By Tim Kurkjian
ESPN The Magazine
http://espn.go.com/mlb/
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August 16, 2011
DETROIT, MI - AUGUST 15: DH, Jim Thome(notes) #25 of the Minnesota Twins hits his second home run of the game in the seventh inning and his 600th career home run making him only the eighth player in Major League Baseball history to achieve that milestone during a MLB game against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park on August 15, 2011 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/Getty Images)
The boy was 9 years old when he snaked through the crowd at Wrigley Field, then silently, miraculously, wiggled his way inside the Cubs dugout minutes before the start of a game in search of his hero, Dave Kingman. Young Jim Thome didn't get a chance to meet his idol before Cubs catcher Barry Foote delivered him back to his father, who was not surprised by the actions of his son. A young Jim Thome loved Kingman, the Cubs, baseball and home runs.
And now, 33 years later, Thome has hit home run No. 600, the eighth man out of the slightly more than 17,000 major leaguers in history to reach that level, a level with only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa as prior members. Thome has hit 158 more home runs than Kingman, with a slugging percentage almost 80 points higher and an on-base percentage 100 points higher, and Thome has achieved these Hall of Fame numbers due to tremendous strength, an equally strong work ethic, a great swing and a calm, steady hand. He's been a good dude every day that he has spent in the big leagues, the kind of guy who would embrace a 9-year-old who had somehow infiltrated the dugout, then promise to hit a homer for him that day.
"I didn't get to meet Dave Kingman that day, they got me out of the dugout before I could," he said. "But I loved Dave Kingman. He used to have a boat. And every time I would drive down Lakeshore Avenue in Chicago with my dad, we'd look at the lake and I would ask my dad, 'Is that Dave Kingman's boat?' I eventually got his autograph at the All-Star Game in Colorado [in 1998]. It was cool. But he didn't know that he was my guy."
And now, Thome is "my guy" to so many current players, especially teammates that he has affected in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Minnesota. Ask any player from those teams, and they have a hard time ever remembering seeing Thome angry, or in a bad mood, or mean or rude. Every day, he has been the same: Stoic and solid.
"He is the world's nicest man," said Twins closer Joe Nathan. "He's one of those guys that the hype is so great before you meet him, then he lives up to the hype, and more. When you see him from across the field, you think, 'He can't be that nice,' but he is. He is so genuine. There are other players that will be forgotten when they leave, but he will not be. We will be talking about him for years to come. To me, he's like [Hall of Famer] Harmon Killebrew. They are one in the same. When you meet both of those guys for the first time, you think, 'Wow, this is someone that I will be wanting to talk to on a daily basis.'"
"Jim Thome is the best," said Twins reliever Matt Capps. "He is just a regular guy. I've been to dinner with him, and people come to our table, and he takes time to say hi to a kid. I've seen guys with six months in the big leagues snub a kid in a restaurant. Not Jim, and he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He'll talk to a guy who knew him from Cleveland in 1993. He is a role model for all of us, he is like every one of us would like to be. I'd like to get 20 years in the big leagues like him, but what am I going to be like in 12 or 15 years? Meeting him, you would never know that he was on the cusp of hitting 600 home runs."
"He's like Babe Ruth around here," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, smiling. "The fans here get all mad at me for not playing him every day. The other day [as Thome was within two home runs of 600], the White Sox were throwing that [Chris] Sale kid, the left-hander throwing 97 [mph], and the fans wanted me to pinch-hit Thome for [Danny] Valencia [who bats right-handed]. They just love him here. He's great. He has been a pleasure."
"He is the nicest, gentlest, kindest guy you will ever meet … to everything except the baseball, he still hits that really hard," said Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer. "He has great fire to him. It's not like, when he strikes out, he says, 'Oh, that was such a good pitch.' It's nothing like that. That's the perception some people have of him, but he hates to lose. When he walks in a room, everyone watches everything he does. It's the way he treats people, it's the way he respects the game. When I heard he was re-signing with us, I was so happy for a lot of reasons, but one reason was I wanted to be there for when he hit No. 600. Every night, I would pray that I was on base when he hit his 600th home run."
Thome's major league career began in 1991, at age 20, a relatively thin, but strong third baseman, the position he played for his first six seasons. He moved to first base in 1997. He wasn't a particularly good third baseman, "but he really worked at it," said one of his former instructors. "You might have to tell him how to do something a hundred times before he got it, but he always got it because no one tries harder, no one cares more than Jim."
