Hank Thompson was a truly unusual talent. Despite a pedestrian .267 lifetime batting average, he combined power with a sharp eye at the plate to finish with an excellent .825 career OPS. For comparison purposes, Hall of Fame third-base contemporary George Kell retired with a .781 career mark. In fact, according to Baseball-reference.com, “Thompson has a higher Adjusted OPS than ten of the third basemen in the Hall of Fame, although his career was much shorter than most of them.”
Listed at a smallish 5-feet-9 and 174 pounds (he personally claimed to be only 5-8˝ and 168), Thompson managed to generate tremendous power with the bat. He was reportedly awarded $2,000 for hitting a homer into the distant center-field bleachers during a Cuban Winter League game. The back of his 1957 Topps baseball card states, “He has been known to put the ball out of the park high over the Polo Grounds 450 feet sign many times.” A bit of hyperbole, maybe, but he obviously had a reputation for hitting the ball a long way.
Though not a prolific base stealer in the major leagues, Thompson was fast on the bases. In fact, his power-speed rating ranked seventh and eighth in the league in 1950 and 1953 respectively.
Hank demonstrated this rare blend of speed and power on August 16, 1950, when he hit two inside-the-park homers in one game against the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds. He was the first big leaguer to accomplish that feat since 1939, and it wasn’t matched again until Dick Allen did it in 1972.
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