Thomas's 500 Homers Are Pure And Undisputable

Frank Thomas, as far as I can tell, did things the right way. Never, that I can recall, was Thomas placed under a shroud of suspicion because of his exploits on the baseball diamond. Never do I remember his name being bantied about as a possible user of performance enhancing drugs. I don't recall seeing him raising his right hand in testimony on Capitol Hill. And I certainly don't remember him beginning his career with a David Banner-like physique and ending it with that of the Incredible Hulk. Thomas, who hit his 500th career homerun last night, should breeze through Hall of Fame ballotting, unlike some of his contemporaries, whose numbers and change in body structure have most sensible people looking at them cross-eyed. "The Big Hurt," they call him, and it's because of the pain he inflicts on opposing pitchers, not on the game itself. Frank Thomas was jobbed of the Comeback Player of the Year Award in 2006 (he won it in 2000), a slight that I still ...