Article: The Big Hurt Was Big Mad

[Mac]

Seventeen years ago this weekend, the first ballot hall of famer’s career in Toronto came to an unceremonious close.

Things escalated quickly between Frank Thomas and the Blue Jays at the start of the 2008 season. Thomas was entering the second season of a three-year contract with a vesting option for the following season. The contract would void if Thomas did not collect 350 at-bats, leaving the Big Hurt out $10 million and headed towards the unemployment line at age 41.

So when John Gibbons told Thomas that Joe Inglett was replacing him in the lineup on April 19 and that he would be benched for the foreseeable future, Thomas was not happy. He stormed out of Gibbons’ office before the game, left without shaking hands with teammates, and, before he left for good, made his feelings known to reporters. In the chaotic environment that was the start of the downfall of the J.P. Ricciardi era, the team responded the next day by simply dumping Thomas.

Best to stop any Anchorman references before we tell Thomas he looked like a blueberry.

The release was a sudden end to what would amount to a footnote in Thomas’ storied career. He signed with the Jays in 2007, coming off a resurgent year in Oakland. Playing in his first season away from the White Sox, Thomas hit 39 home runs for the A’s and finished fourth in AL MVP voting. The Jays-Thomas pairing was a fit given Toronto’s need to improve its lineup, and the Jays were hoping the aging Thomas would continue to produce in the front end of his contract.

His first month with the Jays started with a highlight as he hit his 500th home run in Minnesota. He also filmed this commercial, absolutely housing a kid in a pillow fight and prompting an outcry from The Television Bureau of Canada. It got to the point where the Blue Jays had to add a “do not attempt this at home” disclaimer to the commercial. The episode led to this line from president Paul Godfrey, who said, “it took a kid getting hit by a pillow to knock the Leafs off the front page.”

A sickening display of promoting violence towards children.

Despite a slow start, Thomas turned it around and had a strong second half for the Blue Jays. The lineup needed power, and Thomas hit a team-leading 26 home runs. His league-adjusted OPS+ of 125 was second to only Matt Stairs on a finished-in-September, 83-win Toronto team. He finished 23rd in the MVP voting. In all, the Blue Jays could not have expected more from their newly signed 40-year-old slugger.

Inside the Metrodome wearing the what-are-those Jays uniforms; can’t rank historically great on the best aesthetic #500 ball trots.

But manager John Gibbons wasn’t ready to endure another slow start. With expectations mounting in Toronto (Gibbons would be fired before the end of the season), the manager told Ricciardi that the team could not wait for Thomas to get going. Despite hitting home runs in three straight games in the first week of the season, Thomas was hitting below .200 in the early going.

In his biography, Gibbons said he approached Ricciardi early about reducing Thomas’s playing time. Matt Stairs was manning left field, but the manager wanted some DH at-bats to go to him because, well, Matt Stairs was manning left field. Ricciardi insisted the team and player work through any early-season struggles. However, after an 0-for-4 night in a loss to Detroit that dropped the team's record to 8-9, the general manager changed his tune. He told Gibbons to play who he wanted. The manager, flanked by Brian Butterfield, called Thomas into his office and told him he would be benched for the foreseeable future.

Thomas immediately made it clear that he believed the benching wasn’t about performance, but about the option year in his contract. Gibbons responded that he himself did not have a contract for next year, and he “sure as hell ain’t worried about yours.” Thomas felt he was owed a little extra latitude and was rightfully hurt by a move that could have ended his career. Boomhauer’s older brother just told me I’m benched for Joe Inglett? After the game, an “angry” Thomas told reporters on the way out of the clubhouse that it was obvious his contract was behind the decision to bench him. He said  that "sixty at-bats isn't enough” to make the call, and that his “career isn't going to end like this.”

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“He would have gotten (350 at-bats) easy, so I don’t know what he was thinking. Maybe he skipped his math class at Auburn,” wrote Gibbons in his apt-titled book, Gibby.

After storming out of the manager’s office, Thomas met with Ricciardi, and the two sides agreed to a release. Hours before first pitch in the Sunday series finale against Detroit, Thomas’s spot in the clubhouse was gone and he was no longer a Blue Jay. Understandable frustration aside, Thomas said he had respected how the situation was ultimately handled and that he and the Jays parted ways peacefully.

To Thomas’s credit, his career didn’t end on a sour note. Within hours of clearing waivers, Thomas was back in an Oakland uniform and produced a .751 OPS as a part-time player. After the season, Thomas retired and began his five-year countdown clock to Cooperstown. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014. Thomas is one of 10 Hall of Famers to play for the Blue Jays. His tenure isn’t even the shortest amongst them; his 171 games as a Jay beat Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, and Phil Niekro. While Thomas himself may not look back fondly at this time in Toronto (save for home run 500 and maybe the pillow fight), today we remember the Big Hurt as a Blue Jay.

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