[2] He would likely have been more well-known had blacks not been denied opportunities to compete in major professional sports leagues in the 1940s and 1950s.

He was a fifth-generation Canadian whose ancestry can be traced to enslaved Africans fleeing North Carolina and Barbadian immigrants.

He attended high school at the J. C. Patterson Collegiate Institute in Windsor, beginning in the late 1930s.

[5] A 1952 newspaper article said Thomas "was a constant thorn in the side of his visitors" and "His terrific speed enabling him to leap high into the air after burning down the floor to break up passing plays.

Over 58 games with Farnham, he was batting .351 which caught the attention of Major League Baseball (MLB) scouts.

[7] He was selected by the organization's Cleveland Indians to join the Wilkes-Barre Barons farm-team who played in the Eastern League, where he took the field for the first time in a July 4, 1948, doubleheader.

This appearance was the first by a black player in the league, and he had two singles, and RBI, and a stolen base in the second game.

After one season, he moved to the western division Kansas City Stars, another Globetrotter team.

He joined the staff of Valley Park High School in East York, Ontario in 1970, where he worked until his death.

According to William Humber, a historian on Canadian sports, racial barriers prevented Thomas from becoming a national star, as well as kept him relatively unknown.

[2] According to Miriam Wright, a history professor at the University of Windsor, Southern Ontario was racially segregated like parts of the United States during the Jim Crow era.

"[2] After decades of not being recognized, Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on November 16, 2021.