Francisco Cervelli never had heard of Sam Antonacci until Julio Mosquera, an old friend who is the White Sox’ catching coordinator, called him.
‘‘You need to take Sam Antonacci,’’ Mosquera told Cervelli, a former Yankees catcher who was preparing to manage Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic. ‘‘This guy is crazy. He plays with a lot of energy. He’s a baseball player. Take him.’’
Cervelli took his friend’s advice. In the three weeks he had Antonacci on his team, Cervelli said, they barely spoke.
‘‘Believe it or not,’’ Cervelli said by phone from the Netherlands, where he was managing the Italian national team in a tournament there, ‘‘in my three weeks with him, I heard ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ Because he doesn’t talk. He’s very quiet.’’
A quiet storm is what he is. By the time the 23-year-old Antonacci left Team Italy to return to the Sox, a minor-leaguer attending his first big-league camp, Cervelli was a believer. So was his entire coaching staff, which included Ron Wotus, a longtime coach with the Giants, and former big-leaguer Frank Menechino, a former Sox hitting coach.
‘‘This guy is different than everybody else,’’ Cervelli said. ‘‘I think he’s going to be a great player. He’s one of these guys you’re going to go buy a ticket to see play because, if he plays today, you know he’s going to do something.
‘‘I’m talking about talent but also mentally. He’s two steps ahead of a lot of players. He thinks fast. He anticipates very well. He does things that I saw only players like [Derek] Jeter and [Omar] Vizquel do. In attitude and awareness, he reminds me of Vizquel. I think he learned how to play baseball a different way.’’
Cervelli was reminded of another All-Star, one who played way beyond his stature.
‘‘Dustin Pedroia,’’ he said. ‘‘They don’t care about their size. They act like they’re 6-foot-7.’’
Said Wotus: ‘‘He plays as hard as anybody that I’ve ever coached.’’
The right attitude
On Tuesday night at the Rate. Antonacci has just delivered his first walk-off hit in a Sox uniform, a two-run single off Guardians closer Cade Smith. The outcome remained in doubt until umpires reviewed whether Tristan Peters had beaten the throw home. Confirmation led to chaos, with jubilant teammates chasing Antonacci deep into the outfield.
Now he was standing in front of the Sox’ dugout, speaking on camera to Brooke Fletcher, the team’s sideline reporter. She is asking him whether he had become frustrated when the Guardians had scored two runs to take the lead in the top of the ninth.
‘‘[Baseball] is a team sport,’’ Antonacci said to Fletcher. ‘‘If you’re mad about giving up two runs in the ninth, take your ass to go play tennis or play an individual sport.’’
Brash? To be sure. A window into how he thinks? That, too.
In an individual sport, Antonacci later elaborated in the clubhouse, ‘‘You only have to worry about yourself.’’ That’s not how it works, he said, in baseball.
Yes, he said, the walk-off was fun.
‘‘For, like, a few minutes,’’ he said. ‘‘And then you know you’ve got a game to prepare for the next day.’’
‘Obsessed with getting on first base’
Another phone call, this one from Chris Razo, the baseball coach at Heartland Community College, the junior-college powerhouse in downstate Normal. Heartland had just won the national championship behind Antonacci, the JUCO Division II player of the year who had led the nation with a .515 batting average while driving in 103 runs in just 58 games.
Razo was calling Kevin Schnall, who at the time was the baseball coach at Coastal Carolina in Conway, South Carolina. That’s just a few minutes away from the resort town of Myrtle Beach. Antonacci’s family takes vacations in Myrtle Beach, Razo told Schnall. He’s interested in coming to play baseball for you.
In 61 games at Coastal Carolina, Antonacci was hit by a pitch 27 times, presaging his experience with the Sox, where he has been hit a league-leading 15 times in just 66 games since his call-up from Triple-A Charlotte. Along with his 59 hits and 18 walks, the painful passes to first base contribute to his team-leading .386 on-base percentage.
‘‘It’s a big stress point in our program,’’ said Schnall, who was just hired to coach South Carolina. ‘‘We want our guys to be obsessed with getting on first base. Sam embraced that mentality, a guy who absolutely had a knack for getting to first base.
‘‘We never tell anybody to get hit by a pitch, but our stress point is, ‘Don’t get out of the way.’ ’’
Passion for winning
Menechino is a former 45th-round draft pick of the Sox in 1993 who made it to the big leagues six years later with the Blue Jays. After retiring as a player, he had two stints in the big leagues as a hitting coach, including three seasons with the Sox (2020-22).
After serving as the hitting coach for Team Italy, where he had both Antonacci and Kyle Teel, the catcher who came to the Sox in the Garrett Crochet deal, Menechino said he texted Sox general manager Chris Getz.
‘‘I text Getzie and I say, ‘I love these guys. Where were these guys when I was there?’ ’’ Menechino said. ‘‘The best way I can sum up [Antonacci] is it’s old-school savvy vs. new school. This kid plays the game to win. He plays the game hard. He has an edge to him. He’s always looking to get an edge, and he doesn’t care if he fails.
‘‘Then I see him getting hit by pitches and stuff, and I’m like, ‘I love this guy.’ The competitive edge and the baseball IQ are off the charts. He had All-Stars on Team USA playing back on their heels.’’
Sox manager Will Venable has completely transformed the Sox’ culture with a group of young players who share Antonacci’s passion for winning.
‘‘That’s contagious, as opposed to when you have a couple or three or four guys on the team that are lazy, don’t do [expletive], don’t do what they’re supposed to, get paid and shut it down,’’ said Menechino, a thinly veiled description of the roster before the new wave arrived. ‘‘That’s also contagious and frustrating.
‘‘So they changed the culture over there, which is great to see.’’