Feeling the Big Hurt's Pain

Sporting News, The, March 20, 2000 by Michael Knisley

Reduced to a mere mortal (and a divisive one at that) in the past two seasons, Frank Thomas has a chance to get a handle on things--and reclaim his once-lofty stature--if he can get a handle on the inside pitch

Let's revisit Thomas' most recent at-bat which happens on September 6 last season a against Texas In Arlington. It's the to of the ninth in the first of a doubleheader the Sox are trailing 8-6 and Thomas is pinch hitting against closer John Wetteland. This is the at-bat:

Strike one, looking.

Ball one.

Strike two, swinging.

Ball two.

Foul ball.

Strike three swinging.

"It was." Thomas says. "a really embarrassing at-bat."

His swings that September day are empty husks of what used to be one of the most fearsome wallops in the American League. What had been arguably the game's most effective inside-out approach to a pitch, especially a pitch in on the hands, is all wrong against Wetteland. Thomas head is up and off the ball. His hands drop under the pitch and give the swing an uppercut, which, were he fortunate enough to make contact, would pop the ball up rather than drive it. His bat is too far in front, acting as a protector against the pitch rather than an aggressor.

It's ugly. Clearly. Wetteland knows what the rest of the league knows. Thomas has lost the ability to handle the inside pitch.

"You see everybody pounding him in," says Mariners starter Jamie Moyer. "It's obvious that's what the word is."

"When Frank is hitting very well, he'll lay off that inside pitch altogether and hope it isn't called a strike," says A's reliever Mike Magnante. "But now it's pretty obvious. You pound him inside, and you get him out of his game, and you can do a lot of things that a pitcher wants to do. You get him to change his swing."

The extent to which Thomas is embarrassed by his weak swings against Wetteland becomes clear a few hours later that day, when White Sox manager Jerry Manuel calls on him to pinch hit again in the second game of the doubleheader. This time, Chicago is down 6-3 in the sixth inning but has the bases loaded with two outs. Texas brings in Mike Munoz, a journeyman lefthander, the kind of pitcher God created to get Thomas into the Hall of Fame.

But Thomas says no.

In fact, when Manuel sends word that he wants his 6-5 slugger to face Munoz, Thomas already is in the clubhouse in flip-flops and a T-shirt. After the game, Manuel, fed up with Thomas' refusal to hit and his unwillingness to play first base, sends him back to Chicago while the team continues its road trip. Thomas' season ends on that nasty note, with the memories of his last futile whiff at Wetteland's inside fastball and the brushoff of his manager blistered into the minds of his teammates, of Manuel, of hitting coach Von Joshua and of White Sox general manager Ron Schueler for the long, dark offseason ahead.

One of the mightiest hitters of his generation, at least during the first seven years of his career, is in a world of Big Hurt. Once a dead-cinch lock for Cooperstown, Thomas teeters this spring on the lip of something with which he isn't at all familiar: mere mediocrity. Or worse.

The possibility looms now that he is wearing his White Sox pinstripes for perhaps the final few months--a notion, again, that once was unimaginable.

"I always had this idea that I wanted to stay here, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah," says Thomas on a Saturday afternoon at the White Sox's camp in Tucson. "But times change. You know, times change. If it happens, hey, so what? Hopefully, I'll go with a contender, that's all."

When Schueler and the White Sox near the trading deadline this summer, they surely will listen to suggestions that Thomas play the rest of his career in some other locale, as they did during the offseason. There is a fascinating juxtaposition of dates at work here. The trading deadline is July 31. Two days later, Thomas reaches the 10-and-5 level (10 years in the majors, five with one team), which will give him veto power over trades. If Thomas doesn't excavate his swing from the ruins of the past two seasons, it may not be easy to find a taker because the seven years and $66.66 million remaining on his contract become guaranteed and a no-trade clause kicks in if the White Sox deal him. But if Schueler hesitates beyond July, his opportunities to trade him will depreciate even further.

"I listen to discussions about all my players," says Schueler, understandably careful not to kindle a situation already close to going up in smoke. "A lot of times, you find out what your players' value is out there with other teams. A couple of clubs asked about Frank early in the winter. We certainly didn't go (into the offseason) with the attitude that we were going to make an all-out effort to move him. We were just listening."

This spring, then, is a chance for reclamation, maybe Thomas' last chance with the White Sox. He needs to reclaim his swing. He needs to reclaim his power. He needs to reclaim the posture of a role model in the clubhouse. He needs to reclaim his future with the White Sox. He needs to reclaim the certainty that he will be a Hall of Famer.