No-Brainer of the Year: Frank Thomas Should Retire as a Member of the Chicago White Sox

While driving to the office today my plan was to write an article detailing 5-10 reasons why White Sox fans should not give up hope on the 2009 season. After the Sox 4-3 victory over the Tigers last night, we stand 28-33 in third place, 5.5 games back of first place Detroit and 1.5 games back of second place Minnesota.

With one of the worst in the history of mankind least consistent offenses in the Majors this year, and a perplexing aversion to clutch hitting, the White Sox have struggled to do anything consistently but get dominated by pitchers they are facing for the first time. Certainly the Sox woes at the plate and the uncertain status of Carlos Quentin have many White Sox fans — not to mention management — questioning whether the White Sox should be buyers or sellers in trade talks.

And though I will probably write such an article soon, assuming the White Sox continue treading water as they have been, I caught an article from the Sun-Times website today that shifted my thinking on what I should write for this morning.

It is an article by Carol Slezak that actually focused on something good and positive related to the White Sox offense — just not this year’s, of course. And it is an article that gave me hope that something that unequivocally needs to happen will, in fact, someday actually happen.

Carol Slezak’s article is a feature about the most prolific White Sox player of all-time, and my favorite baseball player of all-time: Frank Thomas.

Most White Sox fans and many baseball fans in general know that Thomas’ time on the South Side did not end well. Ironically, considering how many incredible seasons he had trying to help the White Sox bring a World Series title back to Chicago, The Big Hurt left the team after the 2005 World Series — a season in which he played only 34 games, did not participate in the playoffs, and hit a career-low .219.

For a player who had given so much and played so well for the White Sox over more than a decade, it was disappointing to see his lowest personal moment with the team coincide with the franchise’s greatest moment in a century.

In addition to Thomas’ stuggles with injuries and at the plate in 2005, he left on terrible terms with White Sox management, especially GM Ken Williams. As recapped by Slezak:

Thomas and Williams had feuded publicly in spring training in 2006, when in response to negative comments ”The Big Hurt” had made about Reinsdorf and the Sox organization, Williams fired back, ”He’s an idiot. He’s selfish. That’s why we don’t miss him. … Good riddance. See you later.”

Fortunately for Thomas, he was able to land on his oft-injured feet in Oakland and produced a sterling 2006 season in which he cracked 39 home runs and 114 RBI, leading the A’s into the playoffs. He was a different hitter at this point than he’d been in his heyday, as his season average was only .270; however, Thomas proved that his immense personal pride — perhaps his greatest strength and weakness as a player and teammate — combined with his talent, could still produce productive seasons.

The Big Hurt went on to hit 26 home runs in 2007 for Oakland and eventually moved on to Toronto, where he hit his 500th career home run. And now, after an injury-plagued 2008 in which Frank only played in 71 games, his career appears closer than ever to being officially over.

According to Slezak, Thomas is planning to make a final decision about his baseball playing future around this year’s All Star Break. In the meantime, The Big Hurt has returned to Chicago to do some work for Comcast SportsNet for the upcoming Crosstown Classic between the White Sox and Cubs. Thomas’ return to the South Side has auspiciously been met with pleasant nostalgia from fans and the organization on the heels of encouraging comments back in March by White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf:

And in March, as it seemed increasingly likely that Thomas’ playing career was ending, Williams and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf let Thomas know that when he’s ready, they would like him to retire as a member of the organization. But it remained to be seen whether Thomas would accept their overture.

As a White Sox fan who still busts out his #35 jersey at least once or twice a month, I want to say the following to Frank: assuming that hatchets can and/or have been buried, please accept the overtures made by Ken Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf; and if issues linger, hash them out so you can accept their offer.

Major League Baseball is embroiled in speculation from everything to who will be buying or selling at the trading deadline, to who may or may not be not on steroids, to just how much the Nationals will be forced to pay an unproven college pitcher. And on and on it goes. But this story is one, for me, that is an absolute, unequivocal no-brainer: Frank Thomas should retire with the organization that drafted him, where the majority of 1st-ballot Hall of Fame resume was written, and where fans still think of him as one of our own.

