The Big Hurt hits South Beach Sessions. Frank Thomas looks back on his legacy - one held up by professionalism and relentless strive for excellence – from his start as a dominant athlete, to a first-ballot Hall of Fame career, and the real hurt and loss he’s battled along the way. For all of his love for the game and historical dominance in baseball - Frank reveals how he paid the price in injuries, disrespect from management, and betrayal from his peers. Frank shows Dan the brutal truth and strength behind ‘no pain, no gain’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Frank Thomas and what is his legacy in baseball?
Hello and welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm excited about this guy. I've admired him for a long time. I've told him so for a number of different reasons. Two-time AL MVP. He's a businessman now. He has been great as a broadcaster, but his baseball excellence makes him super unique.
One of five athletes anywhere that has a statue at both his college baseball excellence and his professional baseball excellence. Frank, thank you so much for making the time for us. It was a pleasure, Dan.
Thanks for having me today.
I want to know a little bit about who you are, how you are, the things that shaped you, because I was always fascinated by the roots of how you became a baseball Hall of Famer that was that excellent. but also how you carried yourself professionally. It seemed from where I was standing like it was hard to be you and you always carried yourself with uncommon grace.
So begin, if you don't mind, by telling me a little bit about Charlie May.
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Chapter 2: How did Frank Thomas's upbringing shape his career?
Well, it started with Charlie May, you know. I grew up in a small town, Columbus, Georgia, a much larger town now. But growing up, my mother, I was a baby of five kids. So being a baby, she just really made sure I was secure every day. I didn't get caught up with what was going on out in the neighborhood and everything else. I always stayed around.
I had good friends, but I never wanted to do what everybody else wanted to do. I was always focused. So for my mom, she made sure I stayed out of trouble. She made sure I was home on time. She made sure I did my homework. So it all started at home with mom.
But as for growing up there and keeping everything, you know, under wraps, but not falling in the same traps, because I grew up in a semi-bad neighborhood, but not a real ghetto neighborhood. You know, I wouldn't call it middle class, but I would put it somewhere in the middle of middle or lower class.
A kid doesn't know that, though, right?
They don't know that. Because the walks of life I came from, I mean, there were the lower, lower class. There were, you know, lower middle class, and there was middle class. So for me growing up, I just wanted to stay out of trouble.
She was how as a disciplinarian? She was the youngest of 14 children? Yes, yes.
So my mom knew a lot about family. You know, when you're talking about family gatherings, mother, aunts and uncles coming over, it was a huge clan. It was a lot of people, a lot of cousins, a lot of we had a big family. So you learn a lot from from those situations and and learning about family.
And she did what other than your father? Because your father was a deacon, a bail bondsman. That seems like a difficult job. An animal catcher. Yes. I don't know what that is exactly.
Yes. It was basically, you know, like dog catcher. You know, dog, cats, you know, would keep them in control for the city. But his biggest job, I really feel, was at Georgia Crown, which was a big distributor of alcohol. He had a huge keg route that he would do for a lot of the bars and restaurants around town. So dad was a man of many talents, but he was very stubborn with me.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Frank Thomas face during his baseball career?
So after school at 2 o'clock, I went to the East Columbus Boys Club. And that's where that real competitive sports edge began. And we played everything, basketball, football, baseball, foosball, pool, ping pong. We just had that atmosphere.
Were you better? than everybody? Because you could have played professional football as well.
Trust me, my brother Mike was three years older, so I wanted to hang with his crowd all the time. So I had to hold my own. I'd always been that young kid or they'd push me out of the way. So I played basketball against them, football against them, everything.
So when I started growing up and getting bigger and stronger and faster, I was not, I guess, intimidated of the older players because I grew up in that environment, and that made me who I was. So wanting to succeed, wanting to be better than everyone else, it started there trying to compete with older kids.
So what does support at home look like when you've got the disciplinarian, you've got a great foundation of love?
Yes. Great foundation of love, but it was very disciplined. I saw my other brothers and sisters screw up a few times, and I'm as a baby going, oof, that wasn't pretty. Because back then, parents could put hands on their kids to keep that discipline in line. I didn't want any part of that.
I knew what I had to do to stay out of trouble, and I stayed out of trouble because I didn't feel trouble was where I wanted to be. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to be something different.
So you have six kids. What do you take from your parents and what do you push aside? One of them, you came in here, couldn't talk enough about somebody that you're saying in your family that you think is going to be a better baseball player than you were.
Well, I look at, I have three boys and three girls. I've been married twice. My first marriage, you know, right in the middle of my career, things just weren't right. I mean, I had a lot to do with that because of baseball. But I tell people, My biggest take of that is be the best father you possibly can be. And I've been that guy. I've been a role model, sitting there with my kids.
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Chapter 4: How did Frank Thomas transition from player to broadcaster?
