• Jim Thome is one part Paul Bunyan, one part Huckleberry Finn and also has some Opie Taylor in him. "He's a great guy and a wonderful talent," Mariners Manager Mike Hargrove said. He was Jim's first manager. "They don't get any better than Jimmy Thome. You really don't need to say any more than that. His numbers speak volumes and what he does as a person speaks even more!"

  GROWING UP IN PEORIA

• Thome says that when he gets tired during the long baseball season, he thinks about his Dad. He sees Chuck Thome dragging himself out of bed at the crack of dawn, heading off to work at Caterpillar Company in Peoria, Illinois, building bulldozers.

  Jim's Dad spent 39 years working there, much of it as a foreman. He thinks of his father coming home from work, exhausted, and still having time to play catch. He thinks of being a little kid, no bigger than a baseball bat, and his father teaching him to swing, throwing a tennis ball underhanded so Jim could could make contact. Chuck Thome was a star fast-pitch softball player and also an umpire, taking little Jim along to watch the games.

• Jim also remembers his grandfather, Chuck Sr., who worked at a brewery in Peoria. "He never missed a day of work, either,'' said Thome. "I just wish my grandfather could have seen me play in the Big Leagues.''
• Thome learned about togetherness growing up in a big family in Peoria, Illnois. He has two brothers and two sisters. He is the youngest, born three minutes after his twin sister, Jenny.
• About his quality of being so honest, Jim said, "That's just the way I was brought up."
• He grew up a Cubs fan. He would imitate every player's swing, hitting rocks that were in the family's white rock driveway. He hit them with an aluminum bat, mostly imitating Dave Kingman, his favorite player.

• As a 10-year-old living in Peoria, Jim was taken to his first Big League game at Wrigley Field by his father. They were watching the Cubs take batting practice from their seats when, all of a sudden, Chuck Thome saw a familiar face in the Cub dugout.

  "I wanted to see the Cubs hit up close, so I ran down to the dugout," Jim Thome remembered. "I sat there for a while, then started up the runway to the clubhouse to see some players when Barry Foote picked me up and carried me back onto the field. My Dad saw me and said, 'Hey, that's my kid!' And they announced my name on the PA system. It was kind of embarrasing."

  Jim's Dad also recalled: "Dave Kingman was his favorite player and Jim wanted to get his autograph," Chuck related. "The sad thing that day was Kingman more or less blew him off. Barry Foote, the catcher, saw what happened and managed to get most of the Cubs to autograph a ball for him.

  "From that moment on, Jim promised that if he ever made it to the Major Leagues he'd never turn his back on people seeking his autograph."

  And he never has.

• Jim said that besides the Cubs, he also "liked the Cardinals—the way Whitey Herzog managed and the way they played the game. I never really had a specific hero. I was more of a baseball fan." He recalled: "We would take two, three, four trips a summer to Chicago and see the Cubs and Cardinals play and then catch a White Sox game at night. Then we would take a weekend trip to St. Louis to see the Cubs there. I loved it. I remember doing that a lot as a kid and it was so much fun."
• In 1988, Thome was All-State in baseball and basketball at Limeston (Illinois) High School. He scored 36 points in the Conference Championship basketball game.
• In 1990, Jim was on a pace to contend for the Appy League triple crown before getting called up to Class A Kinston. But Appy League Managers did rank him as the number one prospect in the league in Baseball America's poll.
• Jim has a slight accent which makes him sound like a friendly, easy-going guy right from the start. He is as personable and honest as they come.
• You won't find a guy who works harder, or one who is more amicable to coaching. He is a good listener, an ideal student of the game and a real gamer.
• During the offseason before 1992 spring training, while hearing about the high expectations the Indians had for him, Thome stumbled upon an article about White Sox star Frank Thomas. In the story, Thomas was quoted as saying, "Don't believe the hype." Jim immediately took those words to heart. He jotted the initials "DBTH" in the back of his cap.
• In 1993, Jim was named the International League's Player of the Year 1993 after leading the league in batting average and RBI.

  MEETS FUTURE WIFE AT THE PARK

• In May 1995, Andrea Pacione was a reporter covering mostly high school sports for Cleveland's WB television affiliate when she went to Arlington, Texas on an assignment that would change her life. Covering the Tribe's season opener against the Texas Rangers, one of the players she interviewed was a friendly kid named Jim Thome, who was just blossoming as a Major Leaguer.

• A week later, at the Indians' home opener, Thome saw Andrea. He had been under the impression she was from Texas. "Hey, why are you here?" the player asked. "I'm from here," the reporter said.

  Eventually the two became friends. They had lunch. In high school, Jim was too busy playing sports to be bothered with girlfriends. But Andrea was worth finding time for. "At first I was a little skeptical," said Andrea, who stopped covering sports when she began dating Jim. "I was afraid to date an athlete, having seen a little of the inside. But I trusted my gut about Jim, and my gut was right. He was a gem."

• Thome is happily married to wife, Andrea. They celebrated the birth of their first child, December 15, 2002. It was daughter Lila Grace.

• He spends his offseasons hunting deer and lifting weights. He and best friend Mark Clark (the former Major League pitcher) are members of a hunting club named Club 54.
• Jim's idea of paradise is coming back to a log house after a day of hunting turkey or deer on 200 acres of flatland in southwest Illinois.
• Thome has a Hummer, the military-like vehicle that you can drive across rivers and through streams. Man and machine are a perfect match, both solid and unrelenting.
• Jim likes country music, especially Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, and George Strait.

