John Thorn

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For other people named John Thorn, see John Thorn (disambiguation).
John Thorn in August 2010.

John Thorn (born April 17, 1947) is a sports historian, author, and cultural commentator. Since March 1, 2011,[1] he has been the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball.[2][3]

Early life

Thorn was born in Stuttgart, West Germany,[3] where his Polish Jewish parents had come as refugees.[2] Thorn immigrated to the United States in 1949. He graduated from Beloit College in 1968.[2][4]

Career

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] He founded Total Sports Publishing and served as its publisher from 1998–2002. Thorn served as the senior creative consultant for the Ken Burns documentary Baseball.[4]

In 2004 Thorn discovered documentation that traced the origins of baseball in America to 1791 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In June 2006 SABR awarded Thorn its highest award, the Bob Davids Award.[5] The award honors those whose contributions to SABR and baseball reflect the ingenuity, integrity, and self-sacrifice of the founder and past president of SABR, L. Robert "Bob" Davids.

On March 1, 2011, Thorn was named the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball.[4] "Thorn succeeds the late Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, who served as Official Baseball Historian from 1999 until his death in 2008."[6] Thorn's most recent baseball book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, was published with Simon and Schuster on March 15, 2011.[3][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 graphical 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.

References

  1. ↑ MLB press release announcing Thorn's appointment
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Baseball: the writer's game. Retrieved March 30, 2011. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 George Robinson. "Batter Up, Historically Speaking". The Jewish Week. Retrieved March 30, 2011. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Q&A with John Thorn, baseball historian". StarTribune.com. Retrieved March 30, 2011. 
  5. ↑ "Bob Davids Award – John Thorn". Society for American Baseball Research. SABR. Retrieved March 18, 2012. 
  6. ↑ "John Thorn Named Official Baseball Historian". 
  7. ↑ "Received: Baseball in the Garden of Eden". NotGraphs. Retrieved January 10, 2011. 

External links

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