When Thome arrived in the big leagues, he was an opposite-field hitter, he rarely hit a ball to the right of center field. But he got bigger and stronger as he aged, he learned to pull the ball, and soon was hitting homers deep into the right-field seats at then-Jacobs Field, but he was still able to take that ball away from him and hit it deep into the seats in left.
By 1996, he had emerged as one of the best power hitters in the game. Thome hit 40 homers in a season six times, and 50 once. From 1995 to 2004, he hit 393 homers, fourth most in the major leagues. He averaged more than 45 homers a year from 2000 to 2004; only Bonds, Sosa and Rodriguez -- all with connections to performance-enhancing drugs -- hit more. Thome and Rodriguez are the only players to have a 40-home run season for three different teams. Thome holds the Indians' record for home runs in a season with 52. He holds the White Sox's team record for home runs in a season by a left-handed hitter with 42.
Thome's numbers came without flair, flash or controversy, especially involving steroids. But they are Hall of Fame worthy numbers: His on-base percentage is almost 50 points higher than that of Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, and his slugging percentage is almost 70 points higher than Jackson's. Obviously, there is no comparison defensively with Ken Griffey Jr., but Thome's slugging percentage is 20 points higher and his on-base percentage is 30 points higher than Griffey's.
But Thome isn't flashy like Griffey, and he certainly isn't colorful like Reggie. There are no hilarious Thome quotes, no great anecdotes about his brushes with fame. He is a just a guy who loves to hunt, and hang with his buddies. He is Gomer Pyle, a soft-spoken guy from Peoria, Ill. The best you get from him is an occasional misstep born from his charming naivete. When he set the record for the most home runs by anyone in Indians history, he said, "What makes it so special, is that I hit all these home runs for the same team."
About as good as it gets from Jim Thome is when he talks about his family, including his brother, Chuck, "who is a monster," he said. "He makes me look like a runt." His aunt, Carolyn, is in the Softball Hall of Fame.
Thome and his dad also visited Cooperstown a few years ago to deliver his 500th home run ball to the Hall of Fame. "That wasn't a ball that I should keep, that was something the Hall should have," Thome said. "It would just be sitting on my mantle at home. Now it's something for everyone to see." The great father-son trip to Cooperstown "was really special for us," Thome said. "At the hotel [the Otesaga] there, my dad and I sat out on the terrace and they had lunch for us. They told us all the stories about the Hall of Famers. We toured the museum. I think it was the greatest days of my dad's life. And other than the birth of my children, it was the greatest day of my life."
They will go again, for sure, in another six or seven years, depending on when Thome retires. Only that time, Thome won't be going as a visitor. He will go as a member of the Hall of Fame.
Tim Kurkjian is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. His book "Is This a Great Game, or What?" was published by St. Martin's Press and is available in paperback. Click here to order a copy.
Follow Tim Kurkjian on Twitter: @Kurkjian_ESPN
Thome
By Joe Posnanski
http://joeposnanski.si.com/
August 16, 2011
DETROIT, MI - AUGUST 15: DH, Jim Thome(notes) #25 of the Minnesota Twins touches all the bases after hitting his second home run of the game in the seventh inning and his 600th career home run making him only the eighth player in Major League Baseball history to achieve that milestone during a MLB game against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park on August 15, 2011 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/Getty Images)
Here’s one thing we sort of lost during the Steroid Era: The jolly home run hitter. Remember? Baseball used to be filled with them — gentle giants, country strong men who would swing hard, tromp around the bases, maybe wink to a kid in the crowd as they crossed home plate. Heck, the home run was practically invented by one of those men, by a man-child they called Babe, who promised sick children in hospitals across America that he’d hit home runs for them.
The home run lists used to be filled with genial men — Harmon Killebrew, Ernie Banks, Frank Howard, Dale Murphy, Bill Beltin’ Melton, Hank Greenberg, on and on. Johnny Bench sang in night clubs. Jimmie Foxx was so admired and beloved, he wasn’t hit by a single pitch the year he hit 58 homers. George Foster didn’t smoke or drink, and later in life has longed to get on Dancing with the Stars. Big Klu — Ted Kluszewski — wore his sleeves rolled up to show off his arms and make a fist, smile, and say: “You know what that is? A Polish joke stopper.” They called Willie Stargell “Pops.” They called George Scott “”Boomer.” They called Jimmy Wynn “The Toy Cannon.”This is not to say that there were no surly home run hitters — of course there were, feared men, Jim Rice and Ralph Kiner and Dick Allen and Dave Kingman and many others. But, surprisingly often, those powerful home run hitters were lovable lugs. The home run itself was childlike fun, constantly surprising, overwhelming to the senses, not unlike cotton candy or a Jack in the Box.
