Eric Thames owns the Cincinnati Reds and is Mr. April. He’s a man whose early-season prodigiousness has inspired folk-hero tall tales.
After smashing a two-run home run Wednesday against the Reds, which provided the game-winning margin, the Milwaukee Brewers first baseman has seven homers this season, tied for second-most in the major leagues. His 18 April dingers over the past two seasons is already the most in the majors with 11 games still to play this month.
Seven of Thames’ 12 hits in 2018 have been taters, including five at Miller Park, where his delightful Korean home run song plays. He has a team-high 11 RBI and a .673 slugging percentage.
Last April, I described the mighty Thames this way: "a muscle-bound and merciless masher of taters, bearded blaster of baseballs, arouser of annoyingly allegorical alliteration and, hey, even an encouragingly competent defensive player. He is become smash, the destroyer of worlds – or at least baseballs, ballparks, fantasy leagues and the Cincinnati Reds." That appears still to be true, at least in the season's first month.
On Tuesday night, FOX Sports Wisconsin interviewed Thames about his home-run hitting prowess. He started out with the standard baseball cliché answers. "I feel like I need to get better. Hitting home runs is great, but I gotta hit doubles, gotta hit singles, gotta execute," he said. "I need to do better but I’m happy to be a part of this team and making the push."
When asked what "better" looks like for him, Thames responded with a little hyperbole. "Hitting .400, 60 home runs," he said, adding, "I just want more quality at bats, help the team out, that’s all I can do."
Finally, Thames revealed the secret to his success in April, playing to the home-town fans inside the stadium named for Milwaukee’s flagship brewery.
"Uhhh … Miller Lite?" he said, laughing. "I don’t know, just kidding. Apple juice, water, milk, protein, yeah, that’s it."
Watch the whole video below:
5 of his last 7 hits have been home runs, but #Brewers' Eric Thames isn't satisfied pic.twitter.com/KfCzqog1lf — FOX Sports Wisconsin (@fswisconsin) April 18, 2018
As a guy with his own MillerCoors-produced beer, the Beerded Brewer IPA, a special limited-release last year, Thames certainly knows where his bread is buttered – or, rather, where his beer is brewed.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
