Although Frank Thomas hasn’t play a game since 2008 with Oakland, he wasn’t officially retired until now.  Thomas will hold a press conference at US Cellular Field today to make the official statement.  Thomas, aka The Big Hurt, spent 16 years of his 19 year career with the White Sox.  In the 90′s The Big Hurt was arguably the most dominant hitter in baseball and without a doubt the most intimidating, standing at 6’5″ 275 pounds.

From 1991-1999 Thomas averaged 32 HRs and 112 RBI a season.  In that same time frame he batter over .300 8 of the 9 years and his OBP was never below .381 (half those years it was .450 or above) and his SLG hovered around the .500-.600 range.  The Big Hurt was pure power standing erect with that big signature swing and the long stride, when he hit it you knew it was going to be a bomb.

Albert Pujols today, reminds me of Frank Thomas in the 90′s, just plain scary.  Frank Thomas was a 5-time All-Star from ’93-’97, won the Silver Slugger Award in ’91,’93,’94 and ’00 as well as AL MVP in ’93 and ’94.  The Big Hurt is 18th all-time with 521 home runs and he drove in 1,704 runners in his career while scoring 1,494 times.  Without a doubt Frank Thomas is a 1st ballot Hall of Famer.

-Jason