Each year, as the birthday of our great nation approaches, I like to take stock of our national pastime. Baseball is as strong as ever: attendance is up across the country, PEDs have been completely eradicated, and Roger Clemens, the True Yankee (and Red Sock and Blue Jay and Astro) was acquitted for perjury.

But there is a threat to our great game and our great nation, and his name is Mike Trout.

The liberal media would have you believe that Trout is an exciting young talent who, alongside the great Bryce Harper, is helping to reinvigorate baseball. But the truth is far more sinister, as this essay will show.

Because you are a good American and a true baseball fan, I assume you saw the article my colleague, Mark Judge, posted earlier this month. Entitled “Bryce Harper Is a Conservative Hero,” it was a thoughtful, impassioned, and thoroughly convincing treatise on young Mr. Harper’s unassailable conservative credentials. In his article, Mr. Young singled out a play that he felt typified the spirit of Bryce Harper, and from that play drew a series of well-reasoned conclusions. I will attempt to do the same for Mr. Trout.

On June 27th, Trout’s Angels visited almost-our-nation’s-capitol to take on the Baltimore Orioles, for whom the great Cal Ripkens Sr. and Jr. once played. They even share a metropolitan area with the Bryce Harper’s Nationals. But in the very first inning of that game, Trout struck. You’ve probably seen the video — it was inescapable for about a week on every social media network there is.

JJ Hardy smashes a ball over the wall in right center field — only to have that home run stolen by Trout. Just like the current “president” does with our wages, Trout redistributed that run, which Hardy earned fair and square, to his own team.

But this is just par for the course for Trout, who also leads the American League in stolen bases. Because he can’t earn bases or home runs, he has to take them. He feels entitled to them. Watching this unfold has reminded me of nothing so much as when Julian Assange leaked all those documents, or possibly when Obama did that thing with the health care and the same-sex marriage. It was also like that part in the movie “Ghost” where that Puerto Rican guy killed Patrick Swayze when he was just supposed to steal the codes out of his wallet. Man, I love that movie.

Trout is truly the antithesis of Harper. Harper (did I mention he was a conservative hero?) was raised in Las Vegas, a uniquely American land of unbridled free enterprise and opportunity. Trout is from New Jersey, a bastion of liberalism that even has an Ivy League university in it.

Bryce Harper plays in Washington, D.C., the literal and figurative heart of America. Mike Trout plays in both Los Angeles (home of the nefarious Hollywood elite) and Anaheim — once home to the great anti-communist Walt Disney, but, since his death, has become a sanctuary for Islamic terrorists like Aladdin.

Davey Johnson is the commander-in-chief of Harper’s Nationals. He is a traditional, hard-nosed manager who recently made headlines for calling Joe Maddon “a weird wuss,” which he totally is. Have you seen that guy with his smarmy glasses and all his defensive shifts? We didn’t do all that fancy dancing around the infield when I was a boy. And Johnson rightly called him out on it. Meanwhile the skipper of Trout’s Angels is, like Maddon, a tweeter. His “handle”? Scioscialism. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Bryce Harper was selected number 1 overall in the 2010 draft, much like America was selected number 1 overall by God. Trout was selected 25th overall, which makes him the equivalent of one of those Scandinavian countries, as far as nations are concerned. Maybe Iceland, or possibly Finland. And we all know those places are absolutely rife with socialism.

Trout plays in the American League, which does not allow pitchers to hit. Instead it employs designated hitters, most of whom are not even American, to hit in their stead. A clear case of foreigners coming here and taking our jobs.

Bryce Harper shares a surname with the right honourable Stephen Harper, the conservative prime minister of Canada. Stephen Harper is working tirelessly to help his cute little country find its way and rejoin the U.S. on the road to glory. Mike Trout shares the name of a fish, which is just gross.

Bryce Harper-branded merchandise is normal and appropriate; Mike Trout has this.

Harper has a bible verse tattoo. The verse from Luke reads “For nothing is impossible with God.” Mike Trout has NO Bible verses tattooed on him. Does he not love God? Does he worship some non-Christian God??? You have to wonder!

For these reasons, and many more, Mike Trout must be stopped. Early returns suggest that right-thinking baseball fans did not vote Trout into the All-Star Game as a starter, but it’s still possible that he could be named as an alternate. Write your congressman, call your local sports radio program, or march around your town with a sandwich board to ensure that this does not happen. Do whatever it takes. Don’t let Mike Trout’s brand of entitlement baseball desecrate our great game. Think of the children.

Unlike Mark Judge, my grandfather wasn’t an exactly average professional ballplayer (by rWAR). Rather, my paternal grandfather was a captain in the US Navy and my maternal grandfather founded the Institute of Internal Auditors. That makes me uniquely qualified to quantify patriotism. And I have found Mike Trout to be profoundly lacking.