Well … the Steroid Era screwed all that up, didn’t it? I don’t know how much steroids had to do with the enormous jump in home runs in the 1990s and 2000s — and I suspect neither do you — but we can all count. Cherished numbers: Smashed. Exclusive clubs: Crashed. From 1993-2002, there were six different seasons of 60-plus homers; two of them at 70 or more. Ten different players hit 50 home runs in a season. Forty three different players hit 40. One hundred twelve different players hit 30.
Madness. Insanity. It used to be you knew exactly who was in the 600 home run club — Aaron, Ruth, Mays. That’s it. Three people. Three titans. Now … add Barry Bonds, who then hit his 700th homer, then passed Ruth, then passed Aaron, all to the background music of boos. Add Sammy Sosa, who hit 60 home runs three times. Add Ken Griffey Jr. Add Alex Rodriguez. The 600 homer tree house was suddenly overflowing … it wasn’t much of a club anymore.
The home run was no longer innocent. It was no longer childlike. Players who hit a slew of home runs over a stretch became suspects. Players who hit those even-number marks that used to stretch the imagination — 300 homers, 400 homers, 500 homers — found that they needed defense attorneys when they reached home plate. It has almost reached a point where players find themselves APOLOGIZING for hitting too many home runs.
Well, we know all that. We still love watching home runs. We just watch them with more jaded eyes, I suppose. It’s like this: When I was young, I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters because I thought they were the best basketball team in the world. Now that I’m older, I still love watching the Harlem Globetrotters. But I know they’re not the best basketball team in the world.
I wish Jim Thome had hit his 600th home run back when we all still believed in lovable lugs.
* * *
Thome hit his 599th and 600th home run on Monday night in Detroit — the 48th time in his remarkable career that he hit multiple homers in a game — and I immediately remembered his first homer in the big leagues. That was in 1991. He was playing for Cleveland then, my childhood team, and I was listening to the game through static in a dented red Nissan Sentra in a North Augusta, S.C., parking lot. I had to look up who he hit it against (Steve Farr) but I remembered that it beat the Yankees. And it did, 3-2. The Indians lost 105 games that year. But, hey, the Yankees lost 90. It was another time.
I had my eye on Thome for some time. He was an intriguing prospect. The Indians were supposedly building a promising future (how many times had we Cleveland fans heard that?). They had a hard-hitting second baseman named Carlos Baerga. They had a young outfielder then called Joey Belle. That year of Thome’s first homer — 1991 — they drafted a high school outfielder from New York named Manny Ramirez. And, later that year, they traded for a former college basketball player who everyone said could run like the wind, Kenny Lofton.
In 1992, I went up to Cleveland to see the Indians play a couple of games. Thome made errors in both games. He was awkward at third base, but I thought even then that he played the position with gusto. He did everything with gusto. The Indians sent him back to the minor leagues. I went to see him play in Charlotte. He made an error that night, too … but Thome found his destiny in Charlotte. The Charlotte Knights manager was a folksy hitting savant named Charlie Manuel — you may have heard of him — and Manuel had Thome watch video from the movie The Natural. He specifically had Thome watch something that Robert Redford, as Roy Hobbs, did before the pitch.
“See how he points his bat at the pitcher?” Manuel said, or some such thing.
“Yup,” Thome replied.
“Let’s do that,” Manuel said.
“OK,” Thome said, because he’s an amiable type, and loved Charlie Manuel. He pointed bats at pitchers, and he mashed 25 homers and drove in 102 runs in Charlotte, then he went up to Cleveland and hit seven more homers. The next year he hit all 20 of his home runs for Cleveland before the strike, and the next year he hit 25 and the Indians went to the World Series. The next year, he hit 38, then 40, and so on.
Later — from 2001 to 2003 — he would hit 49-52-47 in back-to-back-to-back years. At the time, he was only the sixth guy in baseball history to hit 47 or more homers three straight years, but already the home run was beginning to lose its magic, and Alex Rodriguez did it at exactly the same time, and so nobody really cared. Thome hit home runs like few ever had, but it was almost like he had come along too late, like he was Elvis after the Beatles landed.