• With his stirrup socks worn high and aw-shucks demeanor, Jim seems a bit out of place in the Indians clubhouse. Many people assume that since he grew up in Peoria, he must be a country boy. "I'm from the south end of Peoria, which is the tough part of town," Thome said. "We have the inner city and gangs. But the great thing is you can drive a few miles and be out in the country."

  GIVES TIME TO COMMUNITY

• At Christmastime about every year, Thome dresses up as Santa and visits hospitals and youth centers around Cleveland. He spends thousands of dollars of his own to buy gifts for sick or underprivileged children. And, yes, the socks on his Santa suit were yanked up high.

• At home in Peoria, Illinois, Jim hosts an annual dinner and auction on a riverboat casino to benefit the Children's Miracle Network. The event has raised about $50,000 per year.
• Thome also takes part in the Indians' Field of Dreams program, which helps renovate six playgrounds each year.
• Thome was chosen as the winner of the 2002 Roberto Clemente Award, in honor of the prominent player whose community service best honors Clemente's legacy.
• Jim used to have a plate of sushi before each game. He started that in 1996. "I had it one night, and I think I had four hits that game," he recalled. "I just kept it up. I even like it now. It's light. It doesn't leave you with a heavy feeling."

• Jim says Charlie Manuel, former Tribe hitting coach, then manager, has had the biggest influence on his career. "Without a doubt. He's been like a Dad to me," Thome says. "He's been a very, very, very important person in my baseball career and out of baseball. He's a very good friend too."

  TAPE-MEASURE HOME RUNS

• On May 30, 1998, Thome became the first player to hit a ball into "Sightlines," the restaurant that sits under the Toronto Skydome's video board in center field. Jim blasted a pitch from Pat Hentgen an estimated 483 feet into the restaurant, off the restaurant's back wall and into a guest's dessert.

  Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove said, "Too bad it didn't land in someone's salad. It could have been a big crouton."

• On July 3, 1999, Thome hit an estimated 511-foot home run to center field at Jacobs Field. (The ball hit a pillar 496-feet from home plate. Since the ball hit the pillar 15 feet up, the home run calculators added 15 feet to the distance—511 feet.)

  It was the longest recorded home run by an Indian in Cleveland, in history. Luke Easter hit a 477-foot homer in old Cleveland Stadium on June 23, 1950.

• Jim's nephew, Brandon, was paralyzed from the waist down in a swimming pool accident in July 2001. Soon after the accident, Thome promised Brandon he would hit a home run for him. And that very night he hit two, in beating the White Sox in Comiskey Park.
• Thome is a real favorite with Indians fans who look at him as a throwback player because of his high socks and Midwestern work ethic. He remains the same easy-going, humble, homespun gentleman that he was the day he signed with the Indians in 1989.
• "I come from a great family," Jim says. "But they never sat me down and said, 'This is how you should act.' They just acted the right way and I took it from them."
• He just can't seem to get enough baseball. "My wife gets on me all the time because I watch Baseball Tonight and Sunday Night Baseball," he said. "I will come home at night and watch Baseball Tonight to see how my buddies around the game have done."
• Jim leads by the example of hard work. He is not a rah-rah type. But he made a statement when he showed up for 1998 Spring Training with T-shirts that read "Team Thome" on the front, and "It Doesn't Mean A Thing 'Til We Get the Ring" on the back. He has no guile. He never enters into "star" mode, staying very humble.

• Thome got a call from one of his favorite players when he was growing up, just before he signed with the Phillies. Pete Rose gave him a call.

  "Pete spoke for himself. He's one of the greatest hitters of all time. He was one of my idols. He had a lot of good things to say. One thing he said is, 'Play the game to win. Try to put yourself in a position to win,' " Thome recalled. "And, as I've said before, winning and going to the postseason are addictive." It went without saying that the much-improved Phillies had a better shot at winning than the rebuilding-Indians.

• Thome and Pete Rose, Jr. were teammates in the minors.

• During the offseason before 2003 Spring Training, Thome spent six mornings a week a the Ohio Institute of Sport Performance, situated inside a converted racquet club in Twinsburg, about 25 miles south of Cleveland.

• Kris Lewandoski, a serious 28-year-old whose shaven head makes him look like Mr. Clean, owns the institute and oversees instruction. Thome's back gave him a little trouble during the 2002 season - an MRI done before the signing was clean - and Lewandoski is determined to make sure the problem never arises again.

  "We're working on building strength and flexibility in his hip region," Lewandoski says as Thome squats and propels a 6-pound ball toward the ceiling. "That will ease pressure on his back and prevent tightness. Basically, Jim was using his back too much. We're teaching him to use his hips more."

• When Thome played for the Cleveland Indians, his former manager, Charlie Manuel, twice pinch-hit for him because he was in a slump. How did Thome react? "He apologized to Charlie for putting him in that situation," Phillies manager Larry Bowa said. "He said, 'If I had been doing my job, he wouldn't have had to do that.' He's already told me if he's struggling to hit him fifth or eighth."

• "I know a lot of people around here, and I don't know anyone who's ever said a bad word about him," said Matt Legaspi, a Peoria police officer and Thome's close friend. "I hear it all the time. 'You know Thome? He's a great guy.' He's a regular guy with exceptional talent."

  You can search high and low for Thome's dark side, but the closest you're likely to come is this rip job from Legaspi: "He cheats to win at racquetball. Whatever it takes to win." Some pro athletes are so wrapped up in their expensive cocoons that they lose touch with the real world. Not Thome. When he's home in Peoria, he likes to ride in Legaspi's police cruiser. He hunts deer and listens to country music. OK, the big guy likes sushi, but otherwise, he keeps things simple and lives by words he speaks frequently: No big deal.

