1964-1965

Born in Peoria, Illinois, on February 4, 1936, James Leroy Thomas was raised by his mother, Dorothy (Hutchison) Johanson (1919-96), and his stepfather, Hildor E. Johanson (1908-91), who married his mother when Thomas was still a boy.

Lee has nearly always been referred to by his middle name, although he preferred the nickname “Lee” because he detested “Leroy.”

As a boy, Lee pursued sports with a passion. At Beaumont High School in St. Louis, from which he graduated in 1954, he lettered in football, basketball, and baseball, excelling in all three. As football team co-captain, he played halfback and fullback until he suffered an injury early in his senior year. As a forward in basketball, during his senior year he finished fifth in voting for the St. Louis sectional prep player of the year.

In baseball, splitting time between first base and the outfield, Lee hit .370 as a junior and .580 in his senior year, earning an outfield spot on the conference All-Star team in the latter year.

While Lee was in high school, Yankee scout Lou Maguolo started following him. Shortly after graduation, on June 19, 1954, Lee signed for a bonus. The team sent him to the Owensboro (Kentucky) Oilers in the Class D KITTY League to start his professional career.

Thomas went on to have a solid minor league career, advancing steadily through the Yankee organization for the first few seasons, moving up to Birmingham of the Class A Eastern League by 1956. He spent the next two seasons there, making the league All-Star team in 1958.

When the Yankees assigned him to Birmingham for yet another season, however, Lee—whose reputation for temper won him the nickname “Mad Dog”—walked away from spring training. Convinced to return, however, he had an even stronger season for Birmingham in 1959, earning a repeat appearance on the Eastern League All-Star team.

Initially at Amarillo in the Double-A Texas League in 1960 and wound up on his third minor-league All-Star team. Midway through the year, the Yankees promoted him to Triple-A Richmond in the International League.

In the off-season, the American League expanded from eight to ten teams, adding the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators. Lee went into spring training with a legitimate chance to make the major league roster.

Although he did not hit well during camp, Lee nonetheless went north with the team. On May 8, 1961, New York traded him to the expansion Angels. Despite some lack of enthusiasm about his value, Lee went on to have a solid rookie season. On June 6, batting against the Orioles’ Milt Pappas at home, he hit the first grand slam in Angels history.

At season’s end, his .284 average as an Angel stood second on the team, behind Albie Pearson’s .288. He also had slugged 24 home runs with 70 RBIs. He finished tied for third in the BBWAA voting for Rookie of the Year and second in the UPI poll for top AL rookie. He also was recognized as part of the Topps All-Rookie team.

His second season was even better. Lee earned a spot on both American League All-Star teams (the leagues played two Midsummer Classics from 1959-62). Thomas ended the year leading the surprising Angels in batting (.290), hitting 26 home runs with 104 RBIs (sixth in the league) as well. He also finished 11th in the balloting for MVP.

While Lee occasionally approached the level of play he had in his All-Star year, he never reached those heights again. The rest of his major-league career often frustrated him and his teams. During his first two seasons, he had averaged .288 and hit 50 home runs with 174 RBIs, but over the following six years with five different teams, he averaged only .240, with 54 additional home runs and 254 RBIs.

In 1963, Lee began the year suggesting that he would repeat and perhaps surpass his performance of the previous year. After a slow April to open 1964 (.208), Lee hit .295 in May and started June off well. However, the Angels decided he no longer fit in their future plans. The next day, Los Angeles traded him to the Red Sox for outfielder Lou Clinton.

The Sox needed a new left-handed hitter after Gary Geiger retired following surgical complications. The day after the deal, they started Thomas in right, batting fifth. Nearly immediately, it seemed he would indeed make the Angels regret trading him. In his first seven games following the trade, he blistered the baseball with something approaching a vengeance, going 14-for-29 with two home runs and seven RBIs. He cooled off after that spree but nonetheless finished the season with more respectable numbers: .262 with 15 home runs and 66 RBIs.

Going into the 1965 season, the Red Sox made Lee their everyday first baseman and he claimed the job emphatically. On Opening Day, he blasted a three-run home run in the third inning in a road game against Washington to give the Sox a lead they would not relinquish. Five days later, he hit a two-run single that helped Boston come back from a five-run deficit. A week after that, as part of a 4-for-6 day, he slugged a three-run, 15th-inning homer to lead the Sox to another victory over the Orioles, this time on the road. On May 1st, he was batting .289 with a .622 slugging average. He finished the year hitting .271, with 22 home runs, second on the club behind league HR chap, Tony Conigliaro,  and 75 RBIs.

