Gorman Thomas during the final series of the 1982 regular season.
Henry Aaron was the greatest player to ever don a Brewers uniform. Robin Yount is the all-time face of the franchise and the player whose Brewers career was the greatest. Ryan Braun is the club’s most prolific home run hitter. Paul Molitor its greatest overall hitter. The greatest pitcher could be Ben Sheets, Ted Higuera, or – if counting brief brilliance as brilliance – CC Sabathia. Yet, for the quintessential Milwaukee Brewer, the man who embodied this town and its team more so than anyone else, look no further than Stormin’ Gorman Thomas.
Thirty-three years ago this week, the quintessential Brewer was unceremoniously shipped out of Milwaukee, less than seven months removed from the peak of his glory. Gorman Thomas was a blue-collar hero for a blue-collar town. He smoked Marlboros and carried a beer gut. He was known to join fans in the County Stadium parking lot for the post-game tailgating. He didn’t bother with cutting – or often even combing – his hair. He wore a fierce mustache and shaved about as often he crushed home runs: once every five days, give or take.
Gorman Thomas was a blue-collar icon with the Brewers.
But it wasn’t just that Thomas was a regular Milwaukee-kinda guy. Thomas was a supremely talented ballplayer. The first (and only) first round draft choice in Seattle Pilots history, Thomas was a part-time outfielder for the Brewers until 1978, when he came into his own as the club’s regular centerfielder, bashing 32 homers and knocking in 86 runs. In 1979, he finished 7th in the AL MVP vote, leading the loop with 45 homers – setting a Brewers franchise record. He was an all-star in 1981 and in 1982 was a huge part of the devastating Brewers offense that came within a few innings of winning the World Series. But Thomas had slumped at the end of the ’82 season. These struggles carried through the playoffs. He went 1 for 15 in the ALCS and walked just twice. In the World Series, he managed only three hits, all singles, for a microscopic .115 slugging percentage.
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The Brewers were the favorites to repeat as AL Champs in 1983, but were a bust out of the gate. In early June, the team was in sixth place with a .500 record and looking nothing like the club that had stormed through the final months of the 1982 season to clinch the pennant. Thomas was a portrait of the team’s struggles. He was batting just .183 with five home runs. He looked lost at the plate and sluggish in the outfield. The Milwaukee fans, who had shown Thomas more love than perhaps any other Brewer since Aaron, grew short with him. His strikeouts were increasingly met with boos at County Stadium . In a June 4 loss to the Angels, Thomas had tried to go from first to third on a single to center field. He was thrown out by such a margin that the California third baseman needed to take a few steps towards second base to meet Thomas and apply the tag.
There were also trade rumors swirling around the Brewers slugger. Thomas took them to heart, but few fans could believe that the team would move the man who had hit home runs over the past five season (175) than any other player except the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt. But Brewers GM Harry Dalton felt that the Brewers had their centerfielder of the future in 20-year-old Dion James, who was currently destroying Pacific Coast League pitching with the AAA Vancouver Canadians.
Pictured Left: Milwaukee fans never quite forgave Rick Manning for being traded for Thomas.
Dalton had also long-coveted Cleveland Indians centerfielder Rick Manning. A tepid hitter, but great fielder, Manning was also almost four years younger than Thomas. On June 6, after a few weeks of negotiations, Dalton pulled the trigger on what would quickly become the most hated trade in franchise history. Thomas would go to Cleveland , along with pitcher Jamie Easterly and minor leaguer Ernie Camacho, for Manning and lefty Rick Waits.
That evening in the Brewers clubhouse at County Stadium , two cardboard boxes sat in front of Thomas’s locker, filled with his personal effects. A typed airline itinerary was taped to one, detailing how Thomas would get to New York to join the Indians at Yankee stadium. The team was stunned and saddened by the news. “It’s sure hard to imagine the Milwaukee Brewers without Gorman Thomas,” outfielder Charlie Moore told a reporter. “He’s the closest friend I’ve ever had. We were very similar individuals,” said pitcher Pete Vuckovich, who owned a Milwaukee bar with Thomas. “I love him, I respect him. He’s a good guy, a misunderstood guy in some ways. Just a gentle giant.” Paul Molitor summed up the fans’ feeling succinctly. “He’s the perfect image of a Milwaukee Brewer.” The fans, however, were more direct in their remarks. They flooded the Brewers offices with calls, letters, and telegrams bashing the trade.
A Milwaukee Sentinel rendering of Thomas as a Cleveland Indian.
Thomas stayed away from the stadium that night. “The trade is a case that Milwaukee doesn’t think I can play any more,” he told the AP by phone after learning of the deal. “I don’t buy that. It hurts any time you’re traded, but I’ve got nothing against Cleveland .” After he arrived in Cleveland , he opened up a bit more. “I was devastated emotionally by the trade. You have no idea how I felt about Milwaukee ,” he told the press. Asked about what he had done after he found out he had been traded. He said that he “drank a lot of beer and said goodbye to some close and old friends.” As for Cleveland, the initial comment about the team was a complaint about the #20 jersey he had been issued – it was too small. The team had simply swapped Manning’s name on the back for Thomas’s, despite the fact that the jersey top was several sizes too small.
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The trade did little to spark the Brewers, who managed only 4 wins in their next 13 games. The next big boost they got at County Stadium came on June 24, when Thomas returned to Milwaukee as an Indian. With thousands of placards reading “Welcome Back, Gorman” distributed by Mainstream Records and Tapes and Pizza Man before the game, the crowd of 46,000 gave Thomas a standing ovation each time he came to the plate. Thomas later admitted he was so emotional during the game, he had to retreat to the trainer’s room between innings to gather himself. Thomas went 0-3 with three strikeouts, but he drew the biggest cheers at the old ballpark since opening day.
Thomas was traded to the Seattle Mariners following the season, where he played parts of three more seasons before returning to the Brewers in 1986. He played 44 more games as a Brewer before retiring.
