Thome’s career is the apotheosis of “consistent, never spectacular.” He’s never had the huge fluctuation in numbers that so many of these other guys did. He’s a meat eating farmboy who’s never had that explosion of weight gain you saw in Sosa and Bonds (that picture of him when he’s 22 is fine and dandy, but he’s 55 pounds heavier now that he’s almost 40, and that poundage is clearly concentrated in his gut, aided by his famed country boy diet).

http://insider.espn.go.com/proxy/proxy.dll/insider/magazine/story?id=1807670&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fproxy%2fproxy.dll%2finsider%2fmagazine%2fstory%3fid%3d1807670

Guys like Thome and Bagwell should be shooting up our appreciation scale – consistency and endurance, in all likelihood never aided by any cheating.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/thomeji01.shtml

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/baseball_cards/samples/1987_Topps.jpg