Slugger Award.

Buster Posey: Gold Glove Award.

CONGRATS TO YOU ALL AGAIN! You all had great seasons in 2016. Don't rest on your laurels though. 2017 will be a tabula rasa for both MLB awards and my MLBoyfriend.

2018 MLB Award Winners

It's time for the traditional final MLBoyfriend post of the year. All the MLB Awards have been announced, so let's see how my picks matched up with theirs.

Ronald Acuña Jr.: National League Rookie of the Year

Mookie Betts; American League Most Valuable Player, Golden Glove, Silver Slugger, Defensive Player of the Year (right field), & Player Choice Award for Outstanding Player (American League)

Paul Goldschmidt: Silver Slugger

Dallas Keuchel: Golden Glove

J.D. Martinez: American League Hank Aaron Award, two Silver Sluggers, & Players Choice Award for Player of the Year
UPDATE 3/26/19: I wrote this before J.D. Martinez posted something very problematic on social media that is in direct opposition to my values. He has a right to express political opinions, but words have consequences. In this case the consequence is that I no longer think he's hot--in fact, he's the opposite of hot. NRA propaganda is deal breaker for me.

Shohei Ohtani: American League Rookie of the Year

Anthony Rizzo: Golden Glove

Trevor Story: Silver Slugger

Mike Trout: Silver Slugger

Christian Yelich: National League Most Valuable Player, Silver Slugger, & Players Choice Award for Outstanding Player (National League)

Congratulations to all my MLBoyfriends who won MLB Awards! 

Week 7: Jackie Bradley, Jr.

I take it as a sign of my maturity that I can pay honor to a player on my most hated MLB team. Not so long ago, I never would have considered a member of the Red Sox as a possible MLBoyfriend. Last week, Jackie Bradley, Jr. continued his hot streak and put up some very impressive numbers earning the title of my MLBoyfriend despite playing for Boston.

From April 24 to May 22, Bradley has had hits in 27 straight games including nine multi-hit games: five were two-hit games, and four were three hit games. Last week, he had an amazing .438 average and 1.515 OPS with two home runs.

Bradley's teammate, David Ortiz, has rightfully been getting a lot of attention for his great performance at the plate the past few weeks. However, even some die-hard Red Sox fans recognize the Bradley may be more valuable to the team. Today, boston.com's "Red Sox Player Power Rankings" for last week named Bradley the #1 player noting: "Right now... he's got a better batting average than Manny Machado, a better on-base percentage than Mike Trout, and a better slugging percentage than Bryce Harper."