John Thorn | |
|---|---|
 Thorn in August 2010 | |
| Born | April 17, 1947 Stuttgart, Germany |
| Occupation | Author, historian, publisher |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Beloit College |
| Genres | Sports, history, cultural affairs |
| Subjects | Baseball, football, basketball, New York, history |
| Spouse | Erica Freudenberger |
| Children | 3 |
John Abraham Thorn (born April 17, 1947) is a German-born American sports historian, author, and publisher. Since 2011, he has served as the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball. [1]
Thorn was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in a displaced person's camp to which his Polish Jewish parents had come as refugees. Less than two years after Thorn was born, his family emigrated to the United States, and initially settled in The Bronx, New York. [2]
Of his love for baseball, Thorn said: "I fell in love with [baseball] cards before I loved the game, when I discovered that baseball was something that all the kids on my street corner cared about... I was an immigrant kid and was looking for a way into America. With my background I saw myself as an underdog, and so Brooklyn had to be my team. I began watching the game seriously when I was eight, in 1955, on my Admiral television, but I had already begun to follow their exploits in the daily newspapers my father brought home with him each night." [3]
As a teen, he played baseball and basketball at Richmond Hill High School. [4] However, at age 19 he suffered a stroke. "It was severe," he said, "knocking out my left-side function for months as well as patches of personal memory — though not the powerful visual memory I retain for images and facts and statistics." The stroke left him with a limp and precluded his further participation in athletic activities. [5]
Thorn attended Beloit College, from which he graduated in 1968. [2] [6]
Thorn is the author and editor of numerous books, including Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball , [2] Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Football, Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Hidden Game of Baseball , [2] The Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947–1957, and The Armchair Book of Baseball. [2] His 2011 book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, published by Simon & Schuster, was an in-depth chronicle of the seminal development and pioneers of the sport. A New York Times review of the latter book referred to Thorn as "a researcher of colossal diligence." [7]
Thorn is also the co-author with Pete Palmer and Bob Carroll of The Hidden Game of Football and with them co-editors of Total Football . His book New York 400, a graphic history of the city timed for its quadricentennial, created with the Museum of the City of New York and Running Press, was published in September 2009. Thorn is a columnist for Voices, the publication of the New York Folklore Society.
He founded Total Sports Publishing and served as its publisher from 1998 to 2002. [8]
Thorn served as the senior creative consultant for the 1994 Ken Burns documentary Baseball . [6]
In 2004, Thorn discovered documentation tracing the origins of baseball in America to 1791 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. [9] He has also attempted to shed light on the contributions of 19th century pioneers of the game, while debunking common misconceptions. "I don't want anyone to think of me as a crusader on behalf of causes," he wrote. "I'm only interested in setting the story straight, and in recognizing other stories for what they are, some of which are legend." [10] Despite the claims of various localities to being the "birthplace of baseball," Thorn simply follows facts. "Abner Doubleday, Santa Claus, and Dracula," he notes, "are equally mythic figures." [9]
In June 2006, the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) bestowed on Thorn its highest accolade, the Bob Davids Award. The award honors those whose contributions to SABR and baseball reflect the ingenuity, integrity, and self-sacrifice of the late founder and past president of SABR, L. Robert "Bob" Davids. [11]
On March 1, 2011, John Thorn was named Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball, [6] succeeding the late Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, who served in the role from 1999 until his death in 2008. [1]
Thorn played an important role in the retroactive recategorization of the defunct Negro leagues, which existed during the segregation of baseball, as major leagues. [12]
Thorn has three sons from two previous marriages. [5] He is currently married to Erica Freudenberger, former director of the Red Hook Public Library in Red Hook, New York, and who is currently affiliated with the Southern Adirondack Library System. [13]
He and his wife live in Catskill, New York where they moved in 2010. He claims to have been drawn to the town because of its "slow pace," which suits him because, as Thorn asserts, "I pride myself on being the world's most boring man." [14]
Thorn's great-grandfather was magician Ernest Thorn; the two share their middle name "Abraham". [15]
Henry Benjamin Greenberg, nicknamed "Hammerin' Hank", "Hankus Pankus", and "the Hebrew Hammer", was an American professional baseball player and team executive. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the Detroit Tigers as a first baseman in the 1930s and 1940s. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award winner, he was one of the premier power hitters of his generation and is widely considered one of the greatest sluggers in baseball history.
Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. was a founding member of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club in the 1840s. Although he was an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame and he was sometimes referred to as a "father of baseball", the importance of his role in the development of the game has been disputed.
