Phillippe Aumont hasn’t pitched in four years, but there’s a good chance he’ll face Mike Trout at the World Baseball Classic, which gets underway in the next few days.
Having reoriented himself towards a more productive career in the first sense of the term, Aumont is now a farmer, but he will put on his Canadian team cap in order to allow his country to put up a good figure within a group which includes the powerful American training.
A sizeable mandate for him and his teammates, but playing for Canada is the only reason that pushes the giant to come out of his sporting retirement. Aumont admits it, representing his country on a baseball field has always been his greatest source of pride.
Confiding in Jean-François Plante of the newspaper Le Droit, Phillippe Aumont admits that he has absolutely nothing to lose by putting on his crampons again after such a long absence. For him, the situation is the very advantage because professional players have to prove their big salaries in a tournament like this, while an athlete who has moved on does not experience the same pressure.
As he says, if it’s going badly, it’s normal and if it’s going well, it’ll be great.
The former Seattle Mariners 2007 first-round pick worked in the Majors for only one team, the Philadelphia Phillies. In 2020, he tried his luck at Toronto Blue Jays training camp before the pandemic shattered his dream of getting back on the mound.
The situation of the Canadian team is very different from that of the United States because it must resort to players such as Aumont in order to allow them to set up a complete line-up.
It’s not easy for him to have to leave his family and his animals to face the best hitters on the planet for a period of ten days, but the game is worth the effort and he will add this participation to his numerous collection of international memories.
Phillippe Aumont is categorical: as long as his body allows it, he will answer Baseball Canada’s call. This is good news considering that his presence will still be intimidating.
Aumont and others have all my respect because you have to have courage to turn your daily life upside down and have to surpass yourself against players who work daily to become better. This strength of character, coupled with a renewed pride, adds to the dangerousness of a team like Canada against the favorites of their group.
The Americans should not take the Canadians lightly because they might be surprised.
After all, Phillippe has seen others, he who faces a big boar of 500 pounds every day in a pen in Outaouais. Mike Trout and his teammates just have to watch out!
