A Story that only Baseball could tell

Future HOPG inductee Trey Mancini has one of the greatest recovery stories in all of sports and is one of the better players to never get an all star appearance.

Drafted in 2013 by the Orioles, he spent 3 full years working his way through the minor league system before debuting at the tail end of 2016 and playing 5 total games but hitting 3 homers before the season was over, foreshadowing his above average power. His true rookie campaign the following year went very well, slashing .293/.338/.488, with his OPS of .826 top 5 among all rookies. He should've finished second in ALROTY voting only behind rookie Aaron Judge, but Benny Biceps also collected more votes than Mancini. Good year to be an AL East rookie.

Easily his most notable season was in 2019, where he hit 35 homers and nearly 100 RBIs with a near .900 OPS. Mancini was on a roll, but soon he would hear some of the worst news anyone could get.

In March of 2020 before the COVID shortened season, he would be diagnosed with colon cancer. Fortunately the cancer was still in an early enough stage where Mancini would have surgery to remove the tumor before it spread elsewhere. Unfortunately he would miss the entirety of the 2020 season recovering from his surgery.

He returned to roaring cheers on April 2nd of 2020, scoring a run off of one hit and a walk in his return to the Orioles. He wasn't as good as before his cancer diagnosis, but he posted 2 more above average seasons with the Orioles before getting his first and only ring with the Astros in 2022 after getting traded.

From that point on he regressed massively and didn't play in the 2024 and 2025 seasons, with his final stint this year with the Angels being, go figure, 5 games. He ended exactly how he began. Enjoy retirement Trey!

Dreams and Nightmares

On a hot summer night in 2021, teenage GeneralDumm is watching the White Sox and the Yankees duke it out in the Field of Dreams. It's the bottom of the 9th and the Yankees had just put up a 4 run show in the top of the 9th, capped off by Giancarlo Stanton launching a two run shot to take an 8-7 lead. Danny Mendick starts the inning off for the Sox, and he grounds out to 1st. Seby Zavala is up next, he walks. The winning run at the plate is none other than Tim Anderson.

Anderson was a first round pick by the Sox in 2013. He had been with the Sox when they were shitty in the late 2010s but also was part of this new rebuilding, ultra young, Sox team. Anderson was a mostly average hitter before 2019, as he sacrificed a lot of his contact that he flashed in his rookie year for 20 homer power.

2019 was a different story. He stopped trying to force the power and instead fully embraced his identity as a contact hitter. Anderson struck out nearly 50 less times than he had in 2018 due to this. He had a monstrous .335 batting average, which was good for that year's batting title. He would continue to have an above .300 average up until 2023.

We all know what happened on August 5th, 2023. In case you don't, in the 6th inning Tim Anderson and Jose Ramirez get into a brawl where Anderson gets knocked on his ass. He was already having a terrible season, but this was the nail in the coffin for his career as a whole. After 2023, the Sox would let him go to Miami where he was just as bad, and then to the Angels where he was perfectly average during his 30 games in the majors in 2025. He wouldn't suit up at all in 2026 and officially would announce his retirement.

Of course, Anderson knew none of that at the time. All he knew was that he had the opportunity to be the winning run for one of the greatest regular season games ever. Dumm watches as Anderson sends one to the cornfield and walks it off for the Sox. Anderson is euphoric and so is every white Sox fan in the world. Happy retirement Tim, I'll never forget you.