I genuinely mean this as no slight to today’s birthday honoree, but he’s not the most famous person we’ve looked back on this year. At least for me, when you Google the name “Ryan Thompson,” you do get a baseball player. However, it appears to be the reliever who spent this past season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Just in sports alone, there’s two baseball players, a basketball player, and a soccer player all named Ryan Thompson who are notable enough to have gotten their own Wikipedia page.
However,
none of them were Yankees, so today, we look back on the nine-year MLB veteran who did don the pinstripes.
Ryan Orlando Thompson
Born: November 4, 1967 (Chestertown, MD)
Yankees Tenure: 2000
Thompson was born in 1967 in Chestertown, MD, which is in the Eastern Shore region of the state. He was raised in the area by his grandparents and attended Kent County High School. He was a standout on the baseball field there, later being inducted into both his high school’s and the Eastern Shore Baseball Foundation Hall of Fames.
Thompson’s career there led to him being selected in the 13th round of the 1987 MLB Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. He went just 11 picks after fellow future Yankee Mike Stanton. Thompson signed with Toronto, working his was up to Triple-A by 1992. However, later that year he was sent to the Mets as a player to be named later in a trade from a couple weeks earlier. It was a notable trade though, as it sent David Cone to Toronto, who he then helped win the 1992 and ‘93 World Series championships.
The Mets quickly brought Thompson to the big leagues, giving him his MLB debut on September 1, 1992. Thompson would become a regular for the Mets over the next couple seasons, appearing in 283 games from 1992-95. He was solid, but never quite lit the world on fire in that stint, accumulating 3.4 rWAR over those four seasons. Ahead of the 1996 season, he was then traded to Cleveland.
With Cleveland, Thompson hit well, albeit in just eight games in the 1996 season, spending most of the season in the minors. He couldn’t crack the big leagues in 1997 either, even getting traded back to Toronto. For 1998, he went overseas, playing for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks of NPB, where his manager was the legendary Sadaharu Oh.
Thompson returned back to the states for 1999, joining the Astros’ organization. He again spent most of the season in the minors, appearing in 12 games for Houston. For 2000, he signed with the Yankees. While he was briefly released in April, he ended up spending the year in New York or with their minor league affiliates.
Thompson had a couple different stints for the Yankees in 2000, going up and down between the minors. His most memorable moment in the big leagues that season probably came on July 14th, when he hit a three-run homer to break open a game against the Marlins.
In total, Thompson hit pretty well in his stint with the Yankees, putting up a .260/.339/.500 slash line in 33 games. He didn’t appear in any postseason round, but was awarded a championship ring after the Yankees beat the Mets in the 2000 World Series.
After that, Thompson journeyed around several more organizations. He played in the big leagues with the 2001 Marlins and the 2002 Brewers and kept on in the minors through the 2004 season. He left baseball after that.
Not every player who makes the big leagues is going to have a memorable career, never mind reach something like Hall of Fame status. Ryan Thompson appeared in parts of nine major league seasons, and that is something to be proud of.
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
