{"id":4091,"date":"2014-07-14T10:30:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T15:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=4091"},"modified":"2014-07-14T10:39:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T15:39:24","slug":"comcast-sportsnet-doc-revels-in-frank-thomas-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2014\/07\/14\/comcast-sportsnet-doc-revels-in-frank-thomas-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast SportsNet special revels in Frank Thomas glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Frank<\/a>

<\/a> Frank Thomas<\/p><\/div>\n

The upcoming induction of White Sox legend Frank Thomas into the National Baseball Hall of Fame is cause for celebration \u2014 and for an ambitious documentary on Comcast SportsNet Chicago.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to Cooperstown: Frank Thomas,\u201d<\/a> an original one-hour special on the life and career of \u201cThe Big Hurt,\u201d will premiere at 6:30 p.m. Thursday (with rebroadcasts at 10 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. July 26 and 4:30 p.m. July 27).<\/p>\n

Produced, written and edited by Comcast SportsNet\u2019s Sarah Lauch and Ryan McGuffey, the documentary chronicles Thomas\u2019s rise from childhood in Columbus, Georgia, to immortal White Sox slugger. Included are interviews with Thomas (who now works for Comcast SportsNet as a studio analyst) as well as Jerry Reinsdorf, Ken \u201cHawk\u201d Harrelson, Tom Paciorek, Ed Farmer, Darrin Jackson, Bobby Howard, Walt Hriniak, Jim Fannin, Paul Konerko, Billy Beane, Mike Scioscia, Ron Washington, Terry Francona, Kirk Gibson and Don Mattingly.<\/p>\n

\"Richard<\/a>

Richard Roeper<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s narrated by veteran Chicago columnist and broadcaster Richard Roeper, a lifelong White Sox fan and author of Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFrank Thomas is not only a Chicago baseball legend, but he will go down as one of the greatest athletes to ever play the game,\u201d Kevin Cross, news director of Comcast SportsNet, said in a statement. \u201cOur production team, led by Sarah and Ryan, has truly captured the story of Frank\u2019s life in a special way and, more importantly, fans will be able to understand the true essence of what this Hall of Famer is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Thursday\u2019s premiere of \u201cWelcome to Cooperstown: Frank Thomas,\u201d Comcast SportsNet will air a White Sox game from his 1993 MVP season \u2014 specifically July 27, 1993 with Thomas going 4-4 at the plate with two home runs and five RBI, leading the White Sox to a 7-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians.<\/p>\n

The Hall of Fame induction ceremonies <\/a>will be July 27 in Cooperstown, New York.<\/p>\n

Here are excerpts from the documentary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

