Jason Thompson

A random baseball memory I've carried in my mental briefcase for 33 years includes the tall left hander featured above, presumably ripping the ball to the right-hand side of the synthetic-turfed Three Rivers field.  I always pulled for Jason Thompson, and that may be why I remember watching in awe the Sports Center highlight reel from Tuesday, June 26, 1984 showcasing Thompson launching an incredible four home runs in a single afternoon - two dingers during each game of a Wrigley Field double-header versus the Cubs.

Only 29-years-old at the time of this impressive display of power, Thompson seemingly had many more years of baseball ahead of him.  He was a three-time All-Star, having made his most recent appearance in the mid-summer exhibition just two years prior.  However, Thompson's production dropped each subsequent year after that stellar 1982 campaign in which he hit .284 with 31 home runs and 101 RBIs.  Three years later Thompson was a mere shadow of his former self, combining a .241 batting average with 12 home runs and 61 RBIs.  By June 1986, only days away from turning 32, Thompson's playing days were over.

Whether he knew it or not, in the summer of 1984, Thompson's 11-year major league career was winding down.  Also in 1984, my baseball card collecting days were coming to an end.  Tired of trekking to the local QuickTrip to find they were either sold out of cards or, worse yet, suffering the disappointment of opening pack after pack only to be left with a stack of nondescript duplicates, in 1984 I bought two complete sets via the U.S. mail.  This, in what would be my last serious year of collecting, is how I acquired the Topps' Jason Thompson card pictured above.

The Pirates split the double-header with the Cubs that summer afternoon on Chicago's north side.  Knowing only that Thompson had crushed four homers, I assumed he must have felt like the king of the world post-game.  But life is seldom so easy and headlines never tell the full story.  Recounting the 9-8 Pirate second-game loss, Thompson told the press,  ''I had a chance to tie the score in the seventh inning, but struck out.  In the ninth I hit a weak ground ball that just about killed our chances of at least tying the game.''

That's life.  We strive for success and sometimes, with a little luck, we achieve it.  When we don't, we have to be careful not to dwell on our failures.  After all, there's always tomorrow.  Until there's not.

June 30, 1986 was Jason Thompson's last tomorrow in Major League Baseball.  An article from April 1987 catches up with Thompson, who appears to be living the life of Riley in southern California.  But what he really wants is another shot at baseball, a second chance for The Show that would never come.  Toronto's executive VP at the time and 2011 Hall of Fame inductee, Pat Gillick, was quoted as saying this about Thompson: "He's a hard guy to play.  The only thing you can do with him is DH him.  As far as his skills, he's a tough guy to play at first base.  He can't move.  You've got to pinch run for him.  He can't go from first to third.  He can't score on a sacrifice fly.  He's a very limited guy.  Based on our reports, we felt the guy was finished."

Ouch.  What do you do when prospective employers are quick to highlight everything you can't do?  We're told to never give up, to not be quitters.  So we fight back by working hard to prove those naysayers wrong.  This is what Thompson was doing in 1987.  But if the phone still doesn't ring after sweating in the cage for months on end, fielding hours upon hours of ground balls, and submitting letters of interest to every last potential employer, you just can't create your own baseball league from scratch and install yourself at first base.  At some point reality sets in, and you realize there is no tomorrow in your current field of expertise.  In order to survive, you part ways with what's no longer working and forge a new, better way ahead.