The Big Hurt was the perfect nickname for Frank Thomas

Frank Thomas decided to call it a career on Friday night. As we saw the press conference anouncing the end of a legendary career that spanned 19 seasons, we thought back to when this guy was a big part of our childhood.

We thought back to 1993 when he was the most dominating force in baseball really, especially from the right-handed side of the plate. He was an intimidating force, standing in the box at 6’5″ and hitting balls into the left-center field seats almost nightly in Chicago.

His first six full seasons he hit over .300 evey year. In three of those seasons, he hit .353, .347, and .349 respectively. He hit over 40 home runs five times. He drove in over 100 runs in 11 different seasons. He finished his career as a .301 hitter and OPS’d a lifetime .974, which is staggering.

He could hurt you in a lot of ways, but if you look back at the sure Hall of Famers body of work; the longevity and consistency that he maintained; especially for a player of his size that didn’t figure to age especially well, you realize that he was one of the most dominating offensive players that will ever play the game of baseball.

We’ll miss watching the Big Hurt play. We’ll always remember back to when we first got really into baseball, he was on WGN all of the time and nearly converted us to a White Sox fan when he helped the Sox get into that 1993 ALCS (which they lost to the Blue Jays).

Thanks for the memories, Big Frank.