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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Saturday, January 25, 2014Cleveland Indians will unveil statue of home-run leader Jim Thome on Aug. 2
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1. John Northey Posted: January 25, 2014 at 04:28 PM (#4646287)Bit surprised how poorly he did in the post-season, just 211/312/448. His extra base hits are very odd though, 2 doubles, 1 triple and 17 home runs (!) with 29 singles. The ALDS killed him with a 181/268/378 in 35 games.
Wonder how his HOF journey will go? Don't recall hearing PED rumours around him but anyone who hit a lot of HR in the 90's is suspect it seems.
Thome was basically the baseball reincarnation of Harmon Killebrew. Both were hitters with modest averages who struck out prolifically, but compensated with prodigious power and plate discipline. Both had stone feet but could fake third base early in their career before migrating to first base, where they really belonged. Both had long careers that ended with ~10,000 PA and an OPS+ ~145. Both seemed like ordinary, Midwestern guys who rarely caught headlines for anything besides their play on a baseball field. Both were well liked by their teams' fans. The only reason why their statistics vary like they do is because Killebrew's peak was in the 60s, and Thome's in the Sillyball era. But otherwise, they were two links in the same chain.
Have you seen pictures of Thome in his very early years? He was still a big guy, but not big like he was in the late 90s. I'd compare his body development to McGwire's.
Seriously, though, Thome got a lot more barrel-chested and big-buttocked as he aged. This is not at all unusual for guys who are in the show at 20.
And of course, there is also considerable precedent for not-very-big guys who could slug a lot of homers. You know, guys like Aaron and Mays.
He's not a statue guy, but the team is desperate to win the fans back, and the town is still stuck in the 90s. There's even an Orel Hershiser (played all of three seasons with the team) bobblehead this season. Thus Thome gets the statue before a lot more qualified guys. I think it's Chief-Wahoo-is-still-your-mascot level pathetic that this isn't for Doby, and that Doby is frequently overlooked by the team.
And yet if in the bottom of the first inning of this game he'd hit one warning track fly ball just a quarter of an inch up on his bat, he might well have derailed the Yankees' historic 1998 season. The Yanks were down 2 games to 1, after Pettitte had been creamed the night before, following Knoblauch's meltdown in game 2, and if Thome's warning track fly ball had landed in the stands, El Duque would have been facing an instant 3-1 deficit in his first ever postseason start.
Thome had hit two mammoth home runs off Pettitte in game 3, and when that first inning ball took off, nearly everyone in the park thought that he'd hit another, and that the Indians had the Yankees on their heels. But when O'Neill grabbed it against the wall to retire the side, Hernandez then settled down and wound up with a 4 hit shutout. How often history can ride on an almost unnoticed fraction of an inch.
Yeah, it is a little weird. The only other statue at Progressive Field is Bob Feller. No Lou Boudreau. No Early Wynn. And as you said, no Doby.
Thome hit a walk-off (I think) home run while playing for the Twins near the end of his career. There was a video that had Delmon Young on the on-deck circle in the background with his mouth agape in amazement. I was looking for it to show a friend of mine last night, but MLB videos on youtube are still a bit difficult to find...though the expansion of the MLB youtube channel has made things a lot better.
I was surprised to see Thome is 7th all time in walks and home runs.
Ever see him run first-to-third?
I can't be the only person who read this as "The AIDS killed him". Yikes!
Or the ALS killed him.
too soon
I do think it is a little strange to put up a statue of someone while he's working for your rival, but eh.
I remember him hiting 2 ridiculous home runs - 450+ footers - to twice put the Indians ahead against the Red Sox in the deciding ALDS game in 1999. He hit bombs in the first two games of the series as well. But in that final game the Indians' pitchers couldn't hold the leads, and then Pedro came out of the bullpen with a sore back and ... the rest is history.
I always think of that game when people debate clutch and the role that the media plays in building narratives. This guy, in a win or go home playoff game, twice hit the ball to the moon to give his team the lead. But because other guys on the team didn't have their best stuff, and a player on the other team had an even more historic moment, hardly anybody remembers it.
Has any player ever had a longer gap than that?
Killer's from Payette, Idaho, a small town right across the Snake River from Ontario, Oregon. He was a big country hoss, but he's no more midwestern than Starbucks.
Thome, on the other hand, is from Peoria, Illinois, which is coincidentally the same town in which my dad was born.
He got the statue anyway.
Also, I'll be many people here at BBTF have similar (on a different scale from Thome, obviously) stories about how our bodies have changed as we age. At 19 years old, I was 5' 9", 160 lbs soaking wet. I couldn't gain weight no matter how much I ate. 21 years later, I run marathons, swim extensively, definitely not "chiseled", am in good shape...and weigh 195.
Thome is 6' 4", well over 200 pounds - him adding 30+ pounds over a 20-year professional career would be totally normal. Indeed, it's the players who play forever and don't get bulkier that are the outliers.
You can't buy groceries with a statue.
A large gust of wind kept that ball in the park, illustrating just how far the deities will go to to crush Cleveland.
He'll have to get in line behind Josh Hamilton, Alfonso Soriano, and Dave Henderson.
I knew LaTroy Hawkins was on PEDs.
For some reason, I thought Killebrew was from Iowa, not Idaho. I stand corrected!
Bubbles from The Wire could probably eat for a year after selling that much scrap metal.
Just random looking...Harold Baines went from Oct 4 1992 until June 10th 1997....Which was 537 games.
If Travis Hafner plays this year he's on a streak right now of 6+ seasons without playing in the field.
A large gust of wind kept that ball in the park, illustrating just how far the deities will go to to crush Cleveland.
I guess you've never read Terry Pluto's bestselling book, And God Created Midges.
I just keep track of the guys from that part of the world, because I'm from all over Oregon myself. I was in Payette last summer, actually. It's . . . well, there's a reason Killer was living in Arizona when he died, let me just put it that way.
Similar story here including the extensive running, but....I'm still 5'10" and weigh 160. You must do some lifting or power workouts because all I do is run and never gain weight. You've got to have some serious muscle from the swimming I'd guess. I don't think I run that much, maybe 50K week(30 miles), so it's not like marathon training, but I do go out consistently and I eat fairly well. No soft drinks, no fast food but I do consume alcohol and cookies with regularity, along with chocolate milk...love chocolate milk.
But yeah, Thome is a solid guy; big legs, popeyeish arms. He reminds me of the Samoan rugby players.
Payette's in a high desert, actually, and the weather ain't that bad. It can get kinda chilly in the winter, but the summers in that part of the world are sunny and hot but very dry, and it gets cool enough to sleep at night.
But I'm in Minnesota now. Whether he was looking to move to the tropics or not, he certainly got screwed on the transfer.
Killebrew signed with the Nats after getting a tip from Herman Welker, who was a U.S. Senator from Idaho.
1. Left under the circumstances described in #8, with "they'll have to rip the jersey off my back" as the icing on the cake.
2. Isn't in the Hall of Fame (yet, but still).
3. Didn't lead the team to a championship.
It's pandering to a bitterly disappointed, kicked-dog of a fanbase. They'll get a bump in public perception and attendance from it, but if they don't win it won't matter and in the long run it'll actually be a reminder of how far the franchise has fallen (especially for the casual fan).
Terry Pluto quit being a quality sportswriter decades ago -- he almost certainly thinks Jaret Wright invented midges. Besides, the midges were just sent by the Lake Nymph to set up a greater disappointment against Boston.
Right -- it is like putting a statue of Bernie Kosar in front of Cleveland Browns Stadium.
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