Ode to Big Jim. I tip my hat to Thome, even if the big media didn't

One of my favorite things to do these days is sit down with a Blue Moon, fire up the flat screen and watch the Twins on TV. It's something the entire family enjoys, actually (except for the Blue Moon ... I have a strict no-drinking-while-watching-baseball policy for the kids, 'cuz I'm just hard core like that.)

It's fun to lounge on couch and shout encouragement to my favorite player, Joe Mauer, or shout insults at Danny Valencia for booting another grounder. And I can sit through a lot of it. Sometimes they make me angry, angry enough to flip over to "Criminal Minds" or whatever animal is eating another on Animal Planet.

And there has been fodder for anger this year. The first two months, for example, revealed some of the worst baseball any of us has seen in years. And over the past few weeks, they slid again. The Twins have fallen enough in the standings to where just about everyone who pays attention is saying their season is over. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I'll keep watching. Why?

Jim Thome.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine, Andrew Miller, posted a clip of some bozos saying Thome doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame because he's never won a World Series. And, this dope said, he doesn't deserve to get in because the dope can't be certain Thome didn't use performance enhancing drugs.

I started thinking a little more about Thome that night, and how almost everything I've heard about the man has been positive. He plays the game with ferocity, but treats people with respect. He's a kind man, a gentle giant, and everyone who knows him says he's about the nicest guy on whatever team he's on.

I also started thinking about his home-run chase, and how odd it was that more media haven't been focusing on it. When Derek Jeter hit his 3000th hit a month ago or so, it was as like American had just landed on the moon. And my hat goes off to him. Hell of an achievement. Props to Jeter, he's one of kind and baseball has seldom produced a more well-rounded player and leader.

But Jim Thome's march toward 600 homers was a much more rare feat. Only 8 players stand ahead of him. He is truly in an elite group of power hitters, possibly the most coveted and elite group in professional sports.

And so, the other day, while I would have much preferred to be at my home watching the game on the flat screen and sipping a Blue Moon, I was in the office, working. I've an old-fashioned radio on my desk that I play when the Twins are on. (It's great, it's from about 1930 or 1940 and has that deep, tube-driven sound of the old radios.) Radio broadcasts are roughly 10 seconds ahead of TV broadcasts, so when stuff happens, I know about it a little earlier than the TV audience. This gives me the chance to run over to the newsroom TV -- a relic from about 1990 that is, to put it mildly, a far cry from my spiffy TV at home -- and watch what I'd just heard happen on the radio.

The night Thome hit his 600th homer, he'd also hit his 599th. So I knew ever subsequent at bat for the Twins' No. 25 had the potential to make history. So when the radio play-by-play guys announced Thome's next at bat, I walked over to the TV.

A minute later, I heard the radio guys say, "This one is hit deep!" and I knew I'd be able to watch history. He hit it, he lumbered around the bases (Thome just might be the slowest guy in baseball) and crossed home plate even a bigger hero than he already was.

There was some fanfare, of course. The Detroit Tigers, the home team that night, used their giant scoreboard to announce it. And the Detroit fans, in a classy show of sportsmanship, gave Thome a standing ovation.

I wondered, then, about that dope who said Thome doesn't belong in the Hall of  Fame, wondered how different this story would have been covered had Thome hit that ball for an East Coast audience. I think he would have gotten more attention. But not as much as Jeter. And I think there's something sad about that.

Jeter's a star. A good looking guy with super model or Hollywood girlfriends. He loves the New York  City night life, is featured in fashion magazines and his social life is reported on daily by New York City newspapers. And a great player.

Thome? He's a big country boy who is polite and hits 500-foot homers. He's modest and down to earth, and I can imagine being able to sit with him in my basement watching a ball game. And a great guy, from what I can tell.

So, media attention or not, when my baseball-loving son asks me which player I prefer, which player I'd like him to emulate, I'll tell him Thome.