Jim Thome: A History of Ruining My Life

“SLOW DOWN OR THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE FUN FOR ANYONE!” I shouted to him while he stood in the on deck circle at Citizens Bank Park in 2004.

But he wouldn’t listen.  And now, I have to deal with the embarrassment of not only losing the contest that I had made my life’s work, but losing in such a resounding, dominant manner, that I may have to take the entire thing off my resume.  And then all I have under “accomplishments” is “Hit three home runs in one game off Brian Matusz in MLB 2K11: The Show one time.”

That gets less impressive every time I say it.

So take a trip with me, why don’t you, as we check out some of the less encouraging moments of my life which were coincidentally probably pretty good for James Howard Thome.

#600 [August 15, 2011]

“Well, crap,” I said to an empty apartment.  The number of people I’d been surrounding myself with had dwindled severely in the past few years, as I had tried to steer any conversational topics that weren’t about me and Jim Thome toward me and Jim Thome, often with weak transitions and very little social tact.

Thome, of course, couldn’t have given less of a shit.  He once again not only hit his mark, but did so in spectacular fashion, hitting numbers 599 and 600 within the same nine innings.  It was terrible.  The banner I’d had made that read “MAYBE NEXT TIME, JIM,” just seemed silly.  Why did I even bother with it?  He only needed two more home runs and could have hit them at any moment.  He certainly would have had plenty of opportunities to do so with a month and a half left in the season.  And that’s without even getting claimed off waivers by a team making a playoff push.

It was finally over.  Some would argue my inability to play baseball with any raw talent, or “correctly” as one coach put it, even at the lowest skill levels, had eliminated me from competing years ago.  But I digress.  Some men were born to be legends.  And others would rather have all their accomplishments exist solely to taunt their competitors.  How Jim Thome managed to hit 600 home runs out of mere spite, I’ll never know.  But it probably helps that he has more than zero natural talent.

#500 [September 16, 2007]

He was a White Sock at this point, and used his 500th shot to send South Chicago to a walkoff win; more proof of his inability to just let things go.  In Philadelphia, we were too distracted by the Mets’ epic collapse and the Phillies’ weird resurgence to notice much else.  But I do remember catching a glimpse of Thome’s replay while ordering a round of whatever red-colored shots were in stock to celebrate the Mets scoring 30 runs in four games and still losing all of them.

The home run was followed by all manner of ridiculous attention-seeking moves.  Thome said he wanted the ball back in order to drive it to Cooperstown with his father.  The fan who caught it handed it over without so much as even demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars, though it could be speculated that Thome “convinced” him to do so by choke-slamming him into submission.  The fan was given two season tickets for 2008, and then donated those to a charity of Thome’s choice.  That’s a lot of choke slams.  He probably considered himself lucky to walk away with his life.

#400 [June 15, 2004]

I was torn on this day.  Thome was a Phillie, and my natural inclination to celebrate any minor Phillies success took over, despite the realization that “400-0” is a somewhat lopsided score.  I was reminded of this as the Phanatic danced on the dugout holding a sign with “400” on it.  I tried to shout down to the dancing green monster that even though I didn’t have any home runs yet per se, I still would appreciate my score being represented by the “0.”

The lack of effort on my part was killing me, but to be fair, I had started going to my high school weight room, where I routinely humiliated myself by almost crushing my own trachea on the bench press.

#300 [June 5, 2002]

His 300th was an act of revenge.  Facing the Twins, the Indians’ three-hole hitter stepped up in the first inning with two outs and bitch-slapped his 10th home run of the season.  That hitter’s name was Ellis Burks, and he gave the Tribe’s starting pitcher, C.C. Sabathia, an early lead to work with.

Then Thome came to the plate, his heart full of envy.  Why should Ellis get all the attention?  He was just another guy in the Cleveland lineup with an OPS under 1.000 (Unlike Thome).  So Thome, his focus not thoroughly clouded enough by jealousy to prevent him from being ineffective, rocketed his own home run moments later, expanding the lead and bringing everyone’s attention to where it should have been:  on Jim Thome.

I hurled the newspaper to the ground in disgust and pounded my fist on my desk.  This disturbance gained me the ire of my Biology 102 teacher, who cut my time at the gym by giving me detention.  I point to this day as the cataclysm for the disaster this contest was about to become.

Ellis Burks never played baseball again.*

*Untrue

#200 [April 15, 2000]

Thankfully on this day, Thome celebrated Tax Day by being the only Indian to go yard, so he was able to do so without writhing his hands evilly or stealing the spotlight from anyone else.  The Indians still lost, however; the second L of a skid that would see them lose 11 of their next 17.  Thome would hit plenty of home runs in that period, all of them selfish, all of them not enough to stop the bleeding.

I was too blinded by my upcoming graduation from junior high to truly do anything about it, though 200 did seem like a rather high number.  But, being in eighth grade, I was far more interested in the fact that the box score for this game featured a guy named Richie Sexson.  Hahaha.  Sexson.  Sex.  Ha!

#100 [May 14, 1997]

I was playing in a Little League where the rules were after four balls from the opposing pitcher, your own coach would come out to pitch to you.  This would make striking out all the more humiliating.  Have you ever walked back to the dugout after a mighty swing and a miss and had the pitcher follow you?  And also the pitcher was your friend’s dad?

This was what I was up to at this point, when Thome was hitting the centennial home run mark for his career.  I figured because I had actually started playing organized baseball, my chances for catching up had at least quintupled.  Any moment, I would be right on his heels.  Just as soon as my coach took that movement off the end of his fastball.

#1 [October 4, 1991]

“So he’s got one,” I scoffed to a bunch of people.  “One is such a small number.  You what else is ‘1?’  My age, four years ago.  I got plenty of time.”