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1) You were known as a dead pull hitter. Did they ever try an infield shift against you?
Yes, teams often put a shift on me to counter my pull-hitting style. The first time I saw it was in 1952 while I was in Double-A ball with the New Orleans Pelicans. Lou Boudreau had made the concept famous with his "Ted Williams Shift", so Luke Appling, the manager with the Memphis Chicks, borrowed the idea and used it against me when we played them that season. I saw it on and off for many years, and I lost many hits because of the shift, but I, for the most part, did not play into the hands of the opposition by trying to go the other way. I thought I'd be allowing them to take me out of my game by trying to hit into the hole, so I usually stayed true to my style, and it worked out for me more often than not.
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2) You switched teams eight times between 1959 and 1966. What was going on there? What was it about your game that made GMs think if you as tradeable? Was it because they could try fit you in at so many different positions?
I had been with the Pirate organization for a long time, 12 years, before I was first traded following the 1958 season -- so my legacy up to that point was not one of constant change. I think that particular trade was all about Pirates general manager Joe Brown trying to do what was necessary to push Pittsburgh over the top to a pennant. At 29 years of age, I was coming off a career year in 1958, so I was at my peak trade value for the Pirates. So they shipped me off to Cincinnati in exchange for three excellent players, Burgess, Hoak and Haddix, guys that would propel Pittsburgh to a World Series title in 1960. I'd paid my dues as a key part of their rebuilding process, so I wish I'd have been there to enjoy their pennant, but it was just another lesson for me that baseball was pure business to the guys in the front office. As for why I was traded so often after that, it was a combination of things. Injuries, for one. I had a thumb injury that ruined my time in Cincinnati in 1959. I had corrective surgery to repair the problem after that season, and I would have liked a chance to redeem myself with them in 1960, but they thought it's be tough for me after my bad season in 1959, so they dealt me to the Cubs. That's where some other factors began to play a role in my being traded. Age, for one. I spent a little over a year with Chicago, but I was over 30 and battling the Cubs' youth movement, so they sent me off to Milwaukee, thinking my best days were behind me. When I got to Milwaukee, Braves manager Charlie Dressen told me that I would be his everyday left fielder, and I thrived under that atmosphere. I was promised by the Braves front office that I'd be back for 1962, but, as I'd learned on a number of occasions, you can't trust the word of most general managers. I found out while hunting in the Poconos that I had been dealt to the expansion Mets. After getting over the initial anger of being lied to by Braves GM John McHale, I embraced my new opportunity in New York. I was honored that they wanted me and had plans for me to be a major component in their new venture. By the time the Mets traded me to the Phillies late in the 1964 season, they thought they were doing me a favor. Sending a veteran on a last place team to a first-place pennant contender. I parted on great terms with the Mets. My departure from the Phillies in 1965 was a different story, however, as I was released as a direct result of my fight with Richie Allen, and I thought it was unfair. The Astros gave me a shot after that, but then dealt me to the Braves at the end of the 1965 season. The Braves had hopes of making a push for the '65 pennant, and they were hoping I could rekindle the magic I had with them in 1961 and help them the way I had helped the Phillies in 1964, but it never materialized. I was told I'd be given a shot to make their team in 1966, but they never followed through with their promise and I was released before the season opened. Durocher gave me a brief shot with the Cubs, but I couldn't get it going. I was 37 and age had caught up to me. So as you can see. I was shipped around for all sorts of varied reasons. I always tried to look at the bright side of being dealt, however. Instead of focusing on the team that was getting rid of me, I would remind myself that the team that was getting me wanted me on their ballclub.
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3) You were famous for claiming that you could catch anybody's hardest throw barehanded.
It's true, by happenstance I had created an open-ended challenge that I could catch anybody's hardest throw bare-handed. Bill Pierro, a teammate of mine with Waco in 1949, was a hard-throwing pitcher. He was popping off one day about how hard he could throw, so I bet him that I could catch his hardest throw bare-handed. I had tough hands from playing fast-pitch sandlot softball without a glove as a kid back in Pittsburgh, so I had no doubt that I could catch Pierro without a glove. He was a typical cocky flamethrower, so he was shocked and embarrassed when I caught his fastball bare-handed. He was even more embarrassed when I caught the next six pitches he threw. Word got around, so before long I had guys lining up to throw me their best.
3a) It is said that you always lived up to this claim. Is that true?
Yes, for the duration of my career I was challenged by players from all over the league. I took all comers and never failed to catch them.