Well, it's something you never want to get over because my father would go to every practice, every game. I mean, I went to Auburn University, and that was 45 minutes from Columbus, Georgia. My dad was almost at all my practices. That's how. That's how big a fan he was of his kid. So I respect and love that.
I'm so gracious of it because most fathers wouldn't do that, especially when you're working nine to five. So yes, I've gotten over it now because I've matured. I matured so many years out of the game. You get older and you respect, and now I'm starting to lose friends at my age are passing away. So you start to understand the circle of life. You're not here forever.
So what my mom and dad did with me was heroic. And love them to death. And I will always love them. I wish they were still here. But reality, you got to understand, I'm in my mid-50s now. So that's one of those things that, you know, you start looking at your peers and you're starting to see people pass away.
It's the first time I've ever done that. I don't have an athlete's bulletproof mentality, right? So something that has served you for a long time is sort of the feeling like... Even if you're the big hurt, even if your body can break down, I can overcome. Just recently in losing my brother and then just feeling my age in other places, the mortality visits you in a way that is unavoidable.
It is. I mean, of late, we've lost some greats. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson. Pete Rose, who I just worked with for many years at Fox. And losing him a couple weeks ago, it made me break down because I remember having those conversations with him, where he went wrong and how he's moved forward and being the guy that he is because that guy could crack me up like no one else.
I enjoy working TV with him because I got to really know him. And one thing about him, he never lied to me about anything. So I know other people view him in a certain way, but he told me things that he needed to tell me that made me feel like this is a great man because he's been honest with me. He didn't have to be honest with me, working with me on a daily basis.
That's why we had such rapport on camera. That's why we were great together on camera because we had a friendship.
As someone who has problems with cheaters and rule breaking, should he be in the Hall of Fame?
Well, I don't have a problem with cheaters and rule breakers. I understand most people come from nothing, and they will do anything to acquire wealth and whatever it takes. I just wasn't built that way. But I look at Pete, absolutely. What he did for the game of baseball, maybe never will ever be done. 25 years on the field with all those hits.
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Chapter 5: What impact did Frank Thomas have on his teams and peers?
And from afar, people think big, black, famous, lot going on, interracially married. Something's going on with that guy.
Focus. Yeah, focus. Something's wrong with that guy. Focus makes him aloof, makes him distant. Thank you. He's trying to concentrate on baseball. It's hard to be excellent at baseball. I may not be as warm as you need me to be at 45 minutes before game time.
Thank you, Dan. I've been pulled a million different directions. I had one of the first baseball players along with Ken Griffiths Jr. to have big marketing campaigns, and that went all year long. There was no downtime. So I would end the season, I'm doing stuff with Reebok, I'm going around the world, you know, to Asia, to England, wherever they wanted me to go, you know, promoting another brand.
So, you know, like I said, I wasn't hard to get along with. People just didn't take the time to really get to know me.
And there wasn't time, though, because you just mentioned your first marriage. Your focus had to be such on what it is that you were doing to remain excellent at it. And also, all the business and opportunity that comes with arriving at success, you're saying, I couldn't be the husband I needed to be. What the game demanded of me, and I wasn't mature enough.
Thank you. And like I said, once again, I've got to thank Michael Jordan for that because Michael has started doing something no one has ever done, to market and promote a sport. And they wanted to do the same thing with baseball when I got with Reebok. So it took a lot of time from family times. And the same thing happened to his family. He ended up getting divorced.
And there's no happiness when you're never seeing your wife. It's tough. You grow apart. And that's just what happens. So like I said, I tell people, the best thing you can do right now is be a great father. I've been a great father for many, many years. And I hope to be a great father for many, many years to come.
The balance is hard, though. I'm not even sure it's possible. Maybe it is. Maybe some people have spiritual maturity and enlightenment that allow them in their early 20s to figure out both adulthood and being a Hall of Fame player. It seemed to me that what you went through in your 20s and early 30s seemed to me uncomfortable— and that it would require a lot from you in a lot of different ways.
You remember it how? When you're looking at the 15 years of you being great at this.
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Chapter 6: How did Frank Thomas handle criticism and media pressure?
That's a bit startling to me because it makes me wonder how much better you might have been the first 14 years of your career, the first 10 years of your career.
If you could have absorbed I'm happy and grateful instead of making your world as small as that baseball, which is what you did for eight years because of how hard it is to hit just a baseball, and then you decide you're going to be a leader. But when I'm saying to you that it all felt very pressurized,
And from where I was standing, it seemed unpleasant to be you, even as you were having all of the success, because it just felt lonely.
I can just tell you right now, Ozzie had told me about my first two years, you're in trouble. And I'm like, dude, what are you talking about? He said, you hit 350, 360, 40 home runs, 130 RBIs. You can't have a down year. if you don't achieve those numbers, especially in the city of Chicago, they're going to lambaste your ass. And he was right. And I still have a great relationship with Ozzy.