• In October 2003, Jim's mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, but as of early in the 2004 season, the outlook was good. Thome said he quit chewing tobacco because of the initial incident. "It makes you realize in life what's important," he said.

  As a symbolic gesture, he quit chewing tobacco cold turkey, showing support for his mother's fight. But the gesture's ramifications ran deeper: as a father, Thome wants to be around for Lila, just as his mother was for him.

  "Ultimately in life, you have to make choices," Thome said. "I did it for her. It makes you realize how precious life is. I just quit. I chew gum now. It was tough. But it's not tougher than what she went through."

• Jim says his mother preaches consistent "mid-central America values, treat people the way you want to be treated. That's how she is every day."

  When Thome struggles at the plate, he'll receive a shipment of chocolate chip cookies from Peoria. While the cookies are great, the gesture is fantastic. "It makes me feel that she cares for me and is there for me. I know how she feels because I feel that way about my daughter. I understand her a lot more." (Ken Mandel-MLB.com-5/9/04)

• There is no chance Thome ever took a steroid. He won't consider taking anything that has ingredients he can't even pronounce. For most of his career, until coming to the White Sox, he wasn't even into weight machines or barbells, except on a winter day when there was nothing else to do. Jim is a throwback. He is built country strong, but you can't call his a "sculpted" physique.

• One of Jim's favorite things to do is to sit in the Fairview Cafe near his hunting and fishing lodge in the central Illinois woods, before dawn, listening to the truckers and farmers talk baseball with no clue that one of the game's foremost hitters is sitting right there, a few chairs over, downing a plateful of sausages, eggs, and hash browns. (Jeff Bradley-ESPN the Magazine-6/7/04)

• In Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, there is a section of "Thome's Homies" in the left field upper deck. It is a self-described fan club that frequently appears at home games.

  And Jim's teammates are also big fans. "He has that superstar status because of his personal success," veteran OF Doug Glanville said. "But he doesn't see himself above others. he embraces everybody. He plays like an extra just trying to make the team. He respects the game."

  "He's never moody," C Mike Lieberthal said. "He's the same guy every day. What's impressive is the way he carries himself on the field when things aren't going well—and when they are."

• Thome was rather sad to see Eric Milton leave the Phillies before the 2005 season. The two had become particularly close while teammates.

• January 5, 2005: Jim's mother, Joyce, died of cancer at her home in Peoria, Illinois.She was founder and co-chairwoman of the Jim Thome Benefit for Children's Hospital of Illinois. She was survived by her husband of 49 years, Jim's dad, Charles.

• March 2006: Thome's home in Solebury Township, a Philadelphia suburb, was listed through Kurfiss Real Estate. The six-year-old, 11,000 square-foot fieldstone manor home sits on 13 acres, and contains six bedrooms, two fenced pastures, seven horse stalls, a stone creamery building and a three-bedroom guest house. The price: $4.25 million.

• During the 2006 season, Thome got to the park early and began his series of exercises that were  designed by doctors who "pretty much told me" it was work out or be out of the game because of a bad back," Thome said. This is a different way of doing things for Thome, who is such a good athlete he never worried about such mundane things.

  "I really didn't ever do anything before," he said. "To be honest, I just played. I came to the ballpark, hit early every day and played the game."

  But now, because of recurring back problems and elbow surgery in 2005, trainer Herm Schneider puts Thome through an intense routine to strengthen and maintain his core body, then fitness coordinator Allen Thomas has him for a stretching program.

  "I don't think he had any choice," Schneider said. "He knows if he doesn't do [the workouts] for a couple of days, his back tightens up and he is looking for trouble."

  Schneider said Thome's two-hour workout includes two different programs with alternating exercises. Most are designed for back muscles and abdominals, but Thome also works religiously on his right shoulder, elbow and wrist, which have given him problems in the past. If he doesn't have time to finish them before games, Thome stays late to complete them.

  "Herm has really helped big-time," Thome said. "I owe that man a lot. I actually, honestly, look forward to it every day. It makes me feel good. It has become part of my [pregame] routine and I've gotten used to it. There's not a whole lot of down time for me here." (Dave van Dyck-Chicago Tribune-4/22/06)

• When Thome hit his 442nd home run on May 5, 2006, it was very special because it tied him with his boyhood hero, Dave Kingman for 31st place in the all-time homer list. Jim recalls trying to get an autograph from Kingman at Wrigley Field.

  "My dad always brought me [from Peoria] to Wrigley Field as a kid," Thome said. "Kingman was always the guy who hit the high, towering home runs. Personally, I idolized him because of that and the whole aura of Wrigley Field.

  "I look back and can say, 'Wow, I tied somebody I always admired as a kid.'"

  The ball is one of many in Thome's ever-growing collection, including one he hit across Sheffield Avenue as a member of the Phillies.

  "I have a bunch," he said. "I'm a big historian of the game. It will be neat [in the future] to look at them and go through them all."

• In 2006, Thome was the recipient of the American League Comeback Player of the Year Award presented by Viagra.

  The Comeback Player of the Year Award is officially sanctioned by Major League Baseball, and is presented annually to one player in each league who fans believe has re-emerged on the baseball field during the season.

• April 11, 2008:  Thome was ejected by home plate umpire for disputing a third strike, although he never even touched the umpire.

• July 3, 2010: Jim hits homer 573 and 574, putting him in sole possesion of the number 10 spot on All-Time Home Run List, passing Harmon Killerbrew.

• June 14, 2012: Thome became the oldest Phillies player to have four RBIs in a game when he had four in a 9-8 victory over the Twins.

  Thome was 41 years, 291 days old. The Elias Sports Bureau said Matt Stairs (41 years, 195 days) held the previous mark, when he had four RBIs on Sept. 10, 2009, at Washington. The only other Phillies age 40 or older with four RBIs in a game are Tony Perez (twice in 1983) and Joe Morgan ('83).

• When Thome was with the White Sox from 2006-09, he and owner Jerry Reinsdorf had conversations -- Reinsdorf calls them a "handshake" agreement -- about Thome someday returning to the White Sox in another capacity.  That became the case when the White Sox hired Thome to be a special assistant to general manager Rick Hahn.

  "I think Jim Thome someday will manage a Major League team," Reinsdorf said. "I think he has that ability. He can be a batting coach, he'd be a great batting coach, but someday he'll be a manager. That's what he'll be. Right now, he's going to be helping us out, evaluating the farm system, evaluating the younger players, he'll be here and be a presence in our clubhouse, come to Spring Training and be a presence. I think it'll be a real plus. And someday he'll manage a Major League team."

  Thome lives with his family in Chicago, which he said played a significant part in the decision, which came to fruition in the the last 2 1/2 weeks or so.  "The No. 1 thing in this whole thing is I get to kind of be at home," Thome said. "Being at home, and getting that opportunity to be around my kid, I coach my son in T-ball, and my daughter, she's 10 years old, going to be 11, it's going very quick. So getting this opportunity to stay at home was really, really good, no doubt."

  Thome ranks among baseball's all-time leaders in home run ratio (4th, 13.76), home runs (7th, 612), walks (7th, 1,747), OPS (20th, .956) and RBI (24th, 1,699). He appeared in 529 games over four seasons with Chicago, batting .265 with 134 home runs and 369 RBIs. Some of his memorable moments in a White Sox uniform include his 500th career home run on Sept. 16, 2007, against the Angels, and his game-winning solo homer off Nick Blackburn on Sept. 30, 2008, which gave the White Sox a 1-0 victory over the Twins in a one-game playoff at U.S. Cellular Field.

  "It's given me everything," Thome said of his career in baseball. "It's given me people that I've met, it's given me friendships, it's given me great cities I've played in, relationships. And ultimately, if you treat people well and vice versa and you have those relationships, you sit here in situations like this and get opportunities. This is my home, this is where we live. This means a lot, to be able to come back and be a part of a great organization that has won and wants to win. I think to be a part of it is great."

  Thome says he does still occasionally pick up a bat, but this opportunity with the White Sox may give him a renewed opportunity to be close to the competition that still calls to him. "If you can give a kid a piece of advice or be around here and somebody asks you a question about hitting or about the game in general and you see them have success, ultimately, that's the biggest accomplishment of all, is giving back to the game and giving back to young players that want that input and want that advice," Thome said. (Nowak - mlb.com - 7/02/13)

  TRANSACTIONS

• March 1994: Thome signed a four-year guaranteed contract worth $5.2 million. The pact included a club option worth $3.5 million for 1998.

• December 1998: He signed with the Tribe for $7 million a year in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

• December 2002: Jim signed a six-year contract with the Phillies for about $87 million. 

  When the Indians realized that their offer of five years at $63 million was not enough, they came up with some original ideas to sweeten the deal. Among the extras, they offered to name a street near the stadium after him, produce an instructional video and give him the profits, set up a homerun porch with donations made to charity, build two youth baseball fields a year in his name, give him a 10-year, $2.5-million personal services contract, and a $500,000 Hall of Fame bonus.

  But he signed with the Phillies instead. Within a week after Jim signed with the Phillies, the team realized almost $2 million worth of season-ticket sales.

• November 23, 2005: The White Sox sent OF Aaron Rowand and pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Daniel Haigwood to the Phillies in a trade for Thome. A source confirmed the Phillies paid $22 million of the $46 million remaining on Thome's contract, meaning the Sox essentially will pay their new slugger $8 million in each of the 2006, 2007, and 2008 seasons.

• August 31, 2009: The Dodgers sent INF Justin Fuller and cash to the White Sox, acquiring Thome, who was still owed $2,415,301 from his $13 million 2009 salary, and eligible to become a free agent after the World Series.

• November 6, 2009: Thome filed for free agency.

• January 26, 2010: Jim signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Twins. The includes up to $750,000 in incentives, based on plate appearances.

• January 14, 2011: Thome agreed to a one-year contract with the Twins for $3 million. Incentives based on plate appearances are also built it.

• August 25, 2011: The Indians sent $20,000 to the Twins, acquiring Thome. The big slugger returned to Cleveland after being away for nine years.

• November 5, 2011: Thome signed with the Phillies, a one-year, $1.25 million contract.

• November 4, 2011: Thome signed a one-year contract with the Phillies.

• June 30, 2012: The Orioles sent catcher Gabriel Lino and right-hander Kyle Simon to the Phillies, acquiring Thome.

• August 2, 2014: The last question -- or observation, as it were -- at Jim Thome's press conference after the 8-foot statue bearing his image and booming bat was unveiled Saturday at Progressive Field came not from a reporter but from team owner and CEO Paul Dolan.

  "I noticed you look pretty good in bronze," Dolan said, "and you look pretty good with that Indians cap on your head."

  The implication was clear.

  Thome, the seventh-most prolific home-run hitter of all time, will be eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018, and the Indians would certainly be the natural choice for the cap on his inevitable plaque.

