homecoming

Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.

Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.

Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.

That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.

Not even at home?

“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”

Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.

Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.

“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”

His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.

In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.

“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.

“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”

For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.

Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.

“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”

Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.

“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.

“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”

Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.

“It’s like win or die.”

It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.

No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)

Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.

“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”

Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.

He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.

Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.

“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.

“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”

At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.

“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.

“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”

So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.

Miami, United States – Singing to the beat of the drum, jumping and dancing with joyful abandon, sporting their famous light blue and white shirts, and waving large flags bearing images of their heroes, Argentinian football fans have announced their team’s arrival in Miami in grand fashion.

A day before Argentina’s first knockout match of the FIFA World Cup 2026 – and their first fixture in the Sunshine State – the portion of Miami Beach known as Little Buenos Aires came to life as close to a thousand revellers geared up for Lionel Messi’s “homecoming” on Friday.

The defending champions and one of the pre-tournament favourites will take on the fairytale team of the World Cup – the small African island nation of Cape Verde.

The match at Miami Stadium will pit a team supported by one of the largest travelling fan bases of the tournament against an outfit that may not have strong backing in the stands but has endeared itself to the neutrals with its heroic performances.

Among Argentinian supporters, though, there’s no room for sympathy for the team punching above its weight.

For Adrian Elizondo, the logic is simple: “Messi deserves to win another World Cup.”

“It’s Messi’s last World Cup and since he’s the greatest player of all time, he deserves to walk away with another trophy,” Elizondo told Al Jazeera.

Elizondo believes there’s more to Argentina’s success than Messi.

“We have good players, a great coach and tens of thousands of people supporting the team. We make a big difference.”

A quick glance at the party-like atmosphere in Miami Beach reinforced Elizondo’s claim.

Miami, where Messi has been playing his club football since 2023, is home to at least 30,000 Argentinians, according to local census data.

Add to this mix another 20,000 fans following the team on their quest to defend the title in the United States and it becomes evident that Miami is “Messi Country”.

The crowd in North Beach, which is home to several decades-old Argentinian restaurants and cafes, started building more than 24 hours before kickoff and showed no sign of letting up as the evening went on.

Fans, from toddlers to supporters in their 70s, were seen walking towards the central area in Little Buenos Aires.

A small pocket of enthusiasts would begin singing “Muchachos” – the famous Argentinian football anthem – and hundreds of others would soon join in.

While the lyrics speak to the heartbreak of lost World Cup finals and past heroes, the mood among fans was festive, especially as Messi and Co broke a 36-year title drought four years ago in Qatar and emulated his hero Diego Maradona in leading them to a World Cup trophy.

For Argentina fans, Maradona and Messi are commonly considered the master and the protege. It’s part of their footballing folklore which is reinforced at every opportunity.

In Miami, as men, women and children danced on the streets, a group of supporters dressed in the shirts of Argentinian football club Newell’s Old Boys proudly stood in front of a banner connecting the two national heroes with the club.

Jorge Martinelli travelled to Miami from Rosario, the club’s base, with his friends and proudly shared some facts about his hometown.

“Messi was born in Rosario and played in Newell’s youth teams before joining Barcelona, while Maradona came to the club in 1993,” he tells Al Jazeera.

Is there any other connection between the two iconic captains? Martinelli said: “Yes, it’s a cosmic connection.

“Many here believe Maradona is guiding the team from the heavens above,” he quipped.

Amid Martinelli’s explanation of the spiritual connection between the two, fans let off crackers to celebrate Miami’s favourite footballing son’s return to his adopted home.

The Rosario resident said he does not want to contemplate a future after Messi retires from international football.

“It will create a big hole in the national team, the same as what happened after Maradona,” he said.

For now, though, he believes Messi is the favourite to do what even the great Maradona couldn’t achieve: successfully defend the title.

“He [Messi] is here. He’s playing. Maradona is watching.”