FRANK THOMAS BIO

A first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the most feared hitters in the history of Major League Baseball, Frank Thomas is a studio analyst for FOX Sports. In his role, Thomas appears at the desk for MLB WHIPAROUND and is part of FOX Sports’ pregame and postgame shows during the regular season and postseason, also contributing on remote at the All-Star Game and World Series. With Thomas as an analyst, FOX Sports’ MLB studio show won back-to-back Emmy Awards for Outstanding Studio Show – Limited Run during the network’s coverage of the 2016 & 2017 postseason.

A native of Columbus, Ga., Thomas displayed impressive size and athletic gifts at a young age, competing in baseball, basketball and football during his youth. Despite being a standout on the high school baseball team throughout his prep years, he wasn’t chosen in the 1986 MLB Draft and instead accepted a football scholarship to Auburn University as a tight end. After playing one season for the Tigers football team, Thomas quickly gravitated toward the diamond where his immense talent was immediately apparent to players and coaches alike. He was written into the lineup as a true freshman and went on to rewrite the program’s record books. Following his junior season in 1989, he was selected by the Chicago White Sox with the seventh overall pick in the first round of the draft, leaving Auburn as a three-time All-Southeastern Conference selection, a consensus All-American and the school’s all-time leader in home runs, runs batted in, total bases, extra base hits, slugging percentage and on-base percentage, despite only participating for three years.

Thomas wasted no time clubbing his way through the minors and onto the White Sox roster, needing only 181 games across three levels before making his Major League debut during the summer of 1990. Over the next two decades, he established himself as one of the deadliest hitters in the sport’s history, combining an exceptional batting eye and plate discipline with his prodigious power to produce a career statistics line that remains rivaled by only a select few. Nicknamed "The Big Hurt" for his towering presence in the batter’s box and punishing swing, Thomas played 19 seasons (16 with Chicago, who retired his No. 35 in 2010), was voted to five All-Star games, won two American League Most Valuable Player awards, four Silver Sluggers and was a member of the White Sox 2005 World Series Championship team. A career .301 hitter with an elite .419 on-base percentage, he amassed 521 home runs, 1,704 runs batted in, 2,468 hits and 1,667 walks (10th most all-time), and earned first-ballot induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in the summer of 2014.

Thomas is a partner in a number of different businesses, including his self-titled beverage line Big Hurt Beer and the Big Hurt Brewhouse, a bar/restaurant in Berwyn, Ill., that he helped open in the fall of 2014.