O’Donnell: Roots of Landon Thome more ‘feel good’ for spirit of ’26 Sox
BILL VEECK, TWICE THE PRINCIPAL OWNER OF THE WHITE SOX, was fond of saying that the greatest gift a father can give his son is a good name.
That's why baseball fans from Peoria to Cleveland to the South Side of Chicago and beyond could only smile this week when the reborn Sox made Landon Thome the 34th overall pick in the 2026 MLB draft.
Thome, 18, relentlessly pushed his stock up as a pedigreed, detail-oriented shortstop at West suburban Nazareth Academy. (He's more likely to emerge as a second or third baseman in the next segment of his career.)
HIS FATHER IS JIM THOME, the Hall of Fame slugger and also one of the truly great “good guys” in the last four decades of Major League Baseball.
His low-key genuineness made the jobs of legions of sports media more pleasantly manageable during his 22 seasons — and 612 home runs — in the big leagues.
Thome the father is one of the sportin' prides of Peoria, and that's where the family's big-bat roots run so deep.
PATRIARCH CHUCK THOME SR. WAS a barrel-chested worker at a Hiram Walker distillery. He's still remembered as a Hack Wilson type in the city's fabled Sunday Morning League. (Founded in 1916, it remains one of the oldest adult amateur leagues in the nation; Thome Sr. entered in 1933.)
The late Chuck Thome Jr. — Jim's dad — spent close to 40 years working for Caterpillar while also finding time to become an all-world 12-inch softball player hustling through the Peoria-Moline circuit.
Uncle Art and Aunt Carolyn — a star with the company store's pioneering Caterpillar Lettes — were also swatters, so good that in 1982, the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame inducted the family foursome on the same memorable evening.
JIM THOME'S TWO OLDER BROTHERS — Randy and Chuck III (“The Caveman”) — were all-state at Limestone High on the southwestern edge of Peoria.
Jim followed suit but passed on a four-year college to tighten his skill set and stay eligible for the MLB draft. (Coach Dewey Kalmer and Bradley University wanted him badly.)
After an All-American juco season at Illinois Central College, Thome was a 13th round pick of Cleveland in the 1989 amateur draft.
THROUGH FATE AND SERENDIPITY, the following March, the organization elected to keep him in extended spring training. There, future manager Charlie Manuel — then a minor-league hitting instructor — championed his power potential.
Two years later, Thome was in the bigs and a Bunyanesque legend was aborning.
MORE GOOD FORTUNE FOLLOWED in 1995 when Thome met Andrea Pacione, a Cleveland TV personality who had once reigned as Miss Ohio USA.
They married in 1998 at Chicago's top-of-the-steeple Holy Name Cathedral. Daughter Lila arrived in 2002. Landon followed in November 2007.
WHILE JIM HAS BEEN SERVING as a special assistant to Sox GM Chris Getz, Andrea Thome has emerged as both director of family ties and a contemporary romance author. Her fourth book — “Mine Again” — is scheduled for an October release.
In the meantime, Landon Thome tries to move on up, rooted with a barrelful of potential.
And a very good name.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.