  "I agree," Thome said with a smile. "One hundred percent."

  That's why Thome and the Indians made this day not just about the statue but also about the relationship between player and team. Nearly two years removed from his last game in the big leagues, Thome signed an honorary one-day contract with the Indians just prior to their game against the Rangers so that he could officially retire as a member of the organization.

  It was not an official retirement of the number, but here, again, the implication was clear.

  "This is a dream come true," Thome said of the day's proceedings, which included an unveiling ceremony attended by a large throng of fans, friends, family, former teammates and the current Tribe club. "It means the world to me that we were able to do this."

  Thome admitted he was pretty uncomfortable with getting the statue treatment, but he couldn't complain about the end result.

  Created by local artist David Deming, the statue sits just outside the team's Hall of Fame at Heritage Park, not far from where Thome famously hit a 511-foot homer in 1999 that stands as the longest ever hit in this ballpark. It depicts Thome in his familiar "Natural" pose, the bat pointed at the pitcher while he digs into the box.

  Some fans here felt burned by Thome when he left the Tribe for Philadelphia in free agency after the 2002 season. But all seemed forgiven by the time Thome returned in 2011, claimed off waivers from the Twins shortly after hitting his 600th career home run and welcomed back with a rousing ovation.

  Thome got emotional in his speech at the statue unveiling. It was attended not just by his wife, Andrea, and children, Lila and Landon, but also by former general manager John Hart, managers Mike Hargrove and Charlie Manuel and several former teammates. Thome got particularly choked up when acknowledging Manuel, the hitting guru who first suggested the Roy Hobbs pose long ago in Triple-A Charlotte, at a time when Thome was struggling at the plate.

  Neither man could have imagined the 612 homers that would follow.

  "I won't take credit for every one of 'em," Manuel said. "But I can take credit for watching a lot of 'em."

  Still, the statue ceremony seemed, to Thome and the Indians, an appropriate time to end a career in which Thome elevated himself from unheralded 13th-round Draft pick to one of the signature faces of this franchise.

  Though free agency brought him to the Phillies and subsequent, unsatisfied efforts to land a World Series ring brought him to the White Sox, Dodgers, Twins, Phillies (again) and Orioles, Thome will always be associated with the Indians, for whom he played 1,399 games and ranks second in RBI (937), third in OPS (.980), fifth in runs (928) and 10th in doubles (263).

  Asked if he had considered negotiating one last at-bat into that one-day contract, Thome laughed.

  "That would be fun," he said. "I'm always ready for one last at-bat."

  The statue will forever back up the sentiment. (Anthony Castrovince - MLB.com - 8/2/2014)

• Jim might be the first player in baseball history whose Hall of Fame speech preparation says even more about him than the speech itself.

  Oh, was Thome's speech wonderful. Before he even began, his daughter, Lila -- a high school student hoping to become a performer -- sang the Star-Spangled Banner. That obviously overwhelmed him. Jim then took the crowd on his remarkable journey, from "hitting rocks in our gravel driveway … until family and neighbors couldn't take it anymore," through his remarkable 612-home run big league career all the way to the Hall of Fame stage where he stood before his heroes.

  "The Hall," he said, "is also a place where players and fans come together to celebrate the game that has no borders, no boundaries, and will forever be defined by its timeless nature. Even though the cell phone may have replaced the transistor radio, and iPads are more common now than the sports page, baseball is still played the same way: between the lines."

  As beautiful as it was, though, to understand what makes Thome go, it helps to understand what he did to get here. I don't mean what he did to earn induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame, though that is obviously related. Nobody worked harder than Thome. "He hit so much," his mentor, hitting coach, and dear friend Charlie Manuel says, "I don't think I can explain to you how much he hit." But in this case, no, I'm talking about what he actually did to get to the Hall of Fame stage.

  Every single day, for weeks, for months, Thome would go to the backyard of his home. There are hedges back there that he would use those as a lectern. He put down his Hall of Fame speech. And he would practice it in the Chicago wind. "He would tell me, 'I need to do it outside because I'm going to give the speech outside,'" his wife Andrea said. "He would say, 'I want to be prepared to hear what it's like outside, you know. Your voice sounds different outside."

  He did this everyday? "Oh yeah," she says. "Sometimes he would do it twice a day." Here's how committed Jim was to practicing the speech: A couple of weeks ago, he came to Cooperstown, asked the Hall of Fame folks if he could take a lectern out to the field where he would be giving the speech. And then, he gave it to an empty field. "He's such a student of baseball," Andrea says. "But he's really a student of life. Whatever he does, he wants to do well, especially something like this."

  She looks over at him, this a couple of days before the speech. "Look at how relaxed he is," she said. "That's how you know. He's ready. He's put in the work. If he didn't feel like he'd prepared enough, you'd see it. He'd be nervous. He'd be jumpy. I've seen that when things get sprung on him at the last minute, and he doesn't have time to prepare. But now, he's prepared."

  She smiles: "That's how you hit 612 home runs."  (Posnanski - mlb.com - 7/29/18)

• When people talk about Jim, the first thing they talk about is how nice he is. I've been fortunate enough to know Jim for more than 20 years, and I can't count the number of times I've seen him blow people away with his kindness, his interest, and his overall friendliness. Back in the early days of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, when the place was desperate for Major League players to come by and show their support, who was the most reliable player? Jim Thome. And you know what he said about it? "Oh man, it's my honor."

  "Ask people about themselves," Thome said to those kids watching who hope to become Hall of Famers one day, "you might learn something."

