The Arizona Diamondback who was ‘scheduled’ to be football and baseball player at TCU
On Feb. 10, 2017, Alek Thomas tweeted, “I am very proud to say I have verbally committed to TCU to continue my academic, baseball and football career!”
That pledge was worth the paper it was printed on.
Had he remained true to that commitment, he might have been a wide receiver on TCU’s football team that reached the college football national title game, and a center fielder for the baseball team that made it to the College World Series this year.
Plenty of things would have had to go right, or wrong, for both to happen, but Thomas is a one percenter. The one percent of athletes for whom the absurd is plausible.
“I’m not sure how close I was to going there,” Thomas said Thursday at Globe Life Field in Arlington.
Six years after he announced his commitment to play for the TCU football team under Gary Patterson and the TCU baseball team under Jim Schlossnagle, Thomas will play center field for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series against the Texas Rangers.
He is the rare example of the athlete who was so talented that both the respective head coaches at TCU signed off on Thomas playing football and baseball.
“He was going to come here on a baseball scholarship, and be a preferred walk-on as a wide receiver,” TCU head coach Kirk Saarloos said in a phone interview. He was an assistant on Schlossnagle’s staff when they recruited Thomas.
“We felt the only way we were going to be able to get him was football. That was the carrot,” Saarloos said.
“We thought if it was baseball only, he would definitely sign after the (MLB) draft. If there was football, we thought we had a chance. What were those chances? Maybe 25 percent, and that might be the high end.”
According to Thomas, 25% should have been closer to 1 to 3%. And those figures might be on the high end.
Thomas was a coveted recruit from Chicago; his father is the long-time strength coach of the Chicago White Sox, meaning he had grown up in big league clubhouses and was well versed in the game.
Thomas was also considering the same path at Notre Dame, among others.
“The only way I was not going to go to an MLB team was if I got drafted in the very last round, then I would have gone to TCU,” Thomas said. “It was only really for leverage. I had no real intentions of going to TCU.
“They have a great coaching staff in football and baseball, and I created some relationships there, so that was pretty cool, too.”
This is a common tactic used by baseball players who are high school seniors and debating whether to go pro, or play in college. Both the college coach and the high school player are aware that these “flips” can happen with no notice.
That’s not the surprise. The surprise was that Patterson, who was not crazy about his players playing other sports, unless he was the kicker, was OK with this for Thomas.
The last prominent baseball/football player at TCU was Royce Huffman, who was a receiver and outfielder in the late ‘90s. When he was on the football team, Patterson was defensive coordinator.
“It was a low-risk move for football because (Alek) was going to be a preferred walk-on, and that was it,” Saarloos said. “Had he made the team, the (scholarship) would have flipped from baseball to football.”
Thomas was a second-round pick, and the 63rd overall selection, in the 2018 MLB Draft by the Diamondbacks, thus “ending” his time at TCU.
“You always hold out hope, that he will be your starting center fielder,” Saarloos said. “Because you never know, but you always have a backup plan.”
Thomas was promoted to the major league level in 2022, and this season played in 125 games. In the Diamondbacks comeback win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, Thomas hit a game-tying 2-run home run in the eighth inning.
He still watches college football, and sometimes he does miss that game. Sometimes.
“I don’t miss it because of the injuries that go along with it,” Thomas said. “When I do watch it I think, ‘I can hang with these guys.’ I miss it sometimes, but I am here and I will take this any day over getting beat up playing football.”
Safe to say Thomas picked right.
This story was originally published October 27, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