We do TV together. But he told me, and he'll tell you that on TV, you did too much at an early age after those seven straight years that no one has ever seen before. It's just, you know, you can't keep up with that. I don't care who you are as a player, especially on the baseball field, but that's how locked in I was. And I laugh at Ozzy every day because he told me that my second year in the game.
Frank, do you realize, though, from my position how much it sucks to hear a baseball Hall of Famer say, I couldn't really enjoy being a Hall of Famer because of everything that was bashing against me? It's what it looked like from down here.
Right. You know, like I told you, when you're the biggest guy, they talk about David and Goliath all the time. I was Goliath. And I was supposed to do those things. After you do it for seven straight years, you're supposed to do it every year. I don't care if you're getting older. I don't care if you're slowing down. You have set that standard.
And when you set that standard, people look at that standard and say, hey, that's where you need to be and that's where you got to be. And for me, I took it upon myself to be that guy. And when things weren't as good, I remember getting divorced in 97. That was my first down year in baseball. And it wasn't really a down year. I hit like 30 something home runs. I hit 277 and drove in 100 runs.
But everybody was like, oh, he's finished. He's washed. Something's going on. He's lost his focus. You know, I'm like, I'm going through divorce with three young kids. So I was going to the plate like this every day because it was left and right, stuff over here, stuff over here, not being able to focus on that little white baseball.
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Chapter 7: What are Frank Thomas's views on the evolution of baseball?
It was my favorite season of my career. It really was. I had a young team that – re-energize me guys like Nick Swisher Bobby Crosby Jason Kendall um Milton Bradley, who was crazy but fun. Who else had on that team? Jay Payton. I mean, we just had a team of guys that just cared. Mark Ellis. I mean, those guys really cared about playing the game. It wasn't about money out there.
It was about winning. And I had fun with those guys, and they just needed Mark Kotze, who's managing now. You know, those guys were special guys, and that's why we played so well. And I'll be honest with you. I think we could have got to the World Series that year if we didn't have that five-day layoff like these guys about to have to start the World Series now.
It's crazy, though, to say that that season was your happiest ever when you're a champion. Every time I ask an athlete what was the most fun you ever had, they do some revisionist history and they say the year that I won the championship because they got the ending right. Doesn't mean that the whole year was fun up until the ending.
It's crazy to hear you have a non-championship year as your most joyous year. But it makes sense.
Honestly, I mean, what Billy Bean does out there and what Billy Bean did that year, I've never seen a general manager bring guys up ready to perform. I don't care how young they are. They can come pitch seven innings, send them back down, bring another one up, bring a bat in who could do something to help us. We had a team full of that.
And we had Ron Washington, the base coach, who made the game fun daily. I mean, I've never been around a coach. People are like, what's the magic of Ron Washington? Just think about this. I'm always the first guy there every day, and he's always the first guy there. Ron would sit there with his long white underwear, with his cigarette. Gets you going every day.
What happened to you last night, Big Hurt? A boy stuck it to you. And he would run and laugh. But that's the motivation he provided on a daily basis. I had fun again.
A lifer. A baseball lifer.
I had fun again. And that whole clubhouse was like that. It was about winning. It wasn't about who's got the biggest check. It was about winning. And we didn't care about anything else. We had a lot of fun. And that's why we had a great team.
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Chapter 8: What was Frank Thomas's most memorable baseball season?
You did get drafted in the first round after going to college, but going back to being undrafted, why were you undrafted if you saw six or seven players in the... And it was like 50, 60 rounds back then.
I had no idea what happened. I have no idea what happened. The man upstairs had a plan for me, and it was going to be bigger and better than coming out of high school because I never probably would have got that growth in the minor leagues. You know, you think about the physicality of the SEC football, being in that weight room, you know, lifting 300, 400 pounds, you know, growing up.
Baseball became very easy after playing SEC football for two and a half years.
What was the relationship in and around Bo Jackson there at the time?
Well, I didn't get to play with Bo, but Bo was a senior that year, and that's when he took the trip to Tampa Bay. I was supposed to play my freshman year with Bo. It was disappointing because I had lived in Columbus. I used to go over and watch him all the time. I had never seen an athlete like that, never. His speed, his size, the way, the tenacity.
I had never seen anything like that on the football field. But I got to play Major League Baseball with him. I just saw him last week. He still gives me a hard time. But Bo's my guy. I don't care. I told him last week. I said, you know I love you, even though you're an a-hole to me all the time. Why is he giving you a hard time? How can anybody be giving Frank Thomas a hard time?
He gives me a hard time just to give me a hard time. Bo is Bo, though. Bo's a tough son of a gun.
But you're a Hall of Famer. You're the big hurt. What do you mean? I don't imagine anybody giving you a hard time.
Bo Jackson was probably the most athletic guy of our time. of our time, football, baseball, could dunk a basketball, could do, I mean, if you see him hunt and shoot a bow and arrow, he could do that professionally. It's like the guy, his gifted talent, I feel sad because I think we got robbed of seeing his greatness for a long period of time.
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