People Forget Frank Thomas Murdered Baseballs
Before we get to brass tacks, here is some live Taiwanese baseball if that sort of thing tickles your fancy:
(And if the embed doesn't work, click here)
I saw this tweet this morning and it made my stomach drop because history might very well be repeating itself:
Advertisement
Mike Trout could go down as the greatest player in history, but Frank Thomas was a better hitter than him for a LONG stretch any way you slice it. It's truly incredible how gifted he was as a hitter, one of the very best in the game's history.
This tweet also reminded me of a question Ed asked me when we were doing an ad read for Roman on RLR a few weeks back. He asked me to if I rattle off Frank Thomas' stats from the 1994 season to help last longer.
The short answer is no, I don't, but the funny part about it is I knew his slash line off the top of my head. Ya know, the slash line that would have maybe gone down as the best offensive season in baseball history should their season not have gotten cut short:
.353/.487/.729 slash line with a 1.216 OPS, 38 dingers and 101 RBIs, a 7.0 fWAR, 205 wRC+, .306 ISO slugging
That's a 55 home run pace over 162 games with 10 fWAR in spite of being a butcher defensively.
Fucking video game numbers. BUT but but but the season was abruptly halted due to a strike with the White Sox sitting pretty in first place with a 67-46 record. Go fucking figure, and it wasn't just Frank Thomas who got fucked over.
- Fred McGriff would have (probably) had 7+ more home runs, giving him 500+ for his career, and enhancing his HOF odds greatly
- Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 and could have made a run at .400, and if he hit .400 he would have been the first person since Ted Williams in 1941
- Greg Maddux had a. 1.56 ERA, .03 away from setting the record for a single season over 200IP should he have gotten there
And now, just like back in 1994, the season has once again been abruptly cut short. IT FUCKING SUCKS. And now SI, whether they're right or wrong, is spreading fear porn saying sports aren't coming back until there's a vaccine:
FUCK that. That's next January. Next January as in 9 months from now. Next January as in this fucking virus is going to wipe out football this fall as well.
Now obviously that is all just one publication's opinion, though there are admittedly quotes from infectious disease experts to offer validity to their claims.
But the good news is that the "curve" seems to be flattening in America:
Advertisement
If we have fewer deaths today than yesterday, that will be 10 straight days with few deaths than the previous day. Good news, all things considered. That, and if you follow this chart, we should be done seeing coronavirus deaths come mid-June or so:
And I'm going to choose to continue to look at the glass half full because of that. There will be baseball this summer, hopefully as early as next month as myself (not to brag) and a few others reported last week and the White Sox will fuck up the entire league. There will not be any 1994 Frank Thomas redux. At least I'm praying there won't be, and not just for the White Sox or their players, for other teams and their players too. None of these guys are even getting paid right now! And a lot of these players don't make that "fuck you" money yet, either. It's BAD
White Sox fans just cannot have nice things