Stuart Thompson

Stuart Allan Thompson

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 203 lb.

• Born March 1, 1970 in Wollongong, New South Wales Australia

Olympics-Reference page

Biographical Information

Stuart Thompson played five seasons in the Australian Baseball League and made the All-Star team in three of them. He also played for the Australian national team, including in the Olympics.

Thompson batted .304/.346/.565 as a DH-OF for Australia in the 1993 Intercontinental Cup. Only Andrew Scott had a better OPS for the Aussies. He debuted in the ABL in 1993-1994 for the East Coast Cougars, hitting .262/.291/.451. During the 1994 Baseball World Cup, he produced at a .316/.381/.684 clip as Australia's DH, third on the team in slugging behind Richard Vagg and Scott Tunkin. In the 1994-1995 ABL, he hit .293/.327/.455 with 17 doubles and 39 RBI in 59 games, winning first-team All-Star honors at DH.

Stuart had even better stats in 1995-1996 with the Gold Coast Cougars (.340/.440/.549, 38 RBI, 21 BB, 14 K in 43 G). He was 5th in the league in OBP behind Adam Burton, Jason Hewitt, Michael Dunn and David Hynes. He was the second-team All-Star DH, after Scott Metcalf. In the 1996 Olympics, he hit .214/.353/.321 as the Australian DH, though he managed to drive in 7 runs in 7 games, one behind team leader Scott. His 3-run homer off Masao Morinaka was a key blow in Australia's 9-6 upset win over Japan.

With Gold Coast in 1996-1997, Thompson batted .303/.347/.583 with 11 homers and 44 RBI in 50 games. He finished 6th in the league in RBI (behind Ronny Johnson, Brendan Kingman, Paul Gonzalez, Clayton Byrne and Craig Watts) and tied for 4th in extra-base hits (27, even with Byrne, behind Kingman, Johnson and Watts). He was the second-team All-Star DH, behind former major leaguer Greg Jelks. Thompson remained productive in 1997-1998 (.303/.364/.513, 13 2B, 8 HR, 35 RBI in 47 G) but it was his last season.

Overall, he had hit .299/?/.509 with 37 homers, 132 runs and 185 RBI in 251 ABL games. In the ABL's initial 10-year-run, he was 20th in RBI, 13th in doubles (66, between Kingman and Watts) and tied for 20th in slugging (with Steve Hinton).

Sources

• Old IBAF site
• Flintoff & Dunn Australian Baseball Almanac