Back in Sarasota, Fla., during the spring of 1996, White Sox camp was roiled early by the disappearance of Tony Phillips, who had signed as a free-agent over the winter.

Phillips had called it quits after belatedly deciding his two-year, $3.6 million contract wasunsatisfactory, giving the Sox a made-for-media controversy at the start of camp.

We loved it, of course, because for the most part spring training is rather dull.

But it didn’t last long.

After talking with some of his friends — Dusty Baker, Chili Davis and Dave Stewart — Phillips changed his mind and returned a few days later.

So what prompted the comeback?

“I wouldn’t call it a comeback,” Phillips said with a laugh. “Actually, what really happened is I retired and went home and my wife said, ‘No, no.’ ”

That was the first of several memorable controversies I’d cover over various springs as a Sox beat writer or baseball columnist.

There was Frank Thomas’ doctor’s note that excused him from a spring training drill, leading to a match with manager Jerry Manuel, and Thomas’ spring walkout the next year in protest of the so-called “diminished skills” clause in his contract.

A personal favorite was the spring of 2002 when the Sox couldn’t reach an agreement with new ace Mark Buehrle on his contract and opted to renew the kid for $310,000, or $15,000 less than what they had offered in arbitration. That in-your-face move sparked speculation Buehrle would eventually bolt when he hit free agency.

And of course there was the Adam LaRoche saga of two years ago, when the Sox first baseman quit during spring training after management changed its mind about letting his teenage son, Drake, have full access to the clubhouse during the season. Chris Sale went ballistic, ripping Sox executive Ken Williams, and the story became national news.

As the 2018 Sox prepare for the March 29 season opener in Kansas City with their final week of spring training in

Glendale, Ariz., it has been one of the quieter springs in recent memory.

The only blip on the radar occurred last week when manager Rick Renteria pulled Avisail Garcia from a game for not running out a ground ball. But the story was quickly diffused when Renteria lauded Garcia and Garcia admitted he was in the wrong.

No harm, no foul. Play on.

Otherwise, the Sox basically have accomplished what every major-league team wants to get done in camp, namely to get their work in and keep key players healthy for the upcoming season.

With few new names on the Sox roster outside of the bullpen, it basically has been a continuation of the final weeks of 2017, after the trades of Todd Frazier, Dave Robertson, Melky Cabrera, Anthony Swarzak and a few other veterans lowered the average age of the roster.

“We’re really young and we kind of jelled together last year after everyone got traded,” third baseman Matt Davidson said. “Just picking up right where we left off. It’s a young, exciting, fun and kind of light camp. We’re just having fun.”

Perhaps the moment that will be remembered long after everything else is forgotten will be Eloy Jimenez’s pinch-hit home run against the Cubs at Sloan Park after a two-week layoff with left knee tendinitis.

The Sox hadn’t planned to use Jimenez until the next day. But Jimenez later admitted he “hassled” Renteria on the bench to let him hit against his former organization until Renteria eventually relented.

In the visitors clubhouse, Garcia and Jose Abreu were getting ready to leave when they stopped to watch Jimenez’s at-bat. Lucas Giolito offered to delay his press briefing so reporters could watch on TV.

Sure, it was only a spring training game, but when Jimenez hit an opposite-field home run, it brought smiles to all of his teammates’ faces. They know his importance to the rebuild, and how one at-bat could build confidence in the 21-year-old slugger.

Jimenez followed by hitting another homer and a line-drive triple in his first two at-bats the next day, and wound up reaching in six consecutive at-bats over three games before the Sox sent him to minor-league camp to play with his Double-A Birmingham teammates.

The Sox don’t seem to be in any hurry to rush him, which makes sense if they’re not contending.

But the sooner they get Jimenez into a Sox uniform, the better.

To paraphrase Rolling Stone’s 1974 story on little-known artist Bruce Springsteen, I saw the Sox’s future, and its name is Eloy Jimenez.

psullivan@chicagotribune.com