Mende can’t talk, but he can hit

Posted Mar 29, 2010 by Scott Carter

Updated Mar 29, 2010 at 03:24 PM

The USF baseball team swept Notre Dame over the weekend, highlighted by a no-hitter from Randy Fontanez on Friday night.

While Fontanez gets my vote for USF student-athlete of the week, Sam Mende wins the toughest player award—sorry to all those football players slamming into each other trying to impress Skip Holtz.

It’s not often during my career as a sports journalist—actually, make that never—that I’ve been told by an SID that a player will talk to me if he can.

If he can? What, does Mende have tonsillitis? Has he been barred from talking to reporters? Did he open for Alicia Keys on Sunday night and lose his voice?

None of the above. He still has his jaw wired shut from getting hit by a pitch earlier this season. The broken jaw forced Mende to miss six games, but he returned to the lineup on Friday night.

In USF’s three-game sweep of the Fighting Irish, Mende went 5-for-12 with two RBIs. Not bad for a player with his jaw wired shut.

Overall, Mende leads the Bulls with a .360 average (18-for-50). He has missed 10 games due to injuries, but he the sophomore shortstop should be in the lineup when the Bulls play at Stetson on Tuesday night.

For more on Mende’s return and USF’s resurgence, check out my story later this week in The Tampa Tribune.

Hopefully Mende will be quoted.