CHICAGO — There should be no question Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout needs to resign as commissioner of his fantasy football league.
His lack of action in the Tommy Pham-Joc Pederson feud already has resulted in Pham’s three-game suspension for slapping Pederson over a dispute about stashing a healthy fantasy football player on the injured reserve list in 2021.
Pham reportedly called Trout “the worst commissioner in fantasy sports,” a halfhearted attempt at humor that forced Trout to come out of his shell and discuss the incident.
But Trout steadfastly refused to step down under pressure when reporters peppered him with questions about his stewardship of the fantasy league that reportedly has a $10,000 entry fee.
“Am I going to resign?” Trout said at Yankee Stadium. “I haven’t made that decision. But every commissioner I know always gets booed.”
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred hasn’t chimed in yet, but he has to be ecstatic that Trout finally is getting some publicity, albeit for a non-baseball story. During a Baseball Writers’ Association of America meeting at the 2018 All-Star Game, Manfred criticized the best player in baseball for not allowing MLB to market him the way it would like.
“We are very interested in having our players more engaged and having higher-profile players and helping our players develop their individual brand,” Manfred said. “But that involves the player being actively engaged. ... Mike’s a great, great player and really nice person, but he has made certain decisions about what he wants to do and what he doesn’t want to do and how he wants to spend his free time (or) doesn’t want to spend his free time.
“That’s up to him. If he wants to engage and be more active in that area, I think we could help him make his brand really, really big. But he has to make a decision that he’s prepared to engage.”
The Angels later released a statement rebuking Manfred, saying they “applaud (Trout) for prioritizing his personal values over commercial self-promotion. That is rare in today’s society and stands out as much as his extraordinary talent.”
Four years later, Trout remains the most undermarketed superstar in professional sports. His brand is bland. The Angels haven’t made the postseason since 2014, and Shohei Ohtani has replaced Trout as the face of the organization.
But Trout finally found a way back into the spotlight as a fantasy football commissioner under fire. It’s actually the perfect role for him, following in the footsteps of the trio of humorless drones who run our sports leagues — Manfred, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
Sure, it’s embarrassing for baseball, which still thinks of itself as the national pastime decades after the NFL usurped that designation. It took a simple slap to Pederson’s face by Pham for Trout to merit any media attention, in spite of the Angels’ hot start and his 1.038 OPS.
The fact we’re even discussing Trout’s role as a fantasy football commissioner instead of anything he says or does on the field suggests he is one of the least interesting superstars in the world. When Trout talks, no one listens.
“I ain’t talking about fantasy football,” Trout said facetiously before talking about fantasy football. “It’s one of those things where everyone is competitive. Everybody loves fantasy football. Who doesn’t?”
Well, an estimated 50 million people in the United States play fantasy football. But speaking on behalf of several million others who love the NFL but hate listening to their brother-in-law yammer about his fantasy roster, I can attest the love is not universal.
Last year I addressed the creeping problem of FFP or “Fantasy Football Phobia” — the fear of being stuck in a conversation with someone who’s in a fantasy football league. Those who play fantasy football are oblivious to the pain and suffering they cause by constantly updating friends and family members about their team’s performance without any prompting.
It’s a sickness from which there is no known cure, and if there was, they probably wouldn’t get vaccinated anyway. Now Trout, Pham and Pederson have made the nation’s most boring subject a talking point of the 2022 baseball season.
The NFL season is a couple of months away, but apparently there’s no escape from the monotony of hearing about a player being stowed away on someone’s injured reserve list.
The only solution is for Trout to immediately resign from office, ending the saga to focus on his day job playing for the Angels — who incidentally lost their seventh straight game Thursday in New York. Pham and Pederson also must stop talking about a fantasy football feud no one else cares about.
If a multimillionaire chooses to waste $10,000 on a hobby, that’s his prerogative.
But please, fellas, just stick to sports. The real kind.
