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Tommy Mendoca (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Early in the 2008 college baseball season, not much went right for sophomore third baseman Tommy Mendonca and the Fresno State Bulldogs. A preseason Top 25 team with Omaha hopes, by April, Fresno State had dropped out of the national rankings and would need a strong conference showing even to have a shot at the postseason.
Mendonca and the Bulldogs weren’t worried.
“As long as you click at the right time, you gotta get in, and we got in,” Mendonca said. “We had to win the WAC, and that’s what we did. We knew we had to take care of business.”
Once WAC conference games began, Mendonca and the Bulldogs got down to business. They swept through the conference tournament, earning a spot as an NCAA Tournament four-seed in the Long Beach State Regional.
Fresno stormed through regionals, then stunned No. 3 national seed Arizona State in super regionals to earn an unlikely berth in the College World Series.
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On the individual front, Mendonca entered Omaha jokingly chasing a dubious 20/100 milestone—20 home runs, 100 strikeouts. He’d fall short, finishing with 19 home runs and a Division 1 record 99 strikeouts, but was confident in his all-or-nothing approach, mainly because he backed it up with stellar defense.
“Hitting-wise, my philosophy was if I strike out, I better save a run on the field,” Mendonca said. “I knew if I did fail at the plate—which you fail way more times than you succeed—I would make it up in the field with a play or double play or something crazy … And if I got hold of one? Fielding would be a lot easier because the pressure is off.”
Fresno State was undoubtedly the College World Series Cinderella story that year in a field filled with stalwarts like Miami, Florida State and North Carolina. While Mendonca and his teammates enjoyed the bandwagon support from locals and fans of eliminated teams, they had the same championship goal as their competitors.
“We wanted to be a good story and win it all,” Mendonca said. “We all contributed in some kind of way.”
Powered by Mendonca, who hit four homers in Omaha and was named Most Outstanding Player, Fresno State pulled off a historic upset by defeating Georgia in the CWS finals. While improbable on the surface, their month-long run didn’t catch Mendonca or his teammates by surprise, as winning discipline was built into the core of their program.
“Discipline was huge, and we all had a job,” said Mendonca. “We were such a great, fundamentally sound team with not huge name players, but it worked out better for us, because we knew what our jobs were, and we stuck to it.”
Despite playing into June and enduring the pain of dislocated fingers in his right hand for weeks, when asked to play on the U.S. Collegiate National Team immediately upon leaving Omaha, Mendonca didn’t hesitate.
“There’s no better feeling than wearing a United States of America jersey on a field against another country,” Mendonca said. “I would never say no to an opportunity like that.”
As the star player on the biggest Cinderella story in college baseball history, it’s hard to imagine having a better season than Mendonca’s 2008, but he continued his momentum. In 2009, he cut down the strike outs, was a Golden Spikes Award semifinalist,and became the Rangers second-round draft choice.
He followed a similar formula to his time at Fresno—hitting home runs and playing strong defense—early in his MiLB run, reaching Double-A Frisco by his second full season. However, after a tough first season in Triple-A, an organizational shuffle stalled his momentum. Mendonca was selected by the Athletics in the MiLB portion of the Rule 5 Draft in December 2012 but was released early in the next minor league season without playing an official game.
Mendonca signed with the Phillies for the 2013 season in what would be his last chance at affiliated ball. By the end of 2013, he begrudgingly gave Indy Ball a chance.
“I was so bitter,” Mendonca said. “I thought I was above Indy Ball. But I am 100% wrong about that. I am so glad I played Independent Ball, it was so fun. I loved it, I kept playing until they told me I couldn’t.”
Mendonca played five seasons in Indy Ball before retiring. And while he never made it to the big leagues, he’ll forever be able to savor being the MOP of the only four-seed ever to win a College World Series.
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