Former Alabama baseball player Frank Menechino in Field of Dreams: Something Big Happened

He used words like cool and awesome to describe Thursday night’s Field of Dreams game, but you shouldn’t take Frank Menechinos to use those words for granted.

When it comes to memorable baseball games, Menechino – the coach of the Chicago White Sox – has been a part of memorable MLB moments.

The former Alabama baseball player played at the famous Fort Bragg game in 2016. The game was the first regular season professional sporting event ever held at an active military base, and the first MLB game to be played in North Carolina. Marlins beat Braves 52.

In 2014, he played in show games between the New York Yankees and Miami Marlins in Panama City in honor of retired New York easer Mariano Rivera, who marked Major League Baseball’s first visit to the Central American nation since 1947.

Still, he literally experienced Hollywood stuff on Thursday night.

It’s like you live in a movie, Menechino said me and Lee Shirvanian on The Opening Kickoff on WNSP-FM 105.5 Mobile Thursday morning. That’s what it was for me. When I watched that movie years ago, I was like, Wow, it’s cool. Now be really there. I’ve been lucky.

Menechino, who only got to sleep at 3 a.m. Friday morning after returning to Chicago, said for a moment that the White Sox hit the ground in Iowa.

The team was transported to the field in 45 minutes. Along the way, people parked on the side of the road, waving to the team. They were in the middle of nowhere, and they just waved. Everyone was waving outside.

The facilities were untouched, he added. The field, batting cages and clubhouse were more than he expected.

The Yankees and White Sox played next to the filming site for the beloved 1989 movie. Starring Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones.

He was impressed, Menechino said of Costner. He walked around watching the punching drills.

It didn’t hurt that Tim Anderson’s two-stage Homer in one ninth inning for the cornfield to end the Field of Dreams game cinematically, with the White Sox also winning 9-8.

Timmys always switches, he said. He has enough power to hit the ball from any part of the field, so it won’t surprise me (he can hit it). But, I can’t lie. I was surprised.

Perhaps not as shocking, however, as how many of his players had not seen Field of Dreams.

I was making some of my players, Menechino said. I told them you better go see it now.

Forty minutes before the start of the game, both teams climbed into the cornfields at the start of the demonstration.

In the middle of nowhere, something big happened.

Menechino played in Alabama from 1992-1993 and helped Tide achieve a 61-46 record in his two seasons in Tuscaloosa. He released the average of Alabama’s career strokes in 106 matches, 12 home teams, 58 resistance, 12 doubles and seven triples.

After the Chicago White Sox draft in the 45th round of the 1993 MLB Draft, Menechino played seven seasons in Major League Baseball. He made his MLB debut in 1999 in Oakland As, where he played 308 games in As over five plus seasons. Menechino ended his career at the Toronto Blue Jays in 2004-05. He posted a career-breaking average of 0.228, 36 homes and 149 RBIs in 450 career games.

Mark Heim is a sports journalist for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.