Not that Thome minded. He has never seemed to mind much of anything. He always wore this big grin, and he made everybody around him feel like a million bucks. There are a million “Jim Thome is the greatest guy” stories. He’s won the Clemente Award. He’s won the Gehrig Award. He has been voted the nicest guy in baseball. My wife and I once ended up at a dinner with him and his beautiful wife Andrea. They didn’t know us. Before dessert even came around, they were inviting her to come up to Cleveland to watch a game, and they were talking baby names.
* * *
Jim Thome has been a great hitter. Not a good hitter. Not a very good hitter. He has been a slam-dunk, first-ballot, no-doubt Hall of Famer hitter. People have missed this because, well, people have missed a lot about Jim Thome. The man has a .403 lifetime on-base percentage, 25th all-time for players with 7,500 plate appearances, higher than DiMaggio, higher than Wagner, higher than Mays or Yaz or Rose or Ichiro. Many people will never respect on-base percentage the way they should, because many people just don’t like walks. But walking is an art. And Thome is Picasso.
Anyway, his on-base percentage is not all the 1,700-plus walks he’s earned. He’s a .277 lifetime hitter, which doesn’t sound great, but it’s better than many of the other big home run hitters — Ernie Banks, Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Matthews, Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson and Harmon Killebrew among them. Heck, Thome hit .300 three times. He, of course, has struck out more often than any player except Reggie Jackson (and it doesn’t look like he will quite catch Reggie). But when he hit baseballs, he hit them hard.
Thome crushed fastballs in his prime. Crushed them. Annihilated them. In 1998, the Indians were playing the Angels in Cleveland, and it was the bottom of the 10th, and the score was tied. The Angels pitcher was Troy Percival, who in those days could throw about 294 mph. But those Indians destroyed fastball pitchers, and sure enough MannyBManny singled, and Brian Giles walked, and with two outs Jim Thome stepped to the plate.
There was never any doubt what was going to happen. Never any doubt. Thome pulverized a fastball for a three-run homer and the Indians won the game.
Here’s the thing: Two years later, on an August Friday night in Cleveland, Troy Percival again faced Jim Thome with the game on the line. By now, Percival was only throwing 273 mph. This time, the Angels were up a run. The Indians had a man on base. And there was never any doubt what was going to happen. Never any doubt. Thome pulverized a fastball for a two-run homer, and the Indians won a game. From 1995 through 2002, Jim Thome struck out more than 1,200 times. But I doubt he missed too many 100-mph fastballs then. You couldn’t throw the ball fast enough to get him out in those days.
Another memory: In 2004, when Zack Greinke was a rookie, he liked to fool around a lot on the mound. That year, he threw a bunch of 55-mph curveballs and he quick-pitched a time or two and so on. And I remember a game when he struck out Thome on one of those Bugs Bunny slow curveballs. Thome swung hard, missed by about a foot, looked pretty bad, though as usual Thome seemed chipper enough after the strikeout. Way to go, kid! Heck of a pitch!
Next time up, Greinke threw another slow curve to Jim Thome. And Thome blasted the ball about 900 feet.
“He’s just a smart hitter, I guess,” Greinke muttered afterward.
* * *
Jim Thome grew up in Peoria idolizing Dave Kingman. That seems a funny thing in retrospect, since Thome could not be more different from the surly Kingman, but I suspect it’s not funny at all. See, Jim Thome really grew up idolizing the home run. That’s what Kingman did. He hit home runs. Thome, like so many kids, idolized baseballs that sounded like fireworks as they cracked off baseball bats. He idolized that amazing still-life — the ball in the air, the pitcher with his neck wrenched, the outfielder facing the wall. Thome, like so many kids, wanted to be a home run hitter.
He became one, like few who have ever played the game. And the world should view him as one, view him in the same frame with those other lovable lugs in the Hall of Fame. But Thome hit home runs in the wrong era. He hit home runs at the time when muscle-bound men hit so many that Congress got involved. When he hit his 600th home run, someone sent me a Twitter question: “Is Thome a Hall of Famer?” I thought: Really? There’s a question?
Maybe there is. People just don’t love home run hitters like they once did. I asked Thome once how he wanted to be remembered. That’s not really the sort of question that Jim Thome likes to answer. He’s not the philosophical type. But since I asked, he wanted to answer. He kind of looked at me, then looked at the ground, then looked back at me. He thought for a minute. He put his hand on my shoulder, and he said: “You know, I’d kind of like to be remembered as a pretty good guy. Isn’t that how you would want to be remembered?”
I said something then about being remembered as a great baseball player. His eyes lit up.
“Sure,” he said happily. “Why not? That would be great too!”
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