If things continue as they are, and the rookie outfielder keeps hitting the bejeezus out of the baseball, NBA champion Klay and sibling Mychel soon will be known as Trayce Thompson’s brothers.
“That’s what my dad says all the time,” Trayce Thompson, Chicago White Sox rookie outfielder, says with a chuckle. “He’s already known as Klay’s dad now.
“When we were growing up, we were known as Mychal Thompson’s sons. Now, my mom and dad are known as Klay’s parents.”
Trying to keep up with this family? Good luck with that.
As things have turned out, they’ve been trying to keep up with each other for years.
The White Sox summoned Trayce, 24, from Triple-A Charlotte on Aug. 4, and in 12 games since then through the weekend, he was hitting .519/.552/.963 with two homers and six RBI.
Brother Klay, 25, teamed with Stephen Curry in June to lead the Golden State Warriors to their first NBA championship since 1975.
Brother Mychel, 27, is playing pro basketball in Italy after helping the Santa Cruz Warriors win the NBA Development League title in April. Before that, he spent time with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2011-12 season.
And father Mychal, 60, is a two-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers who also starred for the Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs.
“Within our family, it was like any other family,” Trayce says. “I never viewed my father as just an athlete. My brothers were my brothers.”
Yep, just like any other family in which all four males are talented enough to play sports professionally and win titles at various levels.
Like the time Trayce beat brother Mychel playing basketball in the driveway when he was 10 and Mychel was 12 or 13.
“He said he was going to run away,” Trayce says. “It was funny.
“Me and Klay were so close in age, we’d play one-on-one in Wiffle ball, basketball, some football. Klay and I were so competitive.”
Still are.
“I’ve seen him break at least three clubs when we’re golfing,” Trayce says. “I’m better than him. I golf a lot.”
So on the course, Klay’s best defense is trash-talking, trying to distract Trayce and break his focus.
“Klay’s the type of golfer, he doesn’t care about his shot,” Trayce says. “He just wants you to shank your shot. He’s funny.”
When Trayce entered the Sox lineup on Aug. 4 for his major league debut, Klay, Mychel and mom and dad were in U.S. Cellular Field for the game against Tampa Bay. They wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
“It was awesome seeing him in that huge stadium playing the outfield in front of all of those people,” Klay told the Chicago Tribune‘s K.C. Johnson. “It was almost surreal. I know how hard he works. The minor leagues are no joke. I respect baseball players and what they do to get there.”
The kids spent their early years in Oregon before moving to Mission Viejo, California, for their teenage years. So when the White Sox played in Anaheim two weeks after his Sox debut, Trayce’s brothers and parents all gathered again, in Angel Stadium, for the series opener.
“I imagine a kid like that has a little pressure on him,” White Sox bench coach Mark Parent says. “Your dad is a superstar. Your brother is a superstar.
“There’s enough pressure from us. We just need him to contribute.”
Parent remembers playing as a minor leaguer at Triple-A Portland in the early 1980s before his own debut with the San Diego Padres in 1986, when Mychal was starring for the Trail Blazers, who had drafted him No. 1 overall in the 1978 draft.
“He was a god up there,” Parent says. “He was like Michael Jordan. I remember after one of our games one night, some of us went to the sports bar at the Marriott, and he was in there. He bought us all a beer.”
Some 30 years later, when he saw Mychal at U.S. Cellular Field on the night of Trayce’s debut, he told the old man that story. Told Trayce, too.
Adam LaRoche was there. And the White Sox first baseman took one look at the Thompsons and figured it was readily apparent why Trayce is the only one in the family who did not follow the bouncing ball.
“He’s the runt,” LaRoche marvels. “I mean, it’s not like he’s small. But compared to his brothers…”
Trayce is 6’3″, and Klay and Mychel go 6’7″. Dad Mychal? 6’10”.
But he hasn’t always been on the short end.
“I was always bigger than Klay growing up,” Trayce says. “He was only a year older than me. So they never picked on me too much.”
