CINCINNATI — They are here now, smack in the middle of the national spotlight, All-Stars all around.
But back then? They lived within walking distance of each other and, oh, those were the days.
Who wants to hang out and watch the NFL on Sunday? Sure, let's meet at Mike's place.
Hey, anybody hungry? You bet, and off they would go into Old Scottsdale, usually gobbling sushi at the little Japanese restaurant Sapporo.
And then there was the reason they were there in the first place, six weeks of hardball in the Arizona Fall League, a sort of finishing school for elite prospects galloping toward their futures, one swing at a time.
Mike Trout was 20, Bryce Harper about to turn 19.
They were Scorpions.
Scottsdale Scorpions, together for the 2011 fall season.
"We had an absolute blast," Harper, now 22, says. "As a team, we enjoyed being in Scottsdale and playing. Fall ball is always tough because you've just played a whole season.
"Scottsdale, and playing in the Fall League and being with some of the best players in baseball, and being able to play together, was a lot of fun.
"We had an absolute blast together."
Says Trout, 23: "I think every game we played was high-scoring. We had a great offense, but the Fall League at the end of the year, we were beat up a little bit. We had fun with it."
They are still young. They are still having a blast.
It is almost mythical now, like Camelot or the Beatles. Stories will be told for years by the smattering of fans who were there at the games. The legend will grow until it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.
And as the head-turning stars were flowing into Cincinnati this week—Pete Rose here, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan over there—excuse Trout and Harper if they have to shake themselves for a moment to make sure they're not at a Scottsdale Scorpions alumni game.
Impressively, four current All-Stars played together on that 2011 Scorpions AFL team: Harper, Trout and shortstop Brandon Crawford and second baseman Joe Panik of the Giants. San Diego catcher Derek Norris nearly made it five.
And that's not all: Padres third baseman Will Middlebrooks, Brewers shortstop Jean Segura, Astros catcher Hank Conger and Phillies first baseman Darin Ruf were also a part of those stacked Scorpions.
Well, the lineup was stacked.
In a game stocked with statistics, here is one of the least-known and most staggering numbers you will ever find: With Trout and Harper on the same team for (so far) the only time in their careers, the '11 Scorpions produced a final record of (gulp) 14-22. Eight games under .500!
You could have surrounded Harper and Trout with the Seven Dwarfs and still played .500 ball, couldn't you?
"I think we were one of the worst teams in the league," Panik says. "Just baseball. It happens."
"Last place!" Crawford says, still astounded after all these years.
Says Norris: "Our pitching was awful, so we didn't win a lot of games. It was a fun team. Will and I still talk about the stories from those days. It's ridiculous."
Here is something else ridiculous: In 25 games, Trout batted .245/.279/.321 with one homer and five RBI.
Can you imagine?
"He was a big leaguer," says Harper, who hit .333/.400/.634 with six homers and 26 RBI in 25 games. "He had gotten called up. He came in and was really tired from playing all year long. He even said that.
"Coming in after a long season, that's not fun. He was still one of the high-profile guys there. The rest is history.
"He's one of the best players in baseball, if not the best player in baseball, right now. He was a lot of fun to watch. I enjoy turning on the TV and seeing him on Sunday Night Baseball...just like Clayton Kershaw or Giancarlo Stanton or Madison Bumgarner, any of those guys. You turn on the TV and watch them play. It's a lot of fun."
Looking back, Trout's assignment to the AFL looks like overkill. He had played 111 games combined at Double-A Arkansas and Triple-A Salt Lake that summer before being summoned to the Angels for another 40 games, making his debut at 19. In 135 plate appearances in Anaheim, he hit just .220/.281/.390 with five homers and 16 RBI.
"It was definitely a long year," Trout says. "One of the longest years for me. First full year, to be up [in the majors], to not have any time off, just playing straight through.
"It was a grind."
Nevertheless, you go where you're told in this game.
And so, in need of a long winter's nap or not, it was off to Scottsdale.
Now, here's the challenge: Given the talent level in the AFL, there is no time for the weary.
Everyone knew about Harper, the hard-boiled, eye-black-wearing bundle of energy and raw nerves whose legend at that point preceded him everywhere he went. The first overall pick of the 2010 draft by the Washington Nationals, he had debuted in the AFL in 2010 at 17.
And given Trout's major league debut earlier in that summer of '11, it was beginning to dawn on everyone that the Angels had obtained the steal of the century by drafting him 25th overall in 2009.
You can imagine the two of them eyeing each other all fall like a couple of heavyweight fighters.
"I never had any competition with him," Harper says. "I don't know if he's going to say that or not.
"The thing is, I want to see everybody do well. I want to see people play well, and I want to see him win MVPs, and I want to see him do the things he does to make this game fun. He's a great player. Everyone knows that. He's a lot of fun to watch. He's exciting to see play. I'll always root for him, no matter what."
Says Trout: "Obviously, we were competitive. We were having fun with it. It was good to have him on my team, get to know him a little bit."
The competition especially manifested itself during the Scorpions' batting practices. A young AFL media relations intern received quite the education in talent, drive and willpower.
"Trout and Harper would [bait] each other to see how far they could hit the ball," says Patrick Kurish, who now works in the Padres media relations department. "At Hohokam [Stadium] in Mesa, the batter's eye there, I had never seen anybody hit a ball that far in my life."
