Mike Trout and Angels Produce 1 Beautiful Night in Anaheim Amid Tyler Skaggs Tragedy

There is no cure, no necessary distraction to tragedy, like sports. On Friday night, the Los Angeles Angels gave us just that in an emotional, heart-felt display in Anaheim. The death of a teammate and friend in Tyler Skaggs has given the Angels the unnecessary burden of grief and incredibly important role of appropriately dealing with loss for the world to see. They've delivered and then some, inviting Skaggs' mother to throw out the ceremonial first pitch while his friends and fans watched and wept.

As if there were any doubt, it was a perfect strike.

For years we've wondered how MLB would market the likes of Mike Trout, a man we perceived to have very little personality even when challenged. Could we have been more wrong? Maybe it was just the limited media market of Anaheim, or sharing the limelight with the cross-town Dodgers, but Trout's forever been under-appreciated, even while putting up insurmountable numbers.

Since Skaggs' passing, Trout's taken the lead as the unquestioned leader of the Angels, and followed that up on Friday with the moment of the MLB season, hitting a 454-foot bomb while wearing Skaggs' No. 45.

There is no one home run, no perfect outing which can replace a fallen teammate. The Angels went to war with Skaggs, and his passing at a hotel on the road shook the entire baseball world to its core.

Yet, the entire Angels organization has reacted to this tragic turn with grace, winning three out of four games since and honoring Tyler at every turn. It is this lesson, which Trout and LAA are learning in real time, which we can all learn from.

As the 2-time MVP stated while holding back tears in the first game after Skaggs' death, "Skaggsy wouldn't want us to take another day off."

It's this philosophy that these Angels have adopted, and we should admire them for doing so with class.