Henry "Hank" Thompson

[GeoPoto]

Thompson, Irvin, and Smith began the 1949 campaign with the Jersey City Giants. Smith posted a mediocre 10-8 record for the season, but Thompson and Irvin spent the first half of the year tearing up the International League. Irvin, the bigger Negro League name, outshone Thompson with Jersey City, although Hank’s .296 batting average, 14 homers, sensational .447 on-base percentage, and lusty .565 slugging average in 68 games was pretty impressive. When the pair were called up to the parent club in July, Hank, who’d bounced between shortstop and left field with Jersey City, took over the parent Giants’ regular second-base job. While Irvin stumbled in his first big-league exposure, Thompson hit a credible .280 and belted nine homers in 75 games. He was originally slotted in the leadoff spot, but was shifted to the third spot in the Giants batting order late in the season.

Before his promotion to the Giants, Hank and Maria Quesada had been married in Brooklyn. That offseason he didn’t play in the Cuban Winter League for the first time since 1946-47.

Caption accompanying the photograph: Leo Durocher, Giants Manager, welcomes Henry Thompson of Los Angeles, left, and Monte Irvin of Orange, N.J., right, first Negro players to wear Giant uniforms. (7-6-49):

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1695806123

[cgjackson222]

That's a fantastic picture of Thompson, Durocher and Irvin. Thompson and Irvin had so much talent--its a shame Irvin got injured.

Durocher was so pivotal in promoting the meritocracy of integration. Leo "the Lip" has many famous quotes, but one with the Giants organization was " “I’m only going to say one thing about color: You can be green or be pink on this team. If you can play baseball and help this team you’re welcome to play.”

[GeoPoto]

The next spring (1950), the Giants shifted Thompson to third base to clear second base for newly acquired Eddie Stanky. Often hitting in the cleanup spot, Hank enjoyed an excellent all-around season, batting .289, smacking 20 homers, and driving in a team-leading 91 runs in 148 games. In the field he participated in 43 twin killings in 138 appearances at third, breaking Pie Traynor’s 25-year-old National League record for double plays by a third baseman. Thompson’s record stood until 1974, when Atlanta’s Darrell Evans participated in 45 double plays in 160 games at third base.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1695892851
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1695892854

[Kevin]

I went to see dad on Monday. I brought the story up and he corrected me:

Dad was 15.

Mr Thompson asked for $100 initially and then lowered it to $50!

Great thread…

[GeoPoto]

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.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1695978480
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1695978484

[GeoPoto]

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.

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1696064310
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1696064324

[cgjackson222]

Hank Thompson, Willie Mays and Monte Irvin form the first all African American outfield for the 1951 World Series.