Quentin talks with his bat
The time: April. The place: White Sox clubhouse. The subject: Carlos Quentin.
"Is that him?" a reporter asked, pointing at Quentin's locker.
"No, I don't think so," I said, only because it looked like someone else.
"Does Quentin speak English well enough for an interview?" the reporter asked.
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"I assume so," I said. "He went to Stanford."
Hardly anybody knew too much about Carlos Quentin a couple of months ago.
He was just the guy Sox general manager Kenny Williams acquired from Arizona during the off-season, the guy who endured a serious injury last year, the guy who barely made the team in spring training.
"Not really," Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski said when asked Saturday whether he knew much about Quentin back then.
About an hour earlier, Quentin's solo home run was the winning run in a 6-5 victory over the Cubs and Sox fans shouted his name from the tallest steeple.
Yes, all Chicago baseball fans at least know of Quentin now. How much they know about him is a different story.
You see, Carlos Quentin is sort of the anti-Swish.
Nick Swisher never saw a person he couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't talk to. He's attracted to cameras like gas guzzlers are to Mobil stations.
Quentin ... not so much.
Saturday's postgame news conference was almost painful. Quentin speaks quietly, rarely embracing a question or the moment, usually seeming like he's on his way somewhere else.
"It's funny," Pierzynski said with a smile. "He gets here two hours early but it always seems like he's late."
Maybe Quentin will warm to bantering about baseball the way he has been battering baseballs. Then again, maybe he'll continue allowing his performances and teammates speak for him.
"Great ... amazing ... all-star," was Pierzynski's string of one-word descriptions of Quentin.
The one word most associated with Quentin is "intense." He plays baseball with an intensity that makes you think any minute his entire body will explode.
Until then, hey, it works for Quentin, who is batting .289 with 18 homers and 60 runs batted in.
Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said when asked whether he ever saw Quentin smile, "I don't want to see him smile, I want to see him grumpy with a lot of RBIs."
No problem there. After his home run, Quentin was tied for third in the American League in runs batted in and for second in homers.
"Ever since he's been in the lineup," Pierzynski said, "he's been a home run machine, an RBI machine."
Oh yeah, about that Sox lineup. When their offense was struggling, Guillen moved Quentin up to third in the order.
That would plunge a lot of rookies into a slump. Instead, Quentin kept on keeping on and the Sox started trying to keep up with him instead of vice versa.
"This kid's been great," Guillen said.
By the way, in addition to attending Stanford, Quentin was born in California, resides in Arizona and his English is just fine when he wants to use it.
mimrem@dailyherald.com