Fox News had to say sorry on air because they included baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas by mistake in a tribute to 2023 celebrities who died.
Fox showed video of the 55-year-old former Chicago White Sox slugger next to the graphic that said “Frank Thomas: 1968–2023.” During a “in memoriam” section on Friday morning’s episode of The Faulkner Focus.
Even Thomas himself was shocked by the news. He took to social media to say he was still living and to criticize the network where he had worked for ten years as a studio analyst.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry that my former boss Fox was so careless on national TV this morning, Thomas wrote on X.
“Yes, I’m still alive and well. This also blows my mind.”
Later, Fox News host Julie Banderas said that the mistake was made because the network had mistaken Thomas for a former Pittsburgh Pirates player with the same name who died in January at the age of 93.
Banderas told watchers, “We need to make a correction in the in memoriam feature that we showed just a few minutes ago. We misidentified the late Frank Thomas, the three-time All-Star for the Pittsburgh Pirates.”
“It’s too bad that the Frank Thomas we showed you used to play professional baseball. He is still living and well. We’re sorry about that mistake.
Frank Thomas was picked by the White Sox in 1989 and hit 448 home runs over 15 years, which helped the team win the World Series in 2005. He is still alive and is known as “the Big Hurt.”
He played for the Oakland Athletics and the Toronto Blue Jays before quitting in 2010. He was an All-Star five times.
In the late 1990s, Thomas was one of the few Major League Baseball stars who was never thought to have used drugs to improve his performance.
Back in 2013, Fox Sports hired him as a studio expert. Earlier this year, Derek Jeter took his place.
