Thome: The Real Life Natural

As a lot of people already know, Cleveland Indians' designated hitter Jim Thome hit his 599th and 600th career home runs at Comerica Park on August 15 as a member of the Minnesota Twins. He is now the second-fastest person in baseball history to reach 600 home runs in a career; the only person ahead of him is the legendary Babe Ruth. Due to a lot of the steroid scandals ruining sports around us, there are bound to be folks out there that are thinking that Thome did not do this feat naturally.

What is there to say about something like this?
It's a real shame that people automatically point fingers to PEDs when something so rare and incredible happens in baseball. After doing a lot of extensive reading, Jim Thome has been voted one of the friendlies ballplayers along with the hug-master Mike Sweeney. What does that have to do with this, you ask? I seriously doubt that a kindhearted guy that helps put his extended family through school would be a bonehead and do such a thing as taking shots and boosts to make his mark in major league history. If you want to make a mark in the history of a sport, do it right.

In Thome's case, he was a consistent power hitter and did things like this throughout his career. He didn't have an astronomical change in build or mechanics over his near 20-year career, so that should be enough proof that there is no foul play involved in his play. However, the naysayers that believe he was and is juiced would use the argument that he is near the top all-time in strikeouts. Why? Everybody else strikes out too. Derek Jeter strikes out a lot and you're not going to use the excuse of "well, he must be juiced up because there's no way he could have over 3,000 hits naturally." Get real. There's a lot of paranoia going around since the PED blacklisting that began in the early 2000's.

To me, Jim Thome is a real life natural at the game. He doesn't need the juice and doesn't need the stuff that will make guys great and later broken. I don't think he'll be breaking stadium lights anytime soon, but he's got something a lot of boys want someday, and that's legendary status. Also, what the boys want in seeing a natural is the positive influence they can pass on to other players looking up to them and the kindness that they provide to the fans that love them so dearly.

I mean c'mon...who wouldn't want to be naturally friendly too?

I don't care what you guys say, Thome's got the natural talent to be in the Hall of Fame someday.


--AZ