by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–I do not understand why the fractions in baseball, when we are talking about this type of money, why not make it

$145 million, what is another half million on this contract anyway? For Mike Trout, it doesn’t matter, he has a contagious enthusiasm, and plays the game with great joy and commitment. Today he is becoming the face of baseball.

The last few seasons as I have been covering the LA Angels games for Fox Sports TV in Anaheim doing the play by play in Spanish with José Mota doing commentary, I have seen this kid play, (he’s still a kid at 22) growing into a sensational player.

His first year when the Angels visited Detroit, Al Kaline said Trout reminded him a lot of Mickey Mantle. If you ever saw Mantle play(I did when I was 22 and lived in New York for two years), that is quite a compliment, coming from the great Kaline.

I have interviewed Trout for our pregame show, no he doesn’t speak Spanish but I would talk to him get a couple of minutes, then I go up write the translation and a voice over so when we show it minutes before first pitch, and our audience can understand what he said.

He still single, born in the southern New Jersey, during the past two season in many Angels road trips his mother and father would travel to see him play.

Today in a press conference in Anaheim his new contract, largest ever for a player with two years of service, Rookie of the Year in 2012, plus last two seasons could have won consecutive MVP, but only Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers could better him.

Today, Mike Trout is more of a complete player than Cabrera, but Cabrera (who also just signed a monster deal-extension)has done it for over a decade.

Mike Trout is one of four players all-time to bat .320 with 50 home runs and 200 runs in first two full seasons, the others are his teammate Albert Pujols, and then Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Is that good company or what?

Amaury Pi-González, is the Spanish play by play announcer for 75 home games this season of the LA Angels of Anaheim for Fox Sports West, and also will call 40 of the 70 games on the Oakland A’s Spanish radio network this season. A contributor to sports radio service,. http://www.sportsradioservice.com’