With two swings of the bat one week ago, Jim Thome elevated himself into the elite bracket of home run hitters.

The Minnesota Twins’ slugger had hit career home run number 598 back on 4 August against the Los Angeles Angels.  That marked the end of a ten-game road trip and Thome headed home hoping that he could get the two home runs needed to make it to the magical 600.

The six home games passed without Thome adding to his total, as did two games at the Cleveland Indians: the club where he started his career and for whom he hit 334 longballs.

And so he arrived at Comerica Park in Detroit on Monday 15 August.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, he took a first pitch fastball from Rick Porcello over the left-centrefield fence to make it to 599.  He was back at the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning, focused on the game situation but also feeling an emotion that only seven other people have ever experienced.  One more good swing would bring up the round 600.  One long drive would put an exclamation point on years of hard work, dedication and sacrifices.  One moment that would become part of baseball history.

Thome swung hard at a 2-1 curveball from Daniel Schlereth. He knew it was gone and he knew what that meant.  He had just become only the eighth person to hit 600 or more home runs in Major League baseball.

While it is an exclusive club, entry to it has been more frequent in recent years than at any other time in baseball history.  Alongside Thome, the 600 club includes one other active player (Alex Rodriguez) and three who have retired within the last five years (Ken Griffey Jr, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds).

Baseball as much as any sport has a storybook quality to it and the desire to cast its participants into groups of heroes and villains is strong.  Rodriguez, Sosa and Bonds will always have their achievements cast in a shadow of alleged – or in Rodriguez’s case admitted – steroid usage.  In contrast, Griffey’s 600^th home run in June 2008 was greeted as a welcome antidote to the ‘tainted’ victories of others. 

Thome’s triumph was met in a similar way to Griffey’s.  There are 600 (now 601) stories of how he hit his home runs, but the eulogies that followed his historic blast revealed that there are many more tales about what he is like as a person that are all the more impressive.

We often place unreasonable expectations on sportsmen, putting them on a pedestal, knocking them down, landing them with the burden of being role models.  From a rational point of view, we shouldn’t be disappointed if a ballplayer doesn’t quite meet the ‘hero’ status that his on-the-field exploits inspire.

However, rational or not, the general consensus that Thome does live up to such high standards made seeing him reach the 600 milestone all the more special.

Looking back

I was very grateful to receive some baseball season-preview magazines from the 1990s recently.  One of the many joys to be found in flicking through them is reading predictions about young players of the time with the benefit of hindsight. 

Thome made his Major League debut with the Indians in 1991 and the 1992 Sporting News Baseball Yearbook summed him up in the following way: “In addition to his power potential, Thome makes consistent contact and has the kind of makeup that makes managers smile”.

The 1994 Street and Smith’s Baseball, listed Thome in its Rookie Preview section. It was noted that “Thome is not officially a rookie”, but that “he did spend most of ‘93 in Triple-A, where he was the International League Player of the Year. The lefty-swinging Thome, 23, is ready to stick with the Indians after posting big numbers at Charlotte … He is sound defensively”. 

Thome gave up his third base glove many years ago, but the big numbers were only just beginning.

Triple plays

The Cleveland Indians turned a triple play against the Chicago White Sox back on 3 April, but we hadn’t seen one since that point until last week when – like buses – two came along within a short space of time. 

The Milwaukee Brewers turned the sixth in franchise history on Monday with a 4-6-3-2 effort against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Matt Kemp inadvertently played a major part in the feat as he tried to score while the ball was fielded by Prince Fielder for the second out.  The first baseman was alert to what was happening and catcher George Kottaras tagged Kemp out at the plate to complete the triple play.

Then on Tuesday, the Boston Red Sox turned a 5-4-3 triple play against the Tampa Bay Rays.  It was Boston’s first triple-play in 17 years, although some of the sheen was knocked off by the Red Sox losing the game.

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) maintains a website documenting all known triple plays in Major League history.  You have to go back to 1974 for the last season that went by without at least one triple-play being recorded; however they are still a relatively rare event and always worth celebrating. So long as you’re not on the wrong end of it, of course.

Seeing-eye singles

Thome’s feat offers an excuse to browse one of my favourite simple features on one of my (and most baseball fans’) favourite websites.  Thome’s Home Run Log on Baseball-Reference.com shows that he victimised 393 different pitchers over 38 different ballparks. 

I noted in this column last week that the situation the Cubs find themselves in with Carlos Zambrano, and had previously done with Carlos Silva, didn’t reflect well on General Manager Jim Hendry.  It was announced on Friday that Hendry had been sacked from the position he gained in July 2002.  Much like with Thome, Hendry is a well-liked and well-respected baseball man, but the club has had two poor seasons despite maintaining one of the highest payrolls in the Majors and several near-disastrous contracts (the Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley contracts in particular) were signed on his watch (how much they were the responsibility of the former owners is up for debate).  Change is to be expected under those circumstances; however his tenure should be remembered for the three playoff appearances and especially the 2003 postseason.  We’ll never know how close Hendry might have come to being the GM to break the Cubs’ curse, but for the ‘Bartman’ intervention.

A.J. Burnett got tagged by the Twins for seven runs in only 1.2 innings on Saturday.  The Yankees really are a difficult team to call for the postseason this year.  If they get some strong pitching performances – and the likes of Burnett and Phil Hughes are capable of that – then they could win it all; if they don’t then a team like the Texas Rangers could quickly sweep them.