  Thome does this all the time. Just this week, I saw Thome run into a man he didn't know. After they talked for just a moment, Thome suddenly said "You want to take a picture together?"

  "He has an energy about him," film director Jon Hock said as he watched Thome from across the room, "where you can just tell he's a great guy."

  Thome's kindness might be what defines him as a person. But it is that work ethic -- the part that makes him practice his speech time and time again over a hedge -- that defined him as a baseball player. He grew up in Peoria, Ill., a Cubs fan who adored Dave Kingman. Looking back, Kong wasn't always the easiest player to love -- he spent a baseball life as perpetual trade bait -- but Thome was smitten by the home runs Kong hit. He wanted to do that -- hit an unlimited number of homers. Thome's infatuation for Kingman was such that as an eight-year-old he wandered into the Cubs dugout looking for his favorite player's autograph. "Is this yours?" Cubs catcher Barry Foote asked Thome's parents as he carried the young boy out of the dugout.

  Yes, Thome always wanted to hit with power. But how? He was a non-prospect at the start, a 13th-round Draft pick. He was tall and country strong, but early in his career, the baseball just didn't carry for him. "Well you gotta open up your hips," Manuel told him while they were together in Scranton, Pa., but Thome couldn't figure out how to get those hips opened up, no matter how hard he tried. And then one day, Manuel moved Thome closer to the plate and told him to point his bat at the pitcher, the way Robert Redford did in "The Natural." Thome remembered the electricity he felt when he pulled his first home run.

  "Charlie took a scrappy young kid who was anxious to hit a million home runs," Thome said, "and he actually encouraged those crazy dreams. He told me I can hit as many home runs as I wanted to." Once Thome got the feeling, he chased it obsessively. That's what marked his career. He lived in the cage. He hit between at-bats. He thought about hitting constantly. He played for six teams, and every one of those teams, everyone of his teammates was in awe of how dedicated he was to the craft. I did a story on him near the end, when he was in Minnesota for a short while, and even then, Twins players would say, "He's the best teammate I think I've ever had."

  On July 29, 2018, Thome showed the sensitive side that everybody knows. He talked about how, in his imagination, he'd long been "in his Little League uniform playing alongside Musial, Mays, Ernie Banks, and Ruth, and every game went into extra innings. … I never forgot that dream, even as I became a Major League player, because I could always see the dream's reflection in the faces of the kids in the stands, or whenever a child would come up and say hello."

  He looks out into the stands for some of those kids. "I still can't believe this has happened to me, a 13th-round Draft pick out of Central Illinois," Thome said. "To every kid who is dreaming of standing here one day: Take it one moment at a time. Don't sail too high or sink too low. Learn to be good at handling failure. Be the first one to the ballpark, be the last one to leave, work hard, don't complain, be a great teammate, and above all, treat people with respect."

  He'd said those exact words dozens and dozens of times before. He had to say them right. It was important. Excellence is always important to Jim Thome. (Posnanski - mlb.com - 7/29/18)

• Thome's every at-bat reflects a conversation he had with Charlie Manuel in 1993, at Triple-A Charlotte. Manuel was the manager of the Knights, and he and Thome were relaxing in the clubhouse between BP sessions, watching Robert Redford in "The Natural."
  
  Manuel had just been telling Thome he was too tense at the plate, that he needed to loosen up his upper body to get maximum bat speed. Suddenly, watching Redford at the plate, Manuel noticed something. It was the way Redford, as Roy Hobbs, held the bat aloft in his right hand, pointing it at the pitcher until the moment he began his delivery. "Let's try that," Manuel said. It worked.
  
  At first, Thome was a little worried that pointing the bat was going to be construed as show-boating. "So I had to modify it a bit," he said. "I always make sure I'm pointing it a little more to the right."
• It appears as if Jim is calling his shot, like Babe Ruth, before each at-bat. He waves his bat several times with his right hand,then points the barrel out in the general direction of the pitcher.
  
  "I'm just relaxing the upper half of my body," he explained. "It loosens up the muscles. That's all that is."
  
  But it is also a timing mechanism that Charlie Manuel taught Thome. Jim had trouble keeping his weight back, especially vs. lefty pitchers. Too much nervous energey, Manuel said. The rest, as they say, is a history -- a history of almost 600 major league home runs.

• Jim has one of the sweetest swings in baseball.

• He gradually transformed himself from an opposite-field hitter to a more dangerous pull hitter by moving closer to the plate and using his hands more.

• He adjusted so he can hit breaking balls a little bit. He handles a bat like the seasoned veteran he is and works hard to get a count where he can get the desired results. He handles right-and lefthanded pitching very well, but some southpaws give him trouble, he admits -- especially ones that come from the side. "A key for me is relaxing at the plate when I face lefties. I have to avoid swinging at bad pitches. You don't want to put yourself in a hole."

• He is very aggressive at the plate, and he has exceptional bat speed. His knowledge of the strike zone is outstanding. Thome has one of the sharpest batting eyes in the game, consistently driving up the opposing hurler's pitch count, and giving the rest of the lineup a chance to see pitches early in the game.

• "When a pitcher is warming up before a game, I concentrate on everything he throws," Jim revealed. "I'll see him throw a changeup and that will be going through my mind. Then when I get in the box, I try to concentrate really hard. When you step in the box, you must have confidence. You must feel nobody can get you out. Confidence and mental attitude can take you a long way."

• He is a very intense player and a hard worker.

• Jim is a great hitter to left-center field. He is fearless at the plate and has a good idea of what he wants to do every trip up there.

