On a team filled with pleasant surprises – unsung veterans enjoying career years and unheralded rookies making headlines – Hank Thompson was the 1951 Giants’ biggest disappointment. After his strong 1950 performance, the 25-year-old third sacker had been counted on to be a force in the middle of the New York lineup. Instead, he lost his regular job in midseason and ended up watching the club’s sensational stretch run for the pennant from the bench. Although he subsequently won back the Giants’ regular third-base job and starred for the 1954 world champions, he never fulfilled his early promise.
Opening Day of that fateful 1951 season found Thompson manning third base and hitting in the third spot against the Boston Braves. He got off to a horrible start, but by June 4 his average was up to a respectable .278 and his seven home runs were the second highest total on the club. But by July 18, the Giants 88th game of the season, Hank’s average was down to .239 and he’d added only one homer to his total. That day he was spiked by Chicago’s Frank Hiller and knocked out of action. The next afternoon outfielder Bobby Thomson, who’d lost his center-field job to rookie sensation Willie Mays almost two months earlier, was installed at third base.
A few days later, it was announced that Thompson had been optioned to the Giants’ Ottawa International League farm club with pitcher Al Corwin coming up to take his place. But Hank never actually reported to Ottawa, instead spending his time with the Giants working himself back into shape. He was activated and saw his first action since the injury when he appeared unsuccessfully as a pinch-hitter on August 1. Over the next two weeks, he made five more pinch-hitting appearances with only a lone single before he was optioned to the Giants’ Minneapolis Millers farm team in the American Association.
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