Viewers who tuned into Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus on Friday morning were hit with the shocking news that Hall of Fame first baseman Frank Thomas had recently passed away.
Needless to say, this all came as a shock to the 55-year-old slugging legend, who is still very much with us.
During a tribute video honoring celebrities and prominent figures who died throughout the year, footage of the two-time MVP during his playing days was included alongside a clip of his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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“Frank Thomas 1968-2023,” read an on-air graphic next to a photo of Thomas.
Thomas, famously known as The Big Hurt during his playing days, has been a regular presence on television screens since his retirement in 2008. Besides spending the past decade as a studio analyst and color commentator for Fox Sports and Apple TV+, the slugger has been an on-air pitchman for several products, including testosterone supplement Nugenix.
While it would have been major news if Thomas had died recently, the fact of the matter is that Fox just mistakenly featured the wrong ex-player named Frank Thomas in their In Memoriam recap. Instead, the channel meant to honor former Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Frank Thomas, a multi-time All-Star during the 1950s, who died this past January at the age of 93.
Shortly after Fox’s blunder, Thomas took to social media to express his displeasure over the conservative cable giant falsely announcing his passing, referencing his time working for the channel’s parent corporation.
“Ladies and Gentlemen I’m very sorry my ex employer Fox would be this irresponsible on National TV this morning,” he tweeted. “Yes I’m alive and doing well. This blows my mind also.”
Thomas was let go by Fox Sports in April of this year after nearly a decade with the network, replaced by fellow Hall of Famer Derek Jeter.
Towards the end of the broadcast, fill-in anchor Julie Bandera apologized on the network’s behalf for the misidentification of the two Thomases during the memorial montage.
“We need to issue a correction in the ‘In Memoriam’ feature that we showed just a few minutes ago,” Banderas noted. “We misidentified the late Frank Thomas, the three-time All-Star for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Frank Thomas we showed you unfortunately was also a former pro-baseball player. He is very much alive. We apologize for that mistake.”
This isn't the first time that Fox News has taken heat for mistakenly identifying a dead celebrity. In 2018, the network shared a photo of R&B singer Patti LaBelle while announcing the death of soul legend Aretha Franklin.