In fact, the only times the brothers fought, Trayce says, is when a situation developed in which it was two against one and the one felt he was being ganged up on.
Well, maybe it’s not that they never fought…
“Me and Mykey played video games,” Trayce says. “Gosh, when we were kids, it was bad. When we’d play and he would lose, he would get really grumpy.”
Klay, in addition to basketball, was a very good quarterback when he was young but stopped playing football after his freshman year of high school to concentrate on basketball.
Mychel was a threat as a running back on his youth league football teams but stopped playing after the seventh grade. Both brothers played baseball in high school, too.
The family had moved from Oregon to Southern California by the time Trayce was ready for high school, a move he calls “very helpful” for his baseball career.
“Baseball was my first love, always,” Trayce says. “The Mariners were huge at the time. Ken Griffey Jr. My guy was always Edgar Martinez, but I still have a Ken Griffey Jr. poster up on the wall of my old room in my parents’ home.
“Even in high school, we’d get home from basketball practice, and I’d be at home holding my bat.”
Yeah, Trayce could hoop it up a little too, leading Santa Margarita High School to the California Division III state title in 2008.
Still, whatever magic his family saw on the court, he saw on the diamond.
When Trayce was 14, Rod Carew’s stepson was a classmate—and the seven-time batting champion and Hall of Famer was available for tips. A former Yankees scout named Dave Keith hooked up with him early and was especially helpful to Trayce as he prepared for professional baseball (the Sox picked him in the second round of the 2009 draft). And Chris Gwynn, brother of the late Hall of Famer Tony and currently director of player development for the Seattle Mariners, became a friend as well.
“When he was scouting my games, he’d shoot me a text, ‘Hey, you’re doing this with your swing.’ I don’t forget those things.”
He describes fellow Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado—another Southern California friend—as the closest thing to a brother outside of, well, his real brothers. He’s especially tight with Oakland shortstop Marcus Semien, too, which is convenient in the winter: He can work out with Semien in the Bay Area by day and attend Klay’s Warriors games by night.
The intra-brothers competition mostly is fun now, unlike the time Trayce’s older brothers were home from college and Klay (then playing for Washington State) beat Mychel (Pepperdine) in a game of one-on-one.
“I remember Mykey punted the ball onto the school roof,” Trayce says, smiling wide. “It was hilarious.”
Maybe now would be a good time to point out that, on the day Trayce and I spoke, Mychel had flown out that morning for Italy and his next professional basketball assignment, and Klay boarded a flight to China sponsored by his shoe company. So neither brother was around to defend himself.
As I was saying, good luck keeping up with this family.
So in the interest of fairness, I turned to Parent to tell a story on Trayce.
“Hey, grab a bat,” Parent told Thompson one day during a Cactus League game this spring in the White Sox dugout, a signal for the kid to prepare to pinch hit.
Only as soon as Thompson did grab a bat, Parent asked to see it—then proceeded to use it to knock the dirt out of his cleats before handing it back to Thompson.
“Thanks,” Parent said.
It’s an old baseball prank, one that one of Parent’s old minor league managers, former big leaguer Doug Rader, once pulled on him.
“So I’m going to have a hard time calling him down from the end of the bench now,” Parent says, eyes twinkling.
“He definitely got me,” Trayce says. “He likes to have fun. He does it to all of the guys.”
That Parent now has a chance to do it to Trayce in the majors, and not just in spring training…well, the baby of the Thompson clan will take that every day of the week.
“It’s been a whirlwind, man,” Trayce says of a summer in which Mychel won the D-League title in April, Klay won the NBA title in June and Trayce was called up to the majors in August. “As a family, we’ll look back one day and realize how special this is.
“Watching Klay and seeing my family come on TV at the NBA Finals was surreal. The [Warriors] parade was amazing. And getting the call to come here, it was a shock.
“Then, having a decent [start], it’s been the coolest thing that’s happened in my life. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m very blessed, and I’m going to try to make it last as long as I can.”
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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