"This is pathetic": MLB fans react as Fox News mistakenly reports MLB legend Frank Thomas dead

In a highly unfortunate event, FOX News made a huge mistake in reporting the passing away of Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and Chicago White Sox legend Frank Thomas. The news agency mistook the identity of a different player of the same name and included Thomas' clips in their year-end In Memoriam feature.

Frank Thomas was one of the strongest at-bats in the game in the 1990s as part of the White Sox. He was a 2x AL MVP winner and 4x Silver Slugger award. The 5x All-Star had his jersey #35 retired by the club in 2010 and entered Cooperstown after getting 83.7% votes on his very first ballot in 2014.

In their year-end "In Memoriam" segment, footage was shown of Thomas hitting a home run and delivering his Hall of Fame speech with "Frank Thomas 1968-2023" written in the corner. FOX News immediately corrected their mistake as they mistook Thomas to be the Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder from the early 1950s who earlier passed away in January of this year, aged 93.

MLB fans took to X, formerly Twitter, to blast FOX News for such a reckless mistake.

One fan wrote, "Even for Fox News, this is pathetic."

White another wrote, "News companies are comically bad."

Here are a few other reactions:

Frank Thomas takes to social media to correct FOX's mistake

Frank Thomas took to X himself to clarify to the baseball world that he was very much alive. Ironically, he was an analyst on MLB on Fox and was only recently replaced by Derek Jeter from the 2023 season.

"Ladies and Gentlemen I’m very sorry my ex employer Fox would be this irresponsible on National TV this morning. Yes I’m alive and doing well. This blows my mind also," Thomas wrote on X.

Thomas is currently an occasional interviewer and color commentator for Apple TV+'s Friday Night Baseball.