BY LOUIS ADDEO-WEISS
Jim Thome played in parts of twenty-two seasons of Major League Baseball, clubbing 612 home runs on his way to a first-ballon selection to Cooperstown in 2019.
Despite being known for tenacity to strike out, as seen in his 2,548 punch outs and a career 24.7-percent K-rate, Thome retired with a .402 on-base percentage and a stellar .554 slugging percentage, higher than future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols’ mark of .552. The soon-to-be Hall of Fame first basemen/designated hitter also managed to retire with an OPS+ of 147, tied with fellow inductees Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Sam Thompson, and Edgar Martinez, the latter of which will be inducted with Thome on July 21st.
It is Thome late-game heroics on this day seven years ago that connect him with June 23, 2012.
With the score tied 6-6 headed into the bottom of the 9th at Citizen’s Bank Park, it was Thome, then a 41-year old in what would prove to be his final season, who took a 97-mph fastball from Tampa Bay Rays reliever Jake McGee and deposited it over the left-center wall to give the Phillies the victory.
We’ll, a walk-off home run in any instance is always a joyous occasion (that is if you’re rooting for the team who did so), but for Thome, it was just one more feather to put in his Hall of Fame cap.
Thome’s walk-off blast, according to news archive the National Pastime, proved to be the thirteenth in his career, setting a new major league record, one he had recently shared with fellow HOF’ers Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Frank Robinson.
And while Thome would soon depart Philadelphia via-a-trade to the then-upstart Baltimore Orioles, where he managed to hit just .257 and 3 more home runs before stepping away, it was that moment seven-years ago today, that served as the bow to an incredible career, one personified by sheer power, yet coming from one of the purest souls our game has ever been blessed with.
