Auburn officially unveils statue honoring baseball legend Frank Thomas

Baseball legend Frank Thomas was honored at Auburn University with a statue this weekend after his stellar career.

Thomas, a 2014 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, originally went to Auburn as a two-sport athlete. Injuries ultimately made Thomas drop football and focus solely on baseball, but he was a legend from the start.

Legends like him get big and beautiful statues. His nickname “The Big Hurt” was certainly appropriate.

The Frank Thomas statue is unveiled pic.twitter.com/PqAwm9XQDk

— Bryan Matthews (@BMattAU) April 8, 2023

Thomas went off as a freshman at Auburn. He finished with a .359 batting average and led the Tigers in RBI that season. At the end of his junior year, Thomas hit 19 home runs, batted .403 and had a slugging percentage of .801.

In the end, he finished with a school record 49 home runs.

Thomas was the No. 7 overall pick in the 1989 MLB Draft by the Chicago White Sox and made his big league debut August 2, 1990.

He played with the White Sox through the 2005 season. That year, Chicago won the World Series but Thomas was not on the postseason roster due to injury.

He still earned a ring for his contributions to the franchise and actually threw out the first pitch in Game 1 of the Divisional Series against the Boston Red Sox.

Thomas played until after the 2008 season with the Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays.

Throughout his legendary career, Thomas was a five-time All-Star, two-time AL MVP (1993, ‘94), four-time Silver Slugger Award winner and the AL batting champion in 1997.

The White Sox retired Thomas’ No. 35.

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Considered one of the greatest hitters of all-time, Thomas finished his career with a .301 batting average, 521 home runs, 1,704 RBI, 2,468 hits, 1,494 runs scored, a .419 on-base percentage and a .555 slugging percentage.