The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball, primarily through the use of statistics. The organization was founded in Cooperstown, New York, on August 10, 1971, at a meeting of 16 “statistorians” coordinated by sportswriter Bob Davids. The organization now reports a membership of over 7,500 and is based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Mark Henry Belanger, nicknamed "the Blade," was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball as a shortstop from 1965 through 1982, most notably as a member of the Baltimore Orioles dynasty that won six American League East division titles, five American League pennants, and two World Series championships between 1966 and 1979.
George Charles Scott Jr., nicknamed "Boomer", was an American professional baseball player, coach and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from 1966 to 1979, most prominently for the Boston Red Sox where he was a member of the 1967 American League pennant winning team and, with the Milwaukee Brewers where he was the 1975 American League home run and RBI champion.
Arthur John Ditmar was an American starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played with the Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics and the New York Yankees (1957–61).
Frederick Landis Fitzsimmons was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher, manager, and coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1925 to 1943 with the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. Nicknamed Fat Freddie, and known for his mastery of the knuckle curve, Fitzsimmons' 217 wins were the third most by a National League (NL) right-hander in the period from 1920 to 1955, trailing only Burleigh Grimes and Paul Derringer. In 1940 he set an NL record, which stood until 1959, with a single-season winning percentage of .889 (16–2). He was an agile fielder in spite of his heavy build, holding the major league record for career double plays (79) from 1938 to 1964, and tying another record by leading the league in putouts four times; he ranked eighth in NL history in putouts (237) and ninth in fielding percentage (.977) when his career ended.
James Robert Shawkey was an American baseball pitcher who played fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Yankees from 1915 to 1927. He batted and threw right-handed and served primarily as a starting pitcher.
Paul Aloysius Hines was an American center fielder in professional baseball who played in the National Association and Major League Baseball from 1872 to 1891. Born in Virginia, he is credited with winning baseball's first batting triple crown in 1878 ; the accomplishment was not noted at the time, as runs batted in would not be counted until years later, home runs were rare and home run leadership obscure, and Abner Dalrymple was then erroneously recognized as the batting champion. Hines was the first of only three players to achieve the batting Triple Crown in the 19th century.
A "cup of coffee" is a North American sports idiom for a short time spent by a minor league player at the major league level. The idea behind the term is that the player was only in the big leagues long enough to have a cup of coffee before being returned to the minors. The term originated in baseball and is extensively used in ice hockey, both of whose professional leagues utilize extensive farm systems; it is rarely used in basketball or American football since neither the NBA nor NFL have implemented a true farm system.
John Francis "Shano" Collins was an American right fielder and first baseman in Major League Baseball for the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox.
David Pietrusza is an American author and historian.
Total Sports Publishing refers to a book publishing company based in Kingston, New York, that operated from 1998 to 2002. Prominent author John Thorn served as the division's publisher throughout its existence.
Saul Walter Rogovin was an American professional baseball player.
Jerome Holtzman was an American sportswriter known for his writings on baseball who served as the official historian for Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1999 until his death.
Gary Gillette is a baseball writer, author, and editor. He is co-editor of both the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia and the ESPN Football Encyclopedia. For both series of books, he partnered with noted statistician Pete Palmer, as well as writers Sean Lahman and Matt Silverman.
The Doubleday myth is the claim that the sport of baseball was invented in 1839 by future American Civil War general Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York. In response to a dispute over whether baseball originated in the United States or was a variation of the British game rounders, the Mills Commission was formed in 1905 to seek out evidence. Mining engineer Abner Graves authored a letter claiming that Doubleday invented baseball. The letter was published in a newspaper and eventually used by the Mills Commission to support its finding that the game was of American origin. In 1908, it named Doubleday the creator of baseball.
Peter C. Bjarkman was an American historian, freelance author, and commentator on the baseball played in Cuba after the 1959 Communist revolution. He provided regular internet commentary on Cuban League baseball as a contributing writer for LaVidaBaseball.com and as Senior Writer for the U.S.-based internet website BaseballdeCuba.com and appeared frequently on radio and television sports talk shows as an observer and analyst of the Cuban national sport. He also published more than three dozen books ranging in scope from Major League Baseball history and college and professional basketball history to sports biographies for young adult readers. In spring 2017 Bjarkman was honored with a SABR Henry Chadwick Award, the society's highest research recognition established in 2009, "to honor baseball's great researchers – historians, statisticians, annalists, and archivists – for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America's present with its past".
The Pittsfield Colts were a minor league baseball team based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1894, the Colts briefly played as members of the Class B level New York State League.. The Colts folded during the 1894 season and were succeeded in minor league play by the 1905 Pittsfield Hillies.
I played in Madison Square Garden in the semifinal championships in nineteen sixty one from Richmond Hill High School.
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