THOMAS on being passed up in the MLB Draft:<\/strong> \u201cNot getting drafted out of high school was the worst moment of my life at that time because I knew that I was much better than pretty much half that draft.\u00a0 It was a lot of guys I played with in high school.\u00a0 A lot of guys got drafted.\u00a0 I want to say seven, eight, nine guys got drafted and I felt like I was the best player in the state.\u00a0 Most of the scouts played off, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re just a football player playing baseball.\u2019 I took it serious because I knew what I had to give for baseball.\u00a0 They could have signed me out of high school for a dozen baseballs and a couple fungos.\u00a0 I was taking it hard because I wanted to play baseball.\u00a0 But, thank god I had the focus and the desire and the ability to play another sport.\u00a0 Football was my second sport, but it was really my first sport because all the big schools were recruiting me to play football.\u00a0 I just made that decision.\u00a0 My dad (Frank Sr.) told me, he said \u2018Hey, we got a full ride to Auburn, let\u2019s go be a football player and walk onto the baseball team later.\u2019 He was right and that fire was burnt there that I was going to be the best football player I could be\u2026and it turned out that going that extra yard for football made me a much better baseball player.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nTHOMAS on his first impression of Chicago:<\/strong> \u201cWhen I got here it was the biggest city I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 It motivated me.\u00a0 I\u2019m like, \u2018I can\u2019t be a failure here\u2026there\u2019s too many people watching.\u2019\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t easy being this big guy down in the minor leagues because everybody made a big deal out of it.\u00a0 I\u2019d have a lot of people call me saying \u2018they\u2019re making a big deal about you coming up this year\u2019\u2026and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m ready for it.\u2019\u00a0 I just felt that if I continued to work harder, harder, and harder\u2026I just didn\u2019t want to let anybody down.\u00a0 I had my dad pushing me too.\u00a0 My dad was there.\u00a0 He wanted me to be the best.\u00a0 He wanted me to go that extra mile.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nTHOMAS on the winning the MVP award in 1994, but losing out on the opportunity of possibly going to the World Series:<\/strong> \u201cIt was bittersweet.\u00a0 Of course you\u2019re happy winning another MVP, but to not finish that type of season with a team that was ready to go, and a year later we broke it all apart\u2026it hurts.\u00a0 It\u2019ll always hurt.\u00a0 You learn to live with things, but you\u2019ll never get over it.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never get over 1994.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nTHOMAS on being a part of the 2005 World Series champion White Sox team:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cBeing here so long, I felt it was my duty to be here for my teammates that year.\u00a0 It was my choice to come back early.\u00a0 (That team) had everything\u2026the pitching\u2026the defense\u2026we had power\u2026we had guys hit for average\u2026and we had a cohesion for the first time that I had never seen before that it seemed like the whole team got along.\u00a0 You had some strong personalities in there that when you want to go in a foxhole, those personalities were on that team.\u00a0 However, it was damaging to me, not to be on that field in 2005, but I saw something special and that\u2019s part of being a team.\u00a0 I had grown up a lot.\u00a0 I had been in the game a long, long time.\u00a0 I\u2019ve accomplished everything except getting a ring and I felt I could help guys mentally and help them with their approaches against certain guys I\u2019d faced over and over that season.\u00a0 I felt like I had a big voice on that team just because of that.\u00a0 But, I cared about those guys and I\u2019m so happy they got me to the finish line\u2026they got me a ring.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nWALT HRINIAK on Thomas\u2019 dominance at the plate:<\/strong> \u201cFrank Thomas is the best hitter I ever saw all around.\u00a0 If I had to pick one guy to start a lineup, Frank would be my guy and I\u2019d hit him third\u2026he\u2019d be the guy.\u00a0 Every day I went out there to work with Frank and every day we took batting practice.\u00a0 He did stuff that amazed me.\u00a0 He would do stuff in batting practice that would just blow you away\u2026and I played with Hank Aaron, I played against Willie Mays, I played against (Roberto) Clemente\u2026but every day, this guy did things with the bat in his hands that just blew me away.\u00a0 He\u2019d hit a ball down the right field line like a little \u2018Punch and Judy\u2019 and then, the next pitch he\u2019d hit over the centerfield wall, you know, 430 feet, c\u2019mon!\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nKEN \u201cHAWK\u201d HARRELSON on how he came up with \u201cThe Big Hurt\u201d:<\/strong> \u201cI just blurted it out one day.\u00a0 I kept saying, \u2018he hurt it, he hurt it, he hurt it.\u2019\u00a0 He\u2019d kill one into left center, \u2018he hurt it.\u2019\u00a0 One day he hits a home run\u2026I\u2019m watching him go around first base\u2026and I said, \u2018The Big Hurt\u2019 and it just blurted out and that\u2019s how that came about.\u00a0 It turned out to be a pretty good nickname for him.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nJERRY REINSDORF on Thomas\u2019 unique combination of power and average:<\/strong> \u201cFrank Thomas was amazing.\u00a0 He had such tremendous plate discipline.\u00a0 Rarely do you see a combination of power and plate discipline like he had.\u00a0 I mean, Ted Williams had it, but Frank was certainly one of the top two or three right-handed hitters that I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 He was just an amazing guy, but when he first came up, I don\u2019t think he hit a home run for the first three weeks I think\u2026and we were wondering if this guy was ever going to hit a home run, but it certainly turned out that he did.\u00a0 More importantly was his on-base percentage was incredible and his ability to use the whole field was incredible.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\nBILLY BEANE on Thomas\u2019 lasting impact in Oakland:\u00a0<\/strong> \u201cHe (Thomas) will always be known as a Chicago White Sox, but to have one of those great years, Hall of Fame career (years), come to Oakland and that year we won the division.\u00a0 He had a huge impact.\u00a0 We loved him as a player.\u00a0 We loved him as a person.\u00a0 We like him so much that our fantasy football league is forever named after him.\u00a0 There\u2019s only one Frank Thomas, but we wanted our players to be that type of hitter.\u00a0 The power, the patience, and then he had such professionalism about every single look at bat, he never wanted to give away a pitch, never wanted to give away one at bat, and it was great.\u00a0 He\u2019s a well-deserved Hall of Famer and, for a guy who spent one year out here, he put his mark on the people in Oakland.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nPAUL KONERKO on Thomas being one of the all-time great hitters:\u00a0<\/strong> \u201cJust like any other great hitter, when I say great hitter, he\u2019s on the short list of a few guys that\u2019s ever played.\u00a0 For me, it\u2019s just that if you hit for a bunch of power, you have to sacrifice average and discipline and, if you hit for high average and you\u2019re an on-base guy, then you don\u2019t hit for a lot of power.\u00a0 He just blows that out of the water.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s only a handful of guys that have done that\u2026that can do both.\u00a0 I know just in my own career that many times it feels like you have a choice.\u00a0 Well, I can try to hit for power, I can get some hits, but it\u2019s very hard to do both.\u00a0 I feel like it\u2019s one of the other a lot of the time, but when you have a guy like that who has an on-base percentage of .400 and hits .330, but also hits 40 home runs and drives in runs\u2026I mean, it seems like it is impossible.\u00a0 He\u2019s one of the few that pulled it off.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The upcoming induction of White Sox legend Frank Thomas into the National Baseball Hall of Fame is cause for celebration \u2014 and for an ambitious documentary on Comcast SportsNet Chicago. \u201cWelcome to Cooperstown: Frank Thomas,\u201d an original one-hour special on the life and career of \u201cThe Big Hurt,\u201d will premiere at 6:30 p.m. Thursday (with... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4091"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4098,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091\/revisions\/4098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}