Faces on the Field: Anderson Gomes

Chicago White Sox outfield prospect Anderson Gomes is hoping that eventually people might start associating his home country of Brazil with a sport other than "futbal."

And in his first season playing baseball in the United States, he's doing a pretty good job of working his way towards realizing that goal.

Gomes, 21, became the first player to represent Brazil in the annual Futures Game when he was named a member of the World Team that played at PNC Park in Pittsburgh on July 9.

And if the toolsy right fielder makes it to the Majors, he would become the first-ever player to have been born in Brazil (the last -- and only other -- top prospect from that country, pitcher Jose Pett, stalled out at Triple-A).

For now, though, Gomes is honing his game with the Kannapolis Intimidators of the Class A South Atlantic League, where he was hitting .259 with five home runs and 21 RBIs.

The 6-foot-1 185-pounder grew up in Assai in north-central Brazil, about seven hours from Sao Paolo, and until he was 7 or 8 he played soccer, just like most Brazilian kids. But to tell the truth, he wasn't really that crazy about the sport.

"When I was little in school I played soccer with my friends, but I really didn't like it that much," he said. "I was about 7 when we started playing baseball in school. Then when I was 9 some guy came and asked me to throw an orange against the wall as hard as I could, and that's when I really started."

By the time Gomes was in his early teens, he knew this was what he wanted to do with his life, but he also knew he needed to get to Sao Paolo to do that. So, at 13, he told his mom that he was going to live with his grandmother in the city and instead moved in with a friend who was playing baseball there.

"My mom didn't know," he admits now. "After a few months I told her that I wanted to play baseball and stay there."

Shortly thereafter, Gomes met Cuban-born Orlando Santana, who ran a club team in the city and became the youngster's baseball mentor and, eventually, the scout who recommended Gomes to the White Sox.

Within two years, Gomes' fastball was clocked at 95 mph and Santana brought him to Tampa, where he showcased his stuff for the New York Yankees. While there, he caught the eye of an executive from Japan who sold him on the idea of coming to his country and playing professionally for a few years before returning to America.

So, before his 16th birthday, Anderson Gomes was a professional baseball player in Japan, pitching for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in their Minor League system.

At 18, though, he blew out his elbow and underwent "Tommy John" surgery.

"At first my arm hurt a little bit, but then I didn't feel any pain at all for a few months," he recalled of the injury. "Then one night I went into a game, threw one pitch and wham, I couldn't feel my arm."

Faced with the fear that his budding career might be over at such a young age, Gomes was devastated.

"I started crying, thinking I wouldn't pitch again, wouldn't play baseball anymore," he said. "But the doctor said I'd be able to play again, it would just take awhile. In about a year my arm was getting better, but in the last year I decided I didn't want to pitch anymore. "

After that year of rehab, Gomes realized his dreams of pitching were over, but not his dreams of playing professional baseball. Instead, he turned his efforts to the other side of the box score, converting to the outfield where his strong right arm was a perfect match for right field and his toolbox of talents included some serious power potential.

"His raw power is off the charts," said David Wilder, the White Sox's player development director. "He just has to put it into game situations."

Just a few months after celebrating their World Series championship, the White Sox signed Gomes and this spring he headed to Advanced-A Winston-Salem club to begin his stateside career.

He got off to a slow start in the Carolina League, though, hitting just .205 with two home runs and 12 RBIs in a circuit populated by older, more advanced players, and in mid May the Sox shifted him down a level to Kannapolis, where he has blossomed.

There is no question that Gomes' learning experience in Japan has aided his quick development here, and not just on the field.

When he got to Japan as a 15-year-old, he only spoke Portuguese. Now he has good grasp of four languages, having learned Spanish, English and Japanese while with Fukuoka.

In fact, the Intimidators' outfield is two-thirds Brazilian-born, as the club's center fielder and leadoff hitter is Gomes' hometown buddy Paulo Orlando.

Orlando was signed with by the White Sox's Santana a year before Gomes, and spent the 2005 season with the organization's Dominican Summer League team, hitting .322 with seven doubles. Considered the fastest player in the system and one of the fastest in the Minors, he was hitting .254 for the Intimidators with five homers, 24 RBis and 18 steals, having been caught just twice.

Despite having grown up in an area where baseball was definitely a second -- or third -- thought, neither Gomes nor Orlando are as raw as one might imagine, though both need to work on their walk-to-strikeout ratios (Gomes' was 22-to-73 between his two stops and Orlando's 9-to-100).

"They may be a little rawer than the Dominican or Latin-American kids who play all year long, but they're not that far behind," Wilder said. "Orlando played in the Dominican Republic for a year, and they did a good job getting him ready fundamentally. And Gomes played in Japan and, of course, they're big on fundamentals there, so they both had a clue."