3b) At what distance did you catch them?
The bet was that I would catch them at 60-feet six-inches. Most of the time they would throw off the mound while I would be squatting behind the plate.
3c) Who was the hardest thrower you caught barehanded?
I can't really pinpoint who was the hardest thrower I ever caught. To be honest, many hard-throwers didn't want get involved for fear of being embarrassed if I caught them -- like Pierro. The toughest to catch, however, was Don Zimmer. He thought he could beat me by playing with the rules of the challenge. He walked off twenty-feet past the mound, then got an outfielder's running start and threw a spitter to me. I still caught it, though. Zim just threw his glove up in the air and said, "You made a believer out of me!"
3d) Did this have anything to do with you breaking your thumb in 1964?
My bare-handed catching activity, in hindsight, was not the smartest thing I could have done, especially considering the thumb injury I sustained late in the 1958 season. I hurt my thumb when the sharp end of a broken bat stabbed into my hand after getting busted in on the fists by Tom Acker. Two surgeries later, I was cured. I resumed my bare-handed challenge when I recovered, and it really could have got me hurt, but it played no role in my injury with the Phillies during the stretch run of 1964. In that case I broke my thumb while diving into second base. My hand slipped under the bag and slammed into the anchoring pin. I was swinging a hot bat at the time, and we had built a large lead in the pennant race in the one month that I had been with the club since coming over in my trade from the Mets. But as everyone now knows, I went on the shelf with my busted thumb and we embarked on a now-legendary collapse that saw us lose the pennant. I've never been so bold as to say one man could lose a pennant, but I know my thumb injury really hurt us. Gene Mauch, our manager that season, did, however, go as far as to say that my injury cost us the pennant. He pointed to me at the 25-year anniversary of the 1964 Phillies and said, “There's the reason we lost the pennant!”
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4) Casey Stengel --- idiot, genius, or both? Now that you're in your seventies, do you understand him better?
I always said that Casey forgot more baseball than I'll ever know. As for his double-talk to the media, he knew exactly what he was doing there. He used his "Stengel-ese" as a way of putting the media attention on him, thereby deflecting it away from his players. He knew we were limited on the field, so he tried to help eliminate some of the media pressure with his antics. I loved playing for Casey.
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5) This is a sensitive one. Playing your whole career in the National League, your era was an era of aggressive integration, can you describe what the general atmosphere was like?
The integration of baseball didn't bother me a bit because I rubbed shoulders with black people and played ball with black players where I grew up in Pittsburgh. It was just another thing that was going on and I never really gave it too much thought.
5a) Even for players without a racial animus, it must have been difficult as African-American players regularly won the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards through the fifties, and got the subsequent publicity. Is this accurate?
This may be hard to believe when you understand what a struggle the civil rights movement was, but it didn't bother me at all when black players achieved success in the 1950s. It may have bugged some guys, but not me. I had a tendency to see the basic nature of things, and to me, if you were a good player, you were a good player. It didn't matter the color of your skin.
5b) Were there racial issues between yourself and Richie Allen? Or was it, as reported, merely horseplay that got out of hand? There are certainly accounts that say Allen divided the team on racial lines.
In my book I write of my fight with Richie Allen in great detail, but I'll try and give a shorter synopsis of the incident here. The fight between me and Richie Allen, in my opinion, was not about race. There has been much made about it, but it was really very simple. I was know as an agitator, as were a lot of guys from my era. We would ride each other, but it was usually all in fun. Still, every now and then someone got mad. That's what happened in my fight with Allen. I was taking my cuts in batting practice and Richie was riding me about a failed bunt attempt I had made the night before. I made a comment to him comparing him to "Muhammad Cassius Clay" -- always running off at the mouth. That's where the rumors of a racist comment on my part come in. I did not mean it to be racially derogatory, but it hit a nerve with Allen. He challenged me to come down to his spot at third base and say it again. I told him he could come up to the plate when I was finished hitting at which point I would be glad to tell him again. He came to the plate, at which point I apologized. I bent down to put some dirt on my bat handle, and Richie sucker-punched me. I went into a defensive rage and swung my bat at Richie, and hit him on the shoulder. It escalated from there, but we were pulled apart by teammates in seconds. I apologized in the clubhouse to Richie, but he was not yet ready to accept my apology at that time. Still, we were professionals, and we went out on the field that night and did our jobs. Allen went 3-for-4 with two triples and four RBIs, and I hit a pinch-hit home run. Somebody joked that we should fight more often. When I crossed the plate after hitting my homer, I was very happy to see that Richie was the first one there to shake my hand. For the record, Allen gives his side of the fight story in his book, "Crash". His description of the events do not vary from mine, for the most part, but to be fair to him, there are two key differences. One, he does claim that my "Muhammad Clay" remark was meant to say something racial. Two, he does not claim to have sucker-punched me. He says I saw it coming. On both of those counts, however, I will have to agree to disagree with Richie. Even with our disagreements over those two issues, Allen and I were ready to move on after the game that followed the fight. The Phillies front office prevented that from taking place, however, when they released me after the game. That angered the Phillies fans and turned them against Allen. It didn't help that Richie was not allowed to tell his side of the story to the press -- manager Gene Mauch told him to say nothing about the fight to reporters. If you are interested in this topic, I would really recommend you read my book. I spend a lot of time on it and I really believe my retelling of the incident is very fair to Richie.
