Mike Trout is emulating his idol Ken Griffey Jr., and not just between the lines

On Sunday afternoon in Seattle, Mike Trout took away a grand slam at the house that Ken Griffey Jr. built, knowing Griffey was watching from a suite. After the game, one of his worst of the season, Trout made one telling remark about his idol.

“What a great guy,” Trout said. “The way he played the game, no one really hated him. Everybody loved him. It gives me chills, just thinking about it. It’s pretty special.”

Twenty-five years of age as of Sunday and replicating his best-in-baseball statistics again in 2016, Trout is on a path to a Hall of Fame career. But because he is not much for speaking about himself or speaking about anything at all, really, he has somewhat quietly established himself alongside Griffey in the realms of reputation and personality.

Trout is respected throughout the sport, admired by most of his contemporaries, loved by many. In road ballparks, he’s typically the last Angel out on the field in the minutes before the first pitch, signing autographs. Often, he’ll start to jog off only to come back upon the inevitable clamor. There are stories across the league about impacts Trout has had on others, either with his time or with his influence, the latter a particularly powerful force.

For September roster insurance two years ago, the Angels called up a minor league lifer named Shawn O’Malley, now a Mariners utilityman. He arrived at Houston’s Minute Maid Park with one pair of cleats, the same ones he had used throughout the triple-A season.

“They were all cut up and beat up and worn down,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley knew it could be an issue in the majors, but he could not coax New Balance into sending him new shoes. When he left for the batting cages that day, veteran catcher John Buck brought it to Trout’s attention, and Trout called Nike. When O’Malley got to Minnesota’s Target Field two days later, new pairs of cleats, tennis shoes and turf shoes were waiting for him.

“He didn’t have to do that,” O’Malley said last weekend in Seattle, where he helped beat the Angels with a late home run Saturday. “That just shows you kind of the person he is. To me, that was really special, and something that I’ll never forget. The funny thing is he’s way younger than me, but he’s still a guy that you can look up to.”

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He used the new shoes all month, and now keeps them in his apartment. When, a year later, Angels catcher Carlos Perez drilled O’Malley in the head trying to throw to second base, Trout came running in from the outfield to check on him. He watched and waited, hands at his hips. As O’Malley stood up to stay in the game, Trout ran back and yelled something that neither man remembers but made both of them laugh.

“Again, he didn’t have to do that,” O’Malley said. “He could’ve stood in center field and just waited for me to quit being a baby and get up. But that shows you the kind of guy he is.”

Trout’s teammates know him to be an uncomplicated individual. He does not have a wide array of interests. He likes competition, pays excessive attention to the weather, and spends extensive time playing games on his iPhone.

“He is a simple man,” said former Angels reliever Joe Smith, who spent 2 1/2 seasons with Trout before being traded to the Chicago Cubs last month. “He likes to hunt, fish, play golf, play baseball and play Pokemon.”

It rained when the Angels were in Colorado last year, and the start time for their series finale against the Rockies was delayed by more than two hours. To pass the time, the Angels played hybrid baseball-golf, using bats as putters and removing a drain cover to create a hole about the size of two baseballs.

Splitting into teams, players were to design trick shots. Trout’s side went first, and he schemed one where the baseball was first bounced off the ground, onto the side bank, and then slipped under a crevice created between the wheel of a re-purposed, laid-down L-shaped batting-practice screen.

His teammates did not understand what they were supposed to do, did not believe it was exactly possible, so they asked Trout to demonstrate. He did, and he made it on the first try.

“Everything he . . . does, he does well,” said Angels batting-practice pitcher Mike Ashman, who was watching that day. “The guys that made it here, every last one of them did something freakish relative to the average athlete. And Mike is a freak relative to all of them.”

As Griffey said on the Angels’ television broadcast over the weekend: “He’s one of those guys that can change the way baseball’s played.”

Follow Pedro Moura on Twitter @pedromoura