One by one, Trout and Harper consistently pounded BP meatballs over the batter's eye in distant center field, one tape-measure shot after another.
"Our BPs were absolutely stupid," Harper says. "I think it was me, Middlebrooks, Trout and Ruf in the same group. We were all punishing baseballs.
"We had a lot of fun in BP, and we had a lot of fun playing. But BP, it was ridiculous."
Even in the midst of that, though, had anyone polled the Scorpions on the player who most looked like a big leaguer, you might have been surprised.
"Crawford," Harper says. "Just from the uniform to the way he plays to the way he fields. He's a Gold Glover at shortstop. He's a lot of fun to watch.
"Watching him play in person at a young age was a lot of fun because he was absolutely legit at shortstop. Some of the best hands I've ever seen, and some of the best flow, too, with his hair. He's just—he is your ideal big-leaguer.
"I hope he sees this, too, because he's going to laugh. He's your ideal big leaguer, from the uniform to everything else. There's a big leaguer right there."
Trout laughs—and agrees.
"Just the way Brandon carried himself," he says. "His flow, his hair. The way he handled himself was very professional. We messed with him all the time. Just building relationships."
It is what they did in their off hours. Mess with each other. Build relationships.
Trout, from New Jersey, lives and breathes Philadelphia Eagles football in the fall. Middlebrooks, from Texas, follows the Cowboys. And Panik, whom the Giants drafted out of St. John's, tracks the New York Giants.
"I remember Sundays, and I remember going over to Trout's place one time and watching football," Panik says. "And it was funny because of all of these NFC East rivalries we had and we're all rooting against each other."
When they weren't watching football, they were playing football.
Well, playing Madden video-game football.
"Did Will tell you how I beat him all the time?" Trout brags. "I ran one play."
Well, ah, sort of.
"Trout was a big video-game guy," Middlebrooks says, laughing. "He lived right across the street from me. He loved Madden, always wanted to play Madden. He swore he had this one play that was unstoppable.
"It was always, 'C'mon, man, come over and play me.' He didn't tell me about it until five or six games in. He just kept running this play, and I couldn't stop it. It was a trick play on Madden. And I finally figured it out and said, 'You weren't going to tell me that was a trick play. No wonder I couldn't stop it.'
"So I started running the play. And he hated it. He got so mad at me. So mad at me. He said, 'Quit running that play, that's my play.' Because I found out which playbook it was on and I'd go take it and play.
"He would get so frustrated. He's just like a little kid, man. But he's such a good-natured person. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I got to play with those guys."
Trout chuckles at this.
"Yep, he can't use the same tricks," Trout says. "He learned from me. It's funny, whatever defense you ran, you had a receiver open [on that particular play]. Will is a smart dude, so he got the hang of it."
Just like stealing signs in baseball.
"It was one play," Trout says. "I'd audible just to mess with him. It was pretty good."
By all accounts, Harper wasn't much of a gamer. At least, not Madden football with that crowd. He was more of a loner, though he was in on group gatherings for college football viewing on Saturdays, the NFL on Sundays and, of course, the sushi runs.
"I enjoyed it," Harper says. "I know Middlebrooks did. I'm not sure about Mike. I know he liked the [Benihana hibachi]. We had a great time together. We really enjoyed being there and hanging out. I mean, we didn't really care what we did on the field. It was more hanging out and having a blast as a team."
As competitive as those two are, it's difficult to believe that they didn't care what they did on the field. Esprit de corps only goes so far when you're young and you're scratching and clawing to get to the majors—or, to stay in the majors.
Middlebrooks' description of Trout as being like "a little kid" surely was apt then, because it still is today. Trout has a difficult time describing any of his activities without a smile and the phrase "just having fun."
"Humble," Panik says of Trout. "He was great. Great guy. Honestly, just watching him then and now, he hasn't changed one bit.
"The ballplayer he is, everybody knows how good he is. But the person he is, nothing's changed. That's great to see with all of the spotlights on him, all of the fame he's gotten."
Harper in Arizona at 18 was a revelation, too.
"It's different from how he's perceived," Panik says. "The guys who are there every day, hanging out every day, watching him and his work ethic every day...When you're with him, you get an appreciation for him and the type of athlete he is, the type of competitor he is.
"He's the type of guy you want in your foxhole."
Games and schedules have carried them away over the years, like rafts down a river, each moving at his own speed, pushed by his own current. Harper, Crawford, Panik, Middlebrooks and Norris see each other a little more than the others because they all play in the National League (the latter four all in the NL West).
Harper and Trout will send each other the occasional text, usually a congratulatory message after one of them has a particularly big game. Or maybe they'll interact on Twitter. Time and distance, the great separators, have loosened the bonds, but not the memories.
Together this summer, Trout (14,013,021) and Harper (13,864,950) received nearly 28 million All-Star votes.
Together on Tuesday night, Harper in the midst of a potential MVP season and Trout coming off of winning his first MVP award in 2014, those quaint days of sushi and Madden and wide-open futures surely will evoke warm memories and wide smiles.
Especially for those AFL alums who saw in '11 what few men and women alive have ever witnessed: Trout actually struggling on the diamond.
"It's all history," Harper says. "He's a damn good ballplayer. And everybody knows that."
Same for Harper. And Crawford and Panik, too.
They were Scorpions.
And now they are All-Stars.
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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