• It's easy to spot Thome. He's the one with his uniform pants leg rolled up to his knees with socks pulled real high.
  
  In 1993, Jim adopted some Babe Ruth-style knee socks. "Charlotte pitchers Bill Wertz and Mike Christopher were teasing me to pull my socks up like the old-timers did," Thome said. "So I pulled them up one day, started doing well -- and never put them down."

• He draws a whole lot of walks and works the count. When he does offer at the first pitch, he is deadly.

• Thome always sees a lot of pitches in most every at-bat.

• Thome steps out of the box and adjusts his gloves. He touches the fat part of the bat. He knocks the dirt off his cleats. What is he thinking?
  
  "Nothing," he says -- and that is the key. He watches very little video of pitchers; he watches very little video of himself. Mostly, he wants the mind blank. And he wants the background black. He wants the ball to glow in his vision. He's not a guess hitter. He does not sit on the fastball and adjust to the curve.
  
  "It's still just playing baseball for me," Jim says. "I want to go out there and play some baseball, just like I did when I was a kid."
  
  LOTS OF K'S, LOTS OF WALKS

• From 1996 through 2003 -- seven full seasons -- Thome average 106 walks a season.

• If there is a downside to Thome's offense, it is that he takes strike three too much.

• Thome tied a Major Leauge record April 9, 2000 when he struck out five times in a nine-inning game. He was the 37th player to do it.

• Thome struck out an Indians-team-record 185 times in 2001, falling one K short of Rob Deer's AL record of 186 set in 1987.

• In 2000, his offense slipped, with Jim posting his lowest batting average -- .269 -- since 1994. Opposing teams loaded the right side of the infield against Jim, knowing he rarely hits a ball to the left side. He tried to beat the shift, but his results were not real good. His big swing pulls the ball to right.
  
  But in 2001, he bounced back with one of his best seasons.

• Thome has the career home run record for the Cleveland Indians, topping Albert Belle's mark of 242 on May 29, 2001.

• Jim's 39 RBI in the month of July 2001 were the most by an Indians player since Hal Trosky had 45 RBI in 1936. And Thome was only the fifth player since 1983 to have 39 RBI in a month.
  
  BIG FIRST YEAR WITH PHILLIES

• In 2003, 14 of Thome's home runs either tied the score or gave the Phillies the lead, and they were 29-12 in games in which he homered.

• Jim's performance in August and September 2003 was highly impressive. He hit 20 homers with 51 RBIs in the final two months of the season. In comparison, look at the top two finishers in the National League MVP voting: Barry Bonds hit 12 homers with 22 RBIs and Albert Pujols had 14 homers with 26 RBIs in the final two months.

• In 2003, Jim hit .254 with 10 home runs in 177 at-bats vs. lefthanded pitchers, and .272 with 37 home runs in 401 at-bats against righthanders.

• Thome admitted at the end of the 2004 season that his various finger injuries (broken right middle finger in March; injured thumb in April) were nagging problems all year. But he played through them, with help from a big dose of cortisone. These injuries do not excuse Thome's lack of production with runners in scoring position, though (he hit .203). That was an all-year issue, and the thought is that it was just one of those things.
  
  In 2004, Jim was seventh in the National League with a .581 slugging percentage. But, again, he only hit .203 with runners in scoring position. Giving credence to this being an anomaly is the fact that he batted .305 in those situations during the two previous seasons.

• Former teammate, relief pitcher Todd Jones, used to write a short, weekly column for The Sporting News, talking up some of the nuances in the game of baseball. Early in the 2006 season, Jones describes Thome  as "a middle-of-the-order monster who preys on sinkers away and hanging curveballs but still is lightning-quick on balls inside." He also refers to Thome as "a baseball player's player."

• August 16, 2011: Thome hit his 600th career home run off the Tigers' Daniel Schlereth and became just the 8th major league player to reach that mark.

• June 23, 2012: Jim set a Major League record with his 13th career walk-off home run, passing Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle and Frank Robinson -- all of whom hit 12. For Thome, it was his first walk-off with Philadelphia. He is one of three active players to hit walk-off homers with four different clubs (Indians, White Sox, Twins, Phillies), according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Johnny Damon (Royals, Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers and Rays) and Carlos Pena (Athletics, Tigers, Red Sox and Rays) are the others.
  
  

• As of the start of the 2013 season, Thome's career Major League stats were: .276 batting average, 612 homeruns and 2,328 hits with 1,699 RBI's in 8,422 at-bats.

• In 1997, Thome moved from third base to first base. And he displays good range, due to his aggressive personality. He goes after every ball hit to his side of the field. His footwork around the first base bag is excellent and at six-foor-four, gives his fellow infielders a nice target.
• Thome has made improvements at first base, but is still really not that good on defense. And his mistakes come in bunches.
• At the hot corner, Jim's defense was only adequate -- nothing special. However, he did seem to have that third baseman's mentality. He comes to play hardball.

• "If you can go out in the Big Leagues and make the routine plays, then you are going to play a long, long time. I'm not ever going to be the type who can cover a lot of range, but if I can make the routine plays I will be out there a long time because I think my bat will take me that far."

• He has an average arm. But he knows where to throw the ball.

• He has some trouble scooping balls out of the dirt.

POST-PLAYING CAREER POSITIONS

• July 1, 2013: Thome joined the White Sox organization as a special assistant to general manager Rick Hahn. Jim consults with Hahn and assistant GM Buddy Bell and work with the major league staff and players as well as visiting the minor league teams, evaluating player performance.

