Hope, March Version

I see by yesterday’s box score that Danny Mendick is auditioning for the role of this year’s White Sox spring wonder.  Mendick, a Sox minor leaguer, hit a three-run homer to give him six RBIs to go with a .357 BA.  We can all hope.  Why can’t a 22^nd round pick choice from the 2015 draft make it to the bigs?  If John Cangelosi can, we all can…dream about it at least.

 

Cangelosi went higher in his draft—4^th round, 1982—than Mendick, even though he stood two inches shorter, at 5’8”.  I remember when the switch-hitting outfielder made the Sox out of spring training in 1986.  Sox manager Tony LaRussa pretty much loved him.  A speed guy, Cangelosi did not disappoint with 50 stolen bases is rookie year.  Too bad for Cangelosi that LaRussa got fired before the All-Star break.  GM Ken “Hawk” Harrelson preferred homeruns to stolen bases.  Cangelosi was gone by the next season, and Harrelson, too, though that’s a story for another day.

 

Cangelosi managed to have himself a 13-year career punctuated by 23 transactions as figured by baseball-reference.com.  That’s a lot of traveling, though I’d bet Danny Mendick wouldn’t mind as long as it meant going from one MLB team to another.