Carlos Quentin, as the legend goes, is a thinker. Not just a thinking man’s ballplayer – he went to Stanford, so he’s probably smarter than you – but a real-life thinker, a sort of pine tar philosopher constantly examining and reexamining his swing not just as a means of hitting a baseball but as an implement to a larger goal of helping his team win.

The legend also goes that, because he is so driven and singularly focused, Quentin can give the wrong impression to observers and outsiders alike. Some may see a man who doesn’t have time to care, while those close to the misunderstood genius insist Quentin actually care more than we will ever understand. The bat-chewing, the wrist-smashing, the playing hurt: Carlos Quentin is not weird. Carlos Quentin is Advanced.

Did you read that in today’s Sun-Times? Maybe you did. Did you also read that on the team’s official site five months ago? That’s also possible.

From WhiteSox.com, April 16, 2009:

It’s not so much about the results for Quentin, as much as it is about finding the right feel at the plate. The study continues for the cerebral hitter, trying to perfect a discipline that’s almost impossible to perfect.

From the Sun-Times, September 11, 2009:

Back in 2005 and ’06, Podsednik was Quentin. Tough to interview. Always working. Chasing a perfection that just doesn’t exist in the game of baseball.

Perhaps it is foolish for us to expect to learn more about this mysterious man patrolling left field, his cosmic genius defying the prose of even the most fervent and devoted of scribes. We live in a world of endless information, genius batters, cool kids and team-building general managers, and perhaps this is a time for us to accept our own limitations and realize there are but some things, alas, that we mortals are simply not meant to know.