Where Does Jim Thome Fit Amongst Baseball History?

Hollywood couldn't have scripted that 600th home run moment much better. Playing with his family in the stands Jim Thome entered last night's game with 598 career home runs and ended it as a member of one of the most elite clubs in Major League History. The 600 Home Run Club.

Twenty-eight players have 3,000 hits. Only eight have hit 600 home runs. Jim Thome is one of those players.

Thome won't be entering the very elite list of players who are on both lists. That's a list of two players. Mays and Aaron. So where does a guy like Jim Thome end up when baseball's greatest sluggers get discussed? 

Well, he's clearly not Willie Mays or Hank Aaron. That's not news likely to create much debate in the sports world.

The first thing one should do when discussing Thome is compare him to some of his contemporaries. This is going to be very tough because the era the Jim Thome has played baseball in is also an era that saw the issue of performance enhancing drugs become a front-page issue. 

In a sport that has a character clause in its Hall of Fame voting guidelines the issue of drug use looms large. It doesn't matter how baseball commissioner Bud Selig chooses to handle the issue.

To this point, Selig has chosen to pretend the steroid issue never really existed. No official designations in the record books, no statements on player eligibility for the Hall of Fame in the future. Selig has put more rigid testing in place and increased the penalties for positive tests.

The 600 Home Run Club has eight members, and three of them have either admitted to steroid use or have had major questions asked about the manner in which they got to that 600 mark.

Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez and all-time home run leader Barry Bonds have all faced scrutiny for either alleged or admitted steroid use. Without any sort of official ruling on the subject from Bud Selig, the ultimate jury appears to be the public, the general media and those media members that get a vote to determine Hall of Fame entry.

Jim Thome is going to the Hall of Fame. His home run total is prodigious regardless of the era in which he played. Thome was never among the players accused of steroid use. Impressive when one considers that the list of power hitters from the '90s and the first decade of the 21st century is littered with admissions and accusations of illegal drug use.

Thome is currently 27th all-time in runs batted in with 1,662. That's more than Al Kaline, Harmon Killebrew, George Brett, Rogers Hornsby and Joe DiMaggio.

Thome is 23rd all-time in extra-base hits with 1,066 and counting. That's more than Pete Rose, Honus Wagner, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews.

If you're the type of fan that likes the newer statistical standards such as OPS ( on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) then you might appreciate Thome even more.

He ranks 17th all-time in ops with a career .961. That's higher than Alex Rodriguez, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and Willie Mays.

Thome detractors will point to two key facts. One is that he's basically a career DH. The designated hitter was put in place by Major League Baseball in 1973. It is without question a rule that allows sluggers such as Thome and David Ortiz to play nearly every day.

Would those players have been able to stay on the field with their slow feet and questionable fielding skills 40 or 50 years ago? No, but then again perhaps the requirement to be a better fielder would have made the two young baseball fans better fielders as they grew up playing the game.

Thome also is not exactly a great hitter. His career batting average of .277 is nothing remarkable and his place among all-time hit leaders is 150th at 2,263. Thome never won an MVP award, he was fourth in the National League voting 2003, and that's the closest he ever got.

Thome's numbers are in large part a product of longevity. He broke into the big leagues in 1991 at the age of 20 and became a regular in the strike-shortened 1994 season. He hit 20 home runs in 1994, and with the exception of an injury-shortened 2005 season, he's had more than 20 every season since.

In a nine-season span from 1996-2004, Thome had over 30 home runs and 100 RBI in every season except for 1998.

That's a very dominant stretch, and that's why Jim Thome will eventually enter the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.