Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
(MLB)
outfielder
An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to catch ...
. He played parts of three seasons in the majors, from until .He played mostly for the
Philadelphia Athletics
The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, they became the Oakland ...
. An avid ball player he was, he also enjoyed the managerial aspect of the game. Later in life, he went on to be the General Manager and co-owner of The Somerset Patriots, a minor league ball club based in
Somerset, New Jersey
Somerset is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
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Thompson was expected to be a mainstay of the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, but he was released after starting the season with no hits in 17 at-bats. Prior to his death in 1990, Thompson was the last living player to have played on the pitiful 1916 A's--a team often regarded as the worst MLB club of the 20th century.
He excelled in his coaching career and eventually started two youth baseball leagues in nearby