John Thorn
John Thorn
John Thornis a sports historian, author, publisher, and cultural commentator. Since March 1, 2011, he has been the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth17 April 1947
CountryUnited States of America
baseball powerful past
Baseball presents a living heritage, a game poised between the powerful undertow of seasons past and the hope of next day, next week, next year.
running baseball player
And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'
baseball team years
In over 160 years of recorded baseball history, no team had ever won a championship this way.
baseball dream hero
But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes, spirited competition, and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion, both within the major leagues and around the world.
basketball football college
The caliber of play suffered and attendance declined year by year. Interest in college football was exploding, and there was this new game called basketball.
baseball player games
Donning a glove for a backyard toss, or watching a ball game, or just reflecting upon our baseball days, we are players again, forever young.
baseball winning months
For many in baseball September is a month of stark contrast with April, when everyone had dared to hope. If baseball is a lot like life, as pundits declare, it is because life is more about losing than winning.
past relief employment
Pursuing employment or climatic relief, we live in voluntary exile from our extended families and our longer past, but in an involuntary exile from ourselves and our own past.
failing egotistical concern
My egotistical concern was less that I would fail to relate to my classmates than that they would know nothing of my uniquely tortured life's course and, thus, me.
baseball brotherhood would-be
Although the world proved not yet ready for the brotherhood of baseball, that would be only a matter of time, baseball magnates believed.
pride men bags
We know these men are professionals whose services are up for bid and whose bags are packed, and yet we call them our own and take personal, even civic pride in their accomplishments.
people young graves
Whatever else I do before finally I go to my grave, I hope it will not be looking after young people.
games play score
Keep score, which is what the Talmud recognizes as a distinction between work and play that renders a game unfit for the Sabbath.
children play joy
Why we play as children is not because it is our work or because it is how we learn, though both statements are true; we play because we are wired for joy, it is imperative as human beings.