TRIVIA:

When Frank Thomas recetly homered to become the latest member of the 500 Homerun club, he became the largest member in this fraternity at 6'5'' and 257 lbs. The smallest meber of the 500 HR Club is the shortest at 5'9" as well as the lightest at 170 lbs. Who is he?



BONUS: What do these present and former MLB players have in common? They are Rod Carew, Gorman Thomas, Dave Kingman and Kevin Youkilis.

There are some others too. Kingman and Thomas led their respective leagues in homers in the same season, but that has nothing to do with the common trait although it marked the only year in baseball history that BOTH leagues were led by players with this thing in common. A prior Hall of Fame player with this thing in common had led the AL in homers.

Thomas and Kingman had this common thing all their lives while Carew acquired it, I believe, as an adult. It really has nothing to do with performance on the field, but it has caused a major leaguer with the common trait to miss a ball game late in the season. This guy is now a Met and will likely miss another game this season.

This characteristic has nothing, or perhaps very little, to do with birth place.