There was much woe and lamentation in the seventies that the game was dying. — John Thorn Death Copy Share Image
We play because we are wired for joy; it is imperative as human beings. — John Thorn Human beings Copy Share Image
Except in expert hands, stats can get in the way of story; an array of data that might better be presented in… — John Thorn Data Copy Share Image
I am opposed, naturally, to regurgitating anecdote or any other form of received wisdom, unless it is characterized as such. — John Thorn Anecdotes Copy Share Image
Distant replay morphs into instant replay, and future replay cannot be far off. — John Thorn Instant Copy Share Image
Whatever else I do before finally I go to my grave, I hope it will not be looking after young people. — John Thorn Grave Copy Share Image
I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective. — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
If I haven't made myself clear, this worrisome chain of events describes the game of the nineteenth century. — John Thorn Century Copy Share Image
The heroes of our youth grow old - 'the boys of summer in their ruin,' in Dylan Thomas's verse - yet we… — John Thorn Boys Copy Share Image
The National League was born the following year, as an attempt to exert the control of capital over labor. — John Thorn Attempt Copy Share Image
For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It… — John Thorn About Copy Share Image
Better than anything else in our culture, it enables fathers and sons to speak on a level playing field while building up… — John Thorn Building Copy Share Image
Planning to play: that's what saving for retirement is today - and it is antithetical to the nature of play, fully within… — John Thorn Death Copy Share Image
My egotistical concern was less that I would fail to relate to my classmates than that they would know nothing of my… — John Thorn Classmates Copy Share Image
We are fans because the game also appeals to our local pride, our pleasure in thinking of ourselves as, yes, Americans but… — John Thorn Also Copy Share Image
For many in baseball September is a month of stark contrast with April, when everyone had dared to hope. If baseball is… — John Thorn April Copy Share Image
Baseball is not a conventional industry. It belongs neither to the players nor management, but to all of us. It is our… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
Award trophies, as opposed to letting the players define and claim their own. Ultimately, pay them to play so that their activity… — John Thorn Activity Copy Share Image
It says, I think, that at root that we're children, or we'd like to be. And the best of us each keep… — John Thorn Able Copy Share Image
“Reflecting on the appeal of history in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, heroine Catherine Morland comments, “I often think it odd that it… — John Thorn Austen Copy Share Image
Just because I am increasingly bored by sabermetric arcana doesn't mean anyone else has to be; it remains good for people who… — John Thorn Bored Copy Share Image
Although the world proved not yet ready for the brotherhood of baseball, that would be only a matter of time, baseball magnates… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
Finally, for all of us but a lucky few, the dream of playing big-time baseball is relinquished so we can get on… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
Donning a glove for a backyard toss, or watching a ball game, or just reflecting upon our baseball days, we are players… — John Thorn Backyards Copy Share Image
In over 160 years of recorded baseball history, no team had ever won a championship this way. — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
Baseball presents a living heritage, a game poised between the powerful undertow of seasons past and the hope of next day, next… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
We know these men are professionals whose services are up for bid and whose bags are packed, and yet we call them… — John Thorn Accomplishment Copy Share Image
One of the first lessons he or she learns is that in baseball anything, absolutely anything, can happen. Just two days ago… — John Thorn Anything can happen Copy Share Image
Why we play as children is not because it is our work or because it is how we learn, though both statements… — John Thorn Child Copy Share Image
More fundamentally, it is a dream that does not die with the onset of manhood: the dream is to play endlessly, past… — John Thorn Betray Copy Share Image
As the game enters its glorious final weeks, the chill of fall signals the reality of defeat for all but one team.… — John Thorn Brown Copy Share Image
Pursuing employment or climatic relief, we live in voluntary exile from our extended families and our longer past, but in an involuntary… — John Thorn Employment Copy Share Image
But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes, spirited competition, and booming… — John Thorn Around the world Copy Share Image
And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
Do we settle on a regional team because we can go to its ballpark and see its games on television? Or do… — John Thorn Ballparks Copy Share Image
Yes, we've seen it all before. And yes, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. But no, the… — John Thorn Baseball Copy Share Image
The caliber of play suffered and attendance declined year by year. Interest in college football was exploding, and there was this new… — John Thorn Attendance Copy Share Image
I think that much of this was running in background as I contemplated whether or not to attend the PS 99 reunion,… — John Thorn Backgrounds Copy Share Image
But the citizens of Cincinnati loved their Reds because they won, no matter what their addresses had been the year before. They… — John Thorn Address Copy Share Image
