Frank J. Thomas Forum

Frank Thomas died yesterday. One of very few players I ever met. My two best friends and I were at the Hall of Fame for Greg Maddux’s induction, which was the same year Frank Thomas got in. A friend had asked me to get Frank Thomas’s autograph for his brother, if I happened to encounter the inductee. 
Well, when we came across this Frank Thomas—the Original Met and quite the slugger in his day—it seemed obvious that I had to get HIS autograph for my friend’s brother. Mr. Thomas was very sweet and clearly proud of his career. He wrote a little something on the picture, but forgot to sign. I reminded him. One of the friends who was with me even bought a bat for him to sign. It was all a lovely exchange. 
When I got home snd gave my friend the picture, he was quite confused. It was signed “Frank Thomas,” but the picture was a skinny white guy, not a gigantic black man with thighs the size of my waste. He eventually caught on, and great fun was had by all. 
And then I made sure to collect every Frank Thomas Topps card. 
Anyway, rest in peace, Sir. Thanks for the memories. 
v3
 

But this is the white Frank Thomas guy that has died instantly, not the black Frank Thomas.

Makes me wonder how many other ball players had the same name.   I know there was a Mike Tyson who played baseball, another Randy Johnson (who I actually have an autograph from).  Might be worth starting another thread to try to list them all.  Would make for an interesting collection to have all the different players with the same names as cards side by side.

In response to same names, a member has a user list of such people: https://www.tcdb.com/List.cfm/lid/8946/Same-Name-...-Different-Person?C=32

And RIP the original Frank Thomas (1965 Topps shows him as a member of the Phillies).

The only Frank Thomas this Met fan cared about. RIP Frank.

Frank was a fellow card collector.  His incredibly impressive collection that he amassed during his childhood and playing days was lost in a fire so the folks at oldbaseball.com got together and started donating replacements to him.  I have a 4 page note from him answering a number of questions from when I sent him off a few dozen dupe vintage cards in the late 90's.

Frank was an excellent dude. A few years ago, he reached out to a Mets message board I was on and spent a day with us answering questions; he then sent autographed cards to a bunch of us. A true original.

Um, yes. Which was clearly implied by everything in my post. 

Frank was the 31st oldest living former major leaguer. 

So, what is a yellow tango?  (-: