September 23
Cleveland Plain Dealer
columnist Dennis Manoloff
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Those who think Jim Thome derived his greatest pleasure in baseball from circling the bases 600-plus times nonstop never will have understood him fully. Yes, the homers were important. Each and every one. But they did not drive him. The endless hours in the cages did. Session after session, often in the dank bowels of venues across the country, when no more than one other person was looking. In search of the perfect power swing. Thome knew there is no such thing as the perfect swing, but he lived for the chase. The results Thome got from the callused hands were not too shabby. He will end his career, perhaps at the end of this season, ranked among the game's greatest sluggers."
August 27
Cleveland Plain Dealer
columnist Bill Livingston
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The last, cool light of a long work week for the Indians and their fans gilded the upper deck of right field at sold-out Progressive Field on Friday evening. White placards, held by cheering fans, waved there and in the shadows elsewhere, all reading "Welcome Thome." It was a bad pun on Jim Thome's name, a gesture of reconciliation in a relationship often characterized by boos and bitterness, and a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," all in one. Thome came home, to the city where he began his career in 1991, to the ballpark where he was a regular in the lineup for nine years beginning in 1994. One of only eight players ever to hit 600 or more home runs (334 of them, a franchise record, with the"
August 14
Cleveland Plain Dealer
columnist Bill Livingston
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Jim Thome belongs to a bygone era, when farm boys played in the big leagues, when travel was by train, when players got big only on hotdogs and beer, and when they were bound in servitude to the same team for their entire career. The servitude part might have been fine with Thome. He once said they would have to rip the Indians uniform off his back -- before taking, under heavy pressure from the players union, an outlandish free-agent offer from Philadelphia. That has hurt him forevermore in Cleveland, particularly after the Indians made a big, showy public relations gesture of an offer when they knew it was too late in 2003. Now 40 years old and 264 home runs, four teams and nine"
August 11
St. Paul Pioneer Press
columnist Charley Walters
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In anticipation of Jim Thome's historic 600th career home run, which will ensure his entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Twins have directed Target Field staff to be on alert in the stands. A handful of staffers have been placed in right-field and right-center field locations to either retrieve the prized baseball or make whoever catches it a trade offer so the left-handed-swinging Thome can have the keepsake. Generally, a spectator who ends up with a Thome home run ball at Target Field this season is escorted to the Twins' clubhouse to meet Thome, has a picture taken with him and receives a bat or other memorabilia signed by him in exchange for the ball. Thome has 598 home runs."
August 9
MLB.com
columnist Anthony Castrovince
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The talk about Jim Thome's quest for 600 career home runs is that nobody's talking about it. And all this talk about the lack of talk seems to center around a single premise -- that Thome, who has never been linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, is the unwitting victim of a steroid era that has cheapened his impending milestone. Once he gets around to hitting two more home runs, Thome will become just the eighth member of the 600 Club. And for all we know in this era of diminished offensive output, he might well be one of the last. If nothing else, he'll be the last for several years. Manny Ramirez is gone. Albert Pujols, sitting on 435 homers at age 31, obviously has the best"