5c) Did you and Allen ever subsequently try to square things? And do you think this was a good look for him?
While we may still disagree on what was at the root of our fight, Richie and I did put the whole incident behind us. It took a long time, though. Because the Phillies separated us immediately by releasing me, we weren't able to smooth it out, and that's something I regretted for a long time. But when I saw Richie at the 25th anniversary reunion of the 1964 Phillies, I went up to him with my hand extended and friendship in my heart. He took my hand and said, "I know our fight has been bothering you for a long time, and it's bothered me too." He then gave me a big bear hug and said, "We are brothers."
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Hello, I'm Frank Thomas. I was very interested to learn about the Ultimate Mets Database website, and I am very happy to participate in its online forum. I will do my best to answer any questions you may have, hopefully in a timely fashion -- I'll do my best. Since the Ultimate Mets Database website is obviously directed at the fans of the New York Mets, many of you already know who I am. But for you younger fans whose Mets recollections may not go back 40 years, I played with the Mets from their inception in 1962 until I was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies on August 7th, 1964. I had a pretty good run with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1950s, and I also had some success with the Cubs, Braves and Phillies, but some of my fondest memories come from my time with the Mets. New York really missed National League baseball following the departure of the Giants and Dodgers after the 1957 season, and the 1962 expansion Mets was just what the doctor ordered to fill the void. Our results on the field were historically bad and the media made fun of us, but we were good for the game of baseball. Our fans were so happy to have National League baseball back in New York that we could do no wrong in their eyes. They were truly the best fans in baseball. The 1962 season was a study in contrast for me. It was frustrating to have the team play so poorly and lose so many games, but I personally had one of the best years of my career. I hit 34 home runs in 1962, a club record that stood for years until Dave Kingman finally broke it in 1975. Considering Maris' 61 homers and Mantle's 54 in 1961, no one ever imagined that a guy named Frank Thomas would lead all of New York in home runs in 1962, but that's what happened as Maris dropped to 33 and Mantle fell to 30. I really enjoyed that. I loved playing on the big stage of New York because it's a great sports city. I also loved being in New York for other reasons. My wife Dolores and I had a large family, and there was an endless array of great things for us and our children to do in New York. The 1964 World's Fair was particularly fun for my kids. It was conducted very near the brand new Shea Stadium, and my kids seemed to go there every day. In New York I also enjoyed the benefits of celebrity that were much less prevalent in the other cities I had played -- benefits like discounts, endorsements, favors and simple on-the-street recognition. Still, the baseball was the best part, though. I loved playing at the old Polo Grounds because it was perfectly suited to my right-handed power pull hitting style. Casey Stengel was great to play for, and we had a real interesting bunch of guys play for us during my time with the Mets. Richie Ashburn, Don Zimmer, Choo Choo Coleman, Jimmy Piersall, Marv Throneberry, Sherman Jones, Gus Bell, Al Jackson, Roger Craig, Joe Christopher, and so many more. They were all guys that enriched my experience with the Mets. My years with Mets are chronicled in detail in my new book, "Kiss It Goodbye: The Frank Thomas Story". I hope you'll order it (there is an ordering link on the Ultimate Mets Database website) because there's a lot in it for Mets fans. 100 of my book's 500 pages are dedicated to my years with the Mets, and I know you'll enjoy reading about them. With that said, let me again say that it'll be a pleasure to field any questions that you have for me and I'll do my best to reply in a timely manner. And Merry Christmas from Frank "The Original One" Thomas.