Despite his solid play, however, that season was his last with Boston. The Red Sox finished an abysmal 62-100, in ninth place, 40 games behind the league champion Minnesota Twins, and the Red Sox decided the team would be rebuilding with youth. One of the players he named specifically who would likely be gone in the off-season was Thomas, who would turn 30 before the 1966 season opened. As it turned out, they gave the job to right-handed slugger, George Scott, who had won the Triple Crown in the Double-A Eastern League in 1965 and would go on to an All-Star major-league career.

On December 15, 1965, the Sox traded Thomas, pitcher Arnold Earley, and a player to be named later, to the Braves, who would be relocating from Milwaukee to Atlanta for the next year. In exchange, the Sox received pitchers Dan Osinski and Ray Sadowski.

As for the Braves, they saw Lee as a badly-needed asset, since they were looking for an everyday first baseman who could hit for some power, a commodity they had lacked for three seasons. Since Joe Adcock’s departure, the team had used catchers Joe Torre and outfielder Felipe Alou at first. Although he did not hit well in camp, Lee nonetheless impressed the team with his hard work and his willingness to do whatever he needed for the team.

Lee, however, did not last long with the Braves. Once again, he had a slow start to his season, and by the middle of May, his average was below .200 and, on May 28th, the team traded him to the Chicago Cubs. As it turned out, the trade seemed to rejuvenate Ernie Banks, who almost immediately started hitting and averaged close to .300 from the day Lee joined the team until the end of the season. For the remainder of the 1966 season, Lee started only occasionally and appeared in only 75 games with the Cubs. The next year was much the same: he spent the entire season with Chicago, appearing in 77 games.

On February 9, 1968, Chicago traded Thomas to his sixth team in eight years, the Houston Astros, for two minor-league players. Lee served primarily as a bench player with Houston. But it was another disappointing season. He batted only .194 with no evidence of the power he’d once had, hitting only one home run and four doubles for a .229 slugging average. On September 27th, he appeared in his last game as a major-league player.

Rather than play in the minor leagues, Lee elected to go to Japan in 1969.

He returned to the U.S. the following year and, after a tryout with the Cardinals, spent 1970 with their Triple-A team in Tulsa. When the season ended, he hung up his spikes—but was far from finished with baseball. For two seasons (1971-72), he served as bullpen coach for the Cards before managing in their minor league system for two more years (1973 with the Gulf Coast League Red Birds, 1974 with Modesto of the California League).

Following that season, Lee moved into the team’s front office, first for a year as assistant director of sales and promotions. In October 1975, he became traveling secretary, a job he held until the fall of 1980, when the team had a series of management shakeups.

Thomas’ work for the Cardinals directly led to their success in the eight years after his appointment. So when the Philadelphia Phillies fired their vice-president for player personnel in June 1988, president Bill Giles had Thomas at the top of his list of candidates to fill the open job. (At the time, the Phils’ VP of player personnel fulfilled the role of GM but without the GM title.) Twice before, Lee had come close to a GM job but this time, he got the position with an organization that had begun the decade with great promise—winning its first World Series in 1980 and then a second NL pennant in 1983—but had struggled after that.

Lee came into the job intending to make significant changes, largely because he perceived the team as listless, lacking his notion of the sort of ideal player who could motivate his teammates. Over the next few years, the team continued to struggle, but Lee set about remaking it according to his vision. As GM, he took his time before making any significant deals. He began making a series of major deals that eventually created the Phillies’ 1993 NL championship team. Lee acquired 20 of the 25 players on the 1993 team’s postseason roster through trades or free-agent signings. His splendid work earned him the Sporting News Executive of the Year Award for that year.

Lee lasted another four-plus seasons with Philadelphia, which did not have another winning season the rest of the decade. The team fired him in December 1997. Following this, Lee worked as a special assistant to the GM for the Boston Red Sox from 1998-2003, and as a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers until 2006. After that, he decided to retire, but he came back to the game in 2011 as a special assistant to the executive vice president of baseball operations for the Baltimore Orioles.

When he was a player, during offseasons Lee also worked as a car salesman and truck driver, among other jobs.

Lee Thomas died on August 31st at the age of 86, having been in hospice care at his home in Chesterfield, MO.