Chicago White Sox’s Joey Gallo reacts as he is called out on strikes during the second inning of a … [+] spring training baseball game, as San Diego Padres catcher Luis Campusano lookon, right, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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In his second at-bat in the major leagues, Joey Gallo crushed a 92-mph fastball that Jeff Samardzija had left over the plate. He blasted it 445 feet into the Home Run Porch at Globe Life Field. The exit velocity was 108.5 miles per hour, the launch angle 32 degrees.

Gallo homered again in his second game, so it was no real surprise that White Sox manager Robin Ventura intentionally walked the 21-year-old in the next game. Having played with the likes of Frank Thomas, Albert Belle, Mike Piazza and Rickey Henderson during his 16-year career, Ventura was a hard man to impress.

Gallo’s light-tower power did it.

Few prospects should have been as ready to face big-league pitching as Gallo. He was developed carefully by the Rangers after being selected from Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman High School in the 2012 draft, kept in the minors long enough to have two 40-homer seasons. In his first full pro season he became the first teenager to hit 40 homers in 51 years.

As a big-leaguer, Gallo his his 100th career homer in his 377th game, at the time the fastest ever. He had only 93 singles to go with those home runs, however, and had already piled up 523 strikeouts.

While Gallo would eventually have five seasons with at least 38 homers (including his minor-league output in 2013 and ’14), he never became more than a one-trick pony as a hitter. The White Sox, coming off a enigmatically fascinating season of their own, signed Gallo to a minor-league contract, hoping to catch some lightning in a bottle.

What they got was a spring training performance (2-for-20 with 11 strikeouts) so discouraging that Gallo asked for his release so that he can explore extending his career as a pitcher. He did not have to ask twice.

Gallo exits the batting cage as a .194 career hitter with 208 home runs, a .775 OPS and 1292 strikeouts. In his final three seasons, he batted .166 with 50 homers, a .665 OPS and 407 strikeouts in 313 games with the Yankees, Dodgers, Twins and Nationals.

It’s possible his confidence could never recover from the booing he took in his two seasons in New York.

“I don’t go out in the streets,” he told New Jersey.com’s Randy Miller. “I really don’t want to show my face too much around here.”

He said opposing players routinely encouraged him to ignore the New York fans but that made him feel worse. “Honestly, it makes me feel like I’m a problem.”

Postmortems on Gallo’s career will likely include sections on the irony that he and his Las Vegas youth ball friend Kris Bryant both arrived in the major leagues in 2015. That was the beginning of MLB’s Statcast era, when fixed cameras delivered data to players, coaches and analysts on every pitch.

Both Bryant and Gallo had been coached as children to try to hit every pitch as far as possible, developing swing paths that were upper cuts, if only slightly. Their early success as big-leaguers combined with a sea of data and supportive parents that sometimes critique every plate appearance to make it almost impossible for professional coaches to change their approaches.

When they should be enjoying the primes of their careers, Gallo is instead trying to reinvent himself as a pitcher — he remained unsigned entering Monday — and Bryant is hoping to play more than 80 games for the first time since 2021. If he hits cleanup for Colorado on Opening Day, it will be more of a testimony to the $108 million he’s still owed than his .136 Cactus League average.

Gallo could always throw hard. Statcast has clocked him at 94 mph from right field, and as a teenager he could hit triple digits.

Tony Gallo, Joey’s father, once told MLB.com about the disbelief he received from a Toronto Blue Jays scout when he told him Joey wanted to be an everyday player, not a pitcher. Jim Morris was 35 when he debuted as a reliever with Tampa Bay in 1999, and the story was so good Disney made a movie about him.

Gallo’s baseball career isn’t ending. But it will be bittersweet if he gets back to the major leagues on the mound.

When a smart manager like Ventura intentionally walks you in your third game, you are marked for greatness. But the best hitters have always had more than their share of opposite-field singles, not just 445-foot bombs.

It’s easy to forget how much promise Gallo carried with him, and not that long ago either. He’s trying to write an unexpected ending to his career, and it must feel great to start over with a blank slate.