The Big Hurt

Future Hall of Famer and former Philadelphia Phillie non-draft pick Frank Thomas was released by the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday April 20th, one day after being benched for his lack of production and public criticism of manager John Gibbons.

While there is always the possibility that someone will take a flyer on the dangerous slugger, it appears that Thomas' illustrious, if not sometimes controversial, career has come to an end. There are few teams that are in serious contention in need of an every day designated hitter and it appears that, at least for now, Thomas refuses to play off the bench. There is also a crowded market for heavy hitting DH only players. Home run king Barry Bonds has yet to find a team willing to take on his circus and demeanor. Sluggers Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa are also without a team. Bonds, Piazza and Sosa all have somewhat of a leg up on Thomas because they can all still play the field, if not on a regular basis. Thomas is a major defensive liability at first base, not to mention a serious risk of injuring himself.

It is unfortunate that one of the best hitters to ever play the game would end his career on such a note, but this type of incident is not without precedent for Thomas. After playing for the Chicago White Sox for sixteen years, the White Sox unceremoniously decided to not bring Thomas back for a seventeenth year. After signing with the Oakland Athletics Thomas publicly complained about the way his tenure with Chicago ended, saying that White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf did not even call him to tell him they would not be re-signing him.

"I've got a lot of respect for Jerry Reinsdorf, I do. But I really thought, the relationship we had over the last 16 years, he would have picked up the phone to say, `Big guy, we're moving forward. We're going somewhere different. We don't know your situation or what's going to happen.' I can live with that, I really can," Thomas said. "But treating me like some passing-by-player. I've got no respect for that."

He also knocked heads with manager and GM Kenny Williams over several provisions in his contract and felt the Sox should have just traded him after the playoffs in 2000. In response to Thomas' publicly calling him out, Williams called the slugger an "idiot" and said

"If he was any kind of a man, he would quit talking about things in the paper and return a phone call or come knock on someone's door. If I had the kind of problems evidently he had with me, I would go knock on his door."

On January 25, 2006, Thomas signed a one year deal with Oakland. He would go on to finish second behind his replacement in Chicago former Phillie Jim Thome as AL Comeback Player of the Year, but would win the award for Player's Choice Comeback Player of the Year.

Thomas' career was filled with many records and distinctions. From 1991-1997 he finished in the top ten in MVP voting every single year. He is only the second first baseman ever to win the MVP Award in two consecutive years ('93-'94). The other is Jimmie Foxx, in 1932 and 1933. He actually won the AL Comeback Player of the Year Award in 2000 and won the AL Batting Title in 1997. On June 28, 2007, Thomas hit his 500th home run in Minnesota (ironically the sight of his first home run), becoming just the 21st player in Major League history to ever do so. Thomas, along with Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and later Alex Rodriguez, are the only players to ever hit 500 home runs and have a career batting average of .300 and above. He is also on a short list of players to hit 500 home runs and acrue at least 1600 walks. With him are the Babe, Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Barry Bonds. Thomas currently ranks number one all time in home runs as a designated hitter and eighteenth all time in home runs with 516. He ranks twenty-second all time with 1,685 RBIs and a .559 slugging percentage.

Thomas was the seventh overall pick of the 1989 MLB draft. Picked at number five that year, out of Simeon High School in Chicago Illinois, was Jeff Jackson, to the Philadelphia Phillies. Jackson was a highly tauted outfielder and the Phillies' management spent several months debating between whether they should take him or Thomas. Jackson never made it out of the minors. Thomas was, and still is, one of the all time greatest hitters to ever play the game. Just another in a long line of Phillie management blunders. Don't forget Von "Five for One" Hayes.