By Cal Thomas

Former Chicago White Sox slugger Frank Thomas expressed confidence that he can make it to Cooperstown when his name is included in the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time later this year.

"Of course I would be disappointed; I'm not going to lie to you," Thomas said during the White Sox's annual fan convention.

"I think I've done enough to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer," added Thomas, who won two MVPs and finished a close second in the 2000 voting to Jason Giambi.

"I think my resume speaks for itself. Losing a third MVP to a guy (Giambi) who admitted he was PED, I think that would have put me at another level that only a couple of guys have enjoyed ever in this game," he further said.

In his 19 big league seasons, Thomas had a .301 batting average, a .974 OPS, 495 doubles and 1,704 RBIs to go along with 521 home runs.

Thomas said he's proud to amass those numbers just by sheer hard work and not aided by performance-enhancing substances.

"Thank God I'm blessed and I did it the right way and I had a good family base that made me outwork everybody else because that was the only way I made it to the big leagues. I was never that blue-chip prospect. I had to do a lot of extra work to get to the big leagues," he said.

At the same time, Thomas criticized several players whose careers flourished during the steroids era, including Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.

"These guys did put up some incredible numbers, but they're fake," Thomas said. "Any time you look at the PED situation, you look at Lance Armstrong, you look at stuff like that and it's serious out there."

Bonds and Sosa were among those steroids-era players who were denied entry into the Hall of Fame this year.

However, Thomas felt sorry for Craig Biggio, who was just 39 votes shy of being enshrined in Cooperstown.

"Biggio was the one guy we were all shocked about, you know 68 percent (of the vote), 3,000 hits," Thomas said.

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Frank Thomas Confident of 2014 Hall of Fame Enshrinement