The Pecan Park Eagle

Bud Thomas, SS
BR/TR, 6′ 0″, 180 ilbs
1951 St. Louis Browns

Right behind the curious list of MLB players who retired with one hit in their only big league times at bat is another fun group. Those are the guys who stuck long enough for a cup of coffee, did well, and then disappeared forever with no further shots at the show. Many of these fellows were late season call-ups in September who did well in a handful of games and then, for one reason or another, never made another big league roster appearance during the regular season.

Sometimes the reason for the missing second chance is clear. A guy gets injured in the off-season and is never able to play again. Another fellow only got his first chance as an older ballplayer and simply decides to retire before another try comes open. And, of course, back in the reserve clause era, some players just got stacked in talent-deep farm systems and were never given another opportunity.

22-year-old Bud Thomas of the 1951 St. Louis Browns was one of those One-Month-Wonders. He didn’t exactly set the woods on fire in his short big league run, but a .350 batting average in 14 games over 27 days time is still nothing to dismiss lightly. Between September 2nd and 29th of 1951, Thomas collected 7 hits, including one home run as his only extra base hit in 20 times at bat. He scored 3 runs and registered the one RBI that came with his solo shot homer off Alex Kellner of the Philadelphia Athletics on September 16, 1951. Bud never drew a big league walk and he struck out three times.

Bud Thomas went into the spring of 1952 hoping for another shot in the majors, but instead found himself back in the minors with no further explanation from the big club. As was his style, he gave it his all with acceptance, but the hole just got deeper.

In 1952, Bud Thomas continued his fine defensive work, but he began to slip on offense, batting close to the .200 Mendoza Line at three Brownie farm team stops. There was no September call-up in 1952. He batted .193 in 77 games for Double A San Antonio in 1953 and then retired to begin his long career as a teacher, counselor, principal, and school superintendent.

I was privileged to meet Bud Thomas and his charming wife at a 2003 dinner in St. Louis honoring all former members of the St. Louis Browns. In conversation that day, I found him to be a great guy and a really fine at-peace-with-himself, down-to-earth decent human being. “Walking Integrity” is a good way to describe the man.

Bud now looks back on the fact he never got another big league chance in the healthiest of philosophical ways. In the Fall 2012 edition of Pop Flies, the official magazine of the St. Louis Browns Historical Society, Bud cleared the air on his feelings about that second shot that never came. They evolved as good feelings about what he did have to keep forever from that one shining September in 1951.

82-year-old Bud Thomas, a native of Sedalia Missouri, answered plainly and straight out: “I was around long enough to make one complete circuit around the league during the golden years. It was a dream come true.”

Bud Thomas got a bigger bite of the baseball dream than most of us who love the game will ever know. As did the rest of us who gathered together in St. Louis that fine day in 2003, Bud Thomas treated Stan Musial as the grand icon of the game that he truly is when “The Man” showed up like  a drop-in guest neighbor to visit with his ancient St. Louis Brown contemporaries and the rest of us long ago Brownie and Cardinal fans. Bud didn’t once stop to remind Musial in a teasing way that his own career BA of .350 was .019 points higher than Stan’s .331 career MLB mark. It was a beautiful afternoon and evening, one in which everybody just chilled out and enjoyed a day and night of talking baseball, the game we all love.

God bless you for being a big part of that memory, John Tillman “Bud” Thomas. Hope our paths cross again someday.

Bud Thomas Photo from the 2003 St. Louis Browns Reunion …

Bud Thomas (L) & a Former Browns Bat Boy (Name Unknown) Renew Old Acquaintance in 2003.