BASEBALL: Ex-Angels star Fred Lynn is hooked on Trout

The Angels' Mike Trout appears to have a good chance to win the American League Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards this season. (Stephen Brashear / Getty Images)

During the summer of 1975, Fred Lynn didn't think much about winning the American League's Rookie of the Year award. He gave even less consideration to who would be the AL's Most Valuable Player.

The 23-year-old Boston Red Sox center fielder, formerly of El Monte High School, was too consumed with trying to help his team get past the hated New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles to win the AL East.

"Not only was there no time, but no one cared," Lynn says.

The only real chance to watch baseball came on NBC's Game of the Week. Stats weren't parsed over and collated. Papers printed them in the Sunday edition, but even players didn't really know what their batting average was on a day-to-day basis.

The era of big-scoreboard stats at the ballpark, instantly updated, didn't really begin until the late '70s.

Lynn did win Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards in 1975, at the time an unprecedented achievement, but he didn't celebrate. The Red Sox had lost Game 7 of the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, following the drama of winning Game 6. There was no hullaballoo for awards, no news conference.

The Red Sox tried to find him to tell him about the MVP award, but Lynn didn't learn of it until he saw a headline in a newspaper during a stop in Arizona. "It wasn't an earth-shattering thing," he said.

Angels center fielder Mike Trout has a chance to duplicate Lynn's feat and become the third player to be named

his league's top rookie and MVP (Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki did it in 2001, just shy of his 28th birthday). If it happens for Trout, you can guarantee a level of media attention far beyond that of the 1970's.

This is one reason Lynn, 60, has such regard for the 21-year-old Trout: his consistency in the face of scrutiny and pressure and from having to perform at such a young age while fighting for a pennant.

"It can be a little overwhelming for a rookie, because everything's new," Lynn said. "You go 3 for 4, go to a new park, here's another Hall of Famer you're facing. You've got to do it all over again. So there's no time to think about what you're doing."

Playing between Red Sox left fielder Jim Rice and right fielder Dwight Evans (Chatsworth High), Lynn played some of the best center field of his era. After his superlative debut season (when he hit .331 with 21 home runs and 105 RBIs), the former USC star topped himself in 1979, when he hit .333 with 39 homers and 122 RBIs and finished fourth in the AL MVP race behind the Angels' Don Baylor, Ken Singleton and George Brett.

Lynn was traded to the Angels after the 1980 season and played four seasons before moving on to Baltimore and Detroit, then wound up his career with the Padres in 1990.

He now lives in Carlsbad with his wife Natalie, and doesn't get the Angels on TV. The first time he saw Trout play at all this season came during the Angels' series in Boston last month. Lynn threw out the first pitch (with ex-outfield mates Rice and Evans) before one of the three games, and spent the series entertaining Red Sox clients in a team skybox.

"I told everybody, `Listen, when this Trout kid comes up, I want to see him.' I wanted to see what he was made of. First thing I saw, he's a big kid. He's powerful, looks like a fullback. And the ball jumps off his bat. ... He's got big hands, looks like he's an anvil salesman."

Trout's electrifying speed and leaping ability in the outfield are among the reasons he's a lock to win Rookie of the Year. But his MVP credentials are slipping. He's hitting a merely good .284 in August after hitting .392 in July and .372 in June.

Lynn wore down during the second half of the '75 season. After hitting 16 homers and driving in 71 runs before the All-Star break, he had 5 and 34, respectively

He thinks Trout will bounce back.

"He's a big strong kid, so he ain't gonna wear out like I did, but this is the time," Lynn said. "Fortunately, the team's in the hunt, which will keep him going, keep him mentally stimulated, because if you get mentally tired along with physically tired that's a bad thing. But I don't think that's gonna happen to this kid."

Source: http://www.sgvtribune.com/sports/ci_21486271/baseball-ex-angels-star-fred-lynn-is-hooked?source=rss

kevin rose sessions march madness scores doonesbury padma lakshmi daughtry lakers trade