Major League Wiffleball
Wiffle Ball photos, tips, and product reviews

Congratulations to Jim Thome. Sure, I always found it annoying when he’d step in the batter’s box and point his bat at the pitcher, but on Monday night, he became only the 8th player in Major League Baseball history to hit 600 home runs. That’s quite an accomplishment.

To put it in perspective, the Major League Wiffleball all-time home run king, Mike Breen, hit 58 home runs in his career. Jim Thome has hit more than 10-times as many home runs, and he’s still going. He’s only a few home runs away from moving into 7th place on the all-time home run list. And he hasn’t been linked to steroids like a few of the other guys have.

We didn’t see the big deal about Alex Rodriguez hitting his 600th home run a couple of years ago. This one is different though. Probably because Jim Thome took a minute out of his life to autograph a Wiffle Ball for us.

Several other players on the Minnesota Twins also signed the ball, including Rene Rivera, who signed it just under Thome’s name. When I mentioned this to a fellow Wiffle Ball fan, he suggested that I wipe-off Rivera’s signature, along with the others on the ball (including Glen Perkins and Michael Cuddyer). However, I’ll keep them on there for now.

While looking up facts for Jim Thome, he seems to be known for being the biggest guy in baseball (NSFW). Good for him.

Another fact that I found surprising is that Thome has almost 1200 singles in his career. From my experience watching him play, he either walks, strikes out, or hits a home run. A little stat research shows that Thome is the active leader in strikeouts, and is 2nd on the all-time strikeout list. As for walks, only 7 other major league players have more career walks than him. That’s probably why I can’t recall ever seeing him hit a single.

Thome seems like a good guy too. In addition to signing our Wiffle Ball, he also uses a pink bat for breast cancer awareness on Mother’s Day, and was even voted the second friendliest player in baseball a few years ago. Glad to see a nice guy reach such a major baseball milestone. Hopefully a Hall of Fame plaque is in his near future.