Hank found his batting eye in Minneapolis, slamming seven homers and hitting .340 with a torrid 1.209 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging average) in 14 games. Thanks largely to his phenomenal hitting, the Millers won 12 of the games in which he participated to climb back into the American Association pennant race before his recall to New York on August 28.
Back with the Giants, Thompson resumed his place on the bench behind hot-hitting Bobby Thomson. Several sources credit Hank with contributing greatly to the Giants’ sensational stretch drive, but that was not the case. After starting 68 of the Giants’ first 88 games at third base, he didn’t start another game the rest of the season. In fact, his only notable contribution to the “Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff” came on September 16 when he replaced Bobby Thomson at third base after Bobby was ejected in the fourth inning of the second game of a doubleheader with the Pirates. Hank banged out two hits and drove in the go-ahead run with a ninth-inning fly ball in a 6-4 Giants victory. His only other action after his recall was seven unsuccessful pinch-hitting appearances.
On the play immediately preceding Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World,” Giants right fielder Don Mueller broke his ankle sliding safely into third base on a Whitey Lockman double. Therefore, Hank Thompson was pressed into service in right field for the World Series. Though Hank hadn’t played the outfield for the Giants all year, he’d played left field during his two-week stint in Minneapolis because the Millers’ third-base job was manned by future Negro League Hall of Fame third baseman Ray Dandridge.
Hank didn’t exactly distinguish himself in the garden or at the plate in the Fall Classic. He committed two damaging errors in right field and hit only .143 for the Series as the Yankees won in six games.
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