In joining 600 HR Club, deserving Thome now a lock for Hall of Fame

Jim Thome watches number 600 fly into the seats, and, with that, the very deserving slugger now joins excellent company. (Photo: Reuters/Rebecca Cook)

Jim Thome was never an MVP during his prime. He wasn’t mentioned among the top sluggers, either, overshadowed in his day by Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz. All five of those players have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Thome has not. For two decades, Thome has played clean, slugging home-runs at a prolific rate while being known as a tremendously likable person along the way. And now he will also be known as the eighth player in Major League Baseball history to hit 600 home-runs.

He joined illustrious company on Monday, with two home-runs against the Detroit Tigers in an eventual 9-6 Minnesota Twins win. His first came in the sixth against Rick Porcello, a two-run blast, and his second an inning later, a three-run shot off Daniel Schlereth.

Before reaching the milestone, his being a future Hall of Famer wasn’t a forgone conclusion. No trophies, no World Series ring, three strikeout-titles, and only two seasons with a .300 or better batting average. His career mark is a respectable but nowhere near impressive .277. But he has nonetheless defined consistency, with 12 seasons of 30 or more home-runs and nine of 100 or more rbi’s. He is in his 21st season and, at age 41, nearing the end of the road, but in surpassing 600 homers he is now a candidate to earn first-ballot.

He will be remembered for accomplishing this feat, something so few have done, but he will also be forever known as a tremendously genuine person, as ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian superbly documented.

In the article, teammates praised Thome:

“He is the world’s nicest man,” said Twins closer Joe Nathan. “He’s one of those guys that the hype is so great before you meet him, then he lives up to the hype, and more. When you see him from across the field, you think, ‘He can’t be that nice,’ but he is. He is so genuine. There are other players that will be forgotten when they leave, but he will not be. We will be talking about him for years to come.”

“I’ve seen guys with six months in the big leagues snub a kid in a restaurant,” said closer Matt Capps. “Not Jim, and he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’ll talk to a guy who knew him from Cleveland in 1993. He is a role model for all of us, he is like every one of us would like to be.”

“When he walks in a room, everyone watches everything he does,” added outfielder Michael Cuddyer. “It’s the way he treats people, it’s the way he respects the game. When I heard he was re-signing with us, I was so happy for a lot of reasons, but one reason was I wanted to be there for when he hit No. 600.”

When he was in his prime, I didn’t appreciate him as much as I should. Teammates Albert Belle and Manny Ramirez were the captivating ones on the 1990s Cleveland Indians teams. Thome just quietly went about his business. He wasn’t crazy like Belle or strange like Ramirez. He may not have been on their levels talent-wise, without the eye at the plate or their stellar batting average, but he was nonetheless the face of the franchise.

He idolized Dave Kingman as a kid for one logical reason: the home-run. Kingman hit 442 of them, tormenting pitchers for much of the 1970s and 1980s. He did some other good things, but not many. He was a .236 career hitter, and struck out 27 percent of the time. Thome turned out to be far and away Kingman’s superior, even besting his favorite player’s longball every 15 at-bats. Thome has hit one every 13.4, third best all-time.

Unfortunately, he played in the wrong era. As Sports Illustrated‘s Joe Posnanski appropriately writes, “he hit home runs at the time when muscle-bound men hit so many that Congress got involved.” Thome was never chiseled, without muscles bulging through his jersey-sleeves, but he has the advantage over many who had to take the oath. He is and has always been clean, and, with raw power to all fields that continuously frustrated pitchers in both leagues to no end, Thome will go down as one of the game’s greatest home-run hitters.

“I said ’600′ about six times and he just looked at me and I just looked at him like, unbelievable,” Cuddyer said. Indeed it is, and oh so deserving.