Sure, we’ve all been frustrating by Frank at times. I’ve gotten upset with him for comments he’s made in the media and called him “The Big Skirt” before. I blamed Frank as much as Ken Williams for their petulant pissing match in 2006 that was just completely unnecessary and downright childish. And we all know that, as Slezak reminisced about in her article, many of Frank’s teammates were sometimes put off by his focus on personal statistics.

Blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to nominate the guy for sainthood or Man of the Year, so who the hell cares about all of that? Besides, family members feud all the time. Sometimes it gets so bad that you even don’t speak for a while, perhaps even a prolonged while. But time has a funny and consistent way of healing such wounds, and it appears like that could be the case here.

Let’s hope it is.

Frank Thomas deserves the opportunity to don a White Sox #35 jersey once again, trot out on the field, and be showered with love and adulation from a fan base that will never forget nor stop appreciating his amazing accomplishments on the South Side.

And the fans deserve the opportunity to stand in recognition of the greatest hitter in the history of the franchise we love so much.

For the White Sox and organization, Major League Baseball, and sports in general, these are types of moments that need to happen.

Sports fans are the heartbeat of sports, and at the root of our unyielding support for our teams and the leagues we pump time, money, and emotion into is the visceral connection we develop between the individual players out there playing the games. Heck, KVB and I spent so much time together watching White Sox baseball in high school and hanging on Frank’s every at-bat that Frank Thomas is one of the first images that pops up in my mind when I think back to my high school days. Watching and rooting for Frank Thomas, Ray Durham, Jack McDowell, Robert Hernandez and so many of the 90s players is as important and prominent a set of memories to me as my high school basketball career or experiences on my high school newspaper.

I doubt that I am the only one who feels this way, in fact far from it. I bet there are White Sox fans all over the country for whom Frank Thomas remains a very large and prominent part of their collective consciousness as a White Sox fan and as a sports fan in general.

And White Sox fans deserve the opportunity to give a proper sendoff to Frank Thomas. The truth is that we were all distracted when he left in 2006. We were still intoxicated by the excitement of finally winning a World Series and simply not in the mood to witness the BS between Frank and the organization. Many of us even said “good riddance” right along with Ken Williams, so focused we were on celebrating 2005 and looking forward to a repeat performance in 2006.

That’s not how it should have ended with Frank. Not by a long shot.

And while it’s true that Frank has always been received warmly during any trips back to Chicago as a visitor, it will not compare to how warmly he’ll be received stepping back out on the field as a member of the home team again. Those previous moments when Frank came back with A’s and Blue Jays were like phone calls or birthday cards to a family member with whom you’ve lost touch. But when a hug — a full, genuine embrace — is what’s necessary to bring closure to a dispute and set the tone for a new era of cooperation, nostalgia, and pleasantness moving forward, phone calls and birthday cards just won’t cut it.

Frank Thomas and the White Sox need to fully and genuinely embrace, and in my opinion that can only happen — and should happen — by #35 retiring as a member of the White Sox.

Show the fans how much you care by swallowing your pride Frank, if that’s what is necessary. I promise you that, in return, we will show you how much we care and still appreciate everything you’ve done for the Chicago White Sox.

What a great moment it would be to see Frank Thomas thunder out of the home team dugout wearing the home team colors again at U.S. Cellular Field, with his big smile shining for all to see, his cap in hand as he waves it to recognize the throngs of White Sox fans who have risen to their feet in recognition of the man who would be the most prominent, recognizable, and deserving face on any Mount Rushmore of White Sox baseball.

Please make this happen. There aren’t too many no-brainers left in Major League Baseball, but this is absolutely one of them.

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* – Frank Thomas swinging photo courtesy of Baseball Evolution
* – Frank Thomas waving during 2005 World Series photo courtesy of the website MITAdmissions.org