• April 26, 2017:  Jim Thome never really thought about becoming a baseball analyst or a member of the media when he was putting together a Hall of Fame-caliber career over 22 seasons on the field.  

  But when the opportunity arose for Thome to join MLB Network as an on-air personality on a part-time basis, the affable slugger was excited for the challenge. Thome will be appearing as an analyst across the network's studio programming, making his debut on MLB Tonight on Monday, May 1, 2017, alongside former teammate Sean Casey and host Fran Charles.

• Jan 24, 2018: Thome's power leads to Hall of Fame election. Former White Sox slugger received 89.8 percent of votes in first year on ballot. White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf had a nickname for newly elected first-ballot Hall of Famer Jim Thome when they regularly faced him during his time with the Indians. That nickname was shared by Williams with Thome, one of the game's great sluggers, after the White Sox acquired Thome via trade from the Phillies on Nov. 25, 2005. Actually, it was a nickname Williams didn't initially want to share until an intrigued Thome insisted.

  "I said, 'Yeah, well, your nickname is Jim [expletive] Thome, because it seems like every time we played you, you did the kind of damage to where we were going, there's Jim [expletive] Thome again,'" Williams said with a laugh. "I didn't like him very much prior to us getting him."

  Thome, who received 379 votes for 89.8 percent support from the Baseball Writers' Association of America voters as announced by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, hit .300 with 43 homers and 117 RBIs lifetime against the White Sox. Aaron Rowand, who was traded to Philadelphia for Thome, was asked what it was like to face Thome as the opposition. 

  Rowand's response was summed up by two words. "A nightmare," Rowand said. "It was my second year in the big leagues, and I went in for defense for Carlos Lee late in the game and Bobby Howry was on the mound. We were in Cleveland, and [Thome] hit a ball over my head, a home run that went about half-to-three-quarters up the bleachers in left field.

  Over four seasons with the White Sox, Thome had 134 home runs, 369 RBIs and a .933 OPS. He launched his 500th career homer in walkoff fashion against the Angels' Dustin Moseley on Sept. 16, 2007. "He was an amazing person, player, hitter, teammate," Rowand said. "As much as he doesn't like receiving, he gives that much more of himself to other people."

  Joyce Thome, Jim's mother, died following a battle with lung cancer on Jan. 5, 2005, and Thome, a proud native of Peoria, Ill, and a true family man, said joining the White Sox and having his family so close helped ease the pain of his mom's death. Thome made five other Major League stops after his White Sox tenure, but he found a true baseball family in Chicago.

  "I love the fans, I love the White Sox organization and they've always treated me with the utmost respect," said Thome, who received the news with his wife, Andrea, and children, Lila and Landon, close by at home. "That starts at the top with Jerry Reinsdorf. He's one of the true gentlemen, good men in the game that loves the game." (S Merkin - MLB.com - Jan 24, 2018)

• 1992 Spring Training: Jim suffered a wrist injury. Strange thing was, it only affected Thome at the plate. He could field and throw, but he couldn't swing a bat. So, while his wrist healed, Jim concentrated on his defense. He worked so hard that when he finally was able to start swinging the bat again, he had developed tendinitis in his shoulder. Thus, after just a few games with the Major League club, Thome was back on the D.L. Basically, the 1992 season was a bust for Jim.
• 1996 Season: After the season, Thome had the hamate bone in his right hand removed.
  
  Jim broke the bone in his last at-bat in game one of the 1996 American League Playoffs (Indians vs. Orioles). He then started games two and three before sitting out the last game (number four). "I broke it when I fouled a ball straight back off Randy Myers," Thome said. "I could feel something wrong with my hand. They gave me a couple shots of cortisone."
  

• Jim went on the D.L. August 8, 1998 after breaking a bone in his right hand. He was hurt the night before when Tampa LHP Wilson Alvarez hit him with a pitch. The pitch fractured the fifth metacarpal in his hand. It was a non-displaced fracture, meaning the bone is cracked, but still in place. He was reactivated September 16.

• 1999 Season: The Indians attribute a sore back that Thome played with throughout the season as being a result of lifting too many weights during the offseason.

• March 5, 2004: Thome broke the middle finger of his right hand during fielding drills. The tip of his finger was broken while fielding ground balls hit by coach Charlie Manuel. But he didn't need a pin inserted, or surgery. He missed almost all of the rest of Spring Training, wearing a splint on his right middle finger for a couple of weeks. He could do everything except swing a bat and throw, as far as training.
  
  He had a couple of cortisone shots for the troublesome finger at different times throughout the 2004 season.

• May 1-21, 2005: Thome was on the D.L. with a lower back strain.

• July 1, 2005: Jim was on the D.L. with tendinitis in his right elbow. Then, in mid-August, he had season-ending surgery on that elbow. Dr. James Andrews repaired a frayed tendon in Birmingham, Alabama. That involved removing the degenerated part of the tendon.
  
  The inflammation of the muscles and tendons in Thome's right elbow is chronic.

• April 28-May 20, 2007: Thome was on the D.L. with a rib cage injury.

• March, 2009: Jim was sidelined with a sore back.

• May 3-22, 2011: Thome was on the D.L. with a strained left oblique.
  
  June 2, 2011: Jim was back on the D.L. with a quadriceps strain.

• May 1-June 6, 2012: Thome was on the D.L. with a strained lower back.
  
  July 29, 2012: Jim was on the D.L.with back spasms, receiving an epidural.
  
  And on August 7-September 21, 2012, Thome was diagnosed with a herniated disk, via an MRI. He was sure to be out at least four weeks.