Frank Menechino (born January 7, 1971) is a former Major League Baseball infielder, who played in the majors from 1999-2005. He played baseball at Susan E. Wagner High School in New York. He played college baseball at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Florida, before transferring to the University of Alabama. He played for the Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays of the American League. He played second base, shortstop, third base, designated hitter, and also made two pitching appearances.
In early 2006, Menechino signed a minor league contract with the Cincinnati Reds, but did not make the Major League team out of spring training. On August 17, 2006, Menechino signed a minor league contract with the New York Yankees and was sent to the Triple-A Columbus Clippers where he was a utility man. On February 10, 2007, Menechino signed a minor league contract with the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies released him June 1, 2007, followed by his contract being picked up by the San Diego Padres and being assigned to the Triple-A Portland Beavers on June 9, 2007. He became a free agent at the end of the season.
He played in Italy for Danesi Nettuno for two months in 2008, before retiring after hurting his back.
On December 22, 2008, it was announced that Menechino would be the new hitting coach for the New York Yankees' Double-A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder. Menechino will coach for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees in 2011.
In 2009, Menechino founded the Frank Menechino School for the Blind in order to offer blind children a broader array of opportunities scholastically as well as the baseball field. The School for the Blind's team and "Frank's All-Stars" (featuring former major leaguers like Ross Gload and Aaron Heilman), have a charity baseball event every year on the second Thursday of October which is blind awareness month.
Famous quotes containing the word frank:
“Are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers’ greens, without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint: frank manifestations in accordance with natural law.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)