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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn
@johnthorn.bsky.social
5.6K followers 620 following 620 posts
Official Historian, Major League Baseball. Since 2011, I have posted a story a week at ourgame.mlblogs.com. Past though timeless tales available at https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/archive. Views are my own, not those of MLB. Nerdy badinage a specialty.
ourgame.mlblogs.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 23h
My stories have been published to Our Game, but Medium sets its own url. Thus, last night's talk at the New York State Museum:
medium.com/@thorn_john_...
MLB & NYC: A Love Story
Delivered at the the New York State Museum on October 6
medium.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 1d
Did you miss tonight's talk (MLB & NYC: A Love Story) at the New York State Museum? www.youtube.com/live/hOws9GT...
MLB & NYC: A Love Story: An evening with Major League Baseball Historian, John Thorn
YouTube video by nysmuseum
www.youtube.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 1d
Whatever happened to Eddie Waitkus? The rest of the story: www.timesunion.com/history/arti...
Lives Well Lived: Carol Webel Waitkus Hausen
Carol Webel’s marriage to Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus captivated Albany in 1951. Webel died in August at 96.
www.timesunion.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 2d
Simply wonderful: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o...
Opinion | Ken Burns: For America’s Next Story, Look Back to the Revolution
www.nytimes.com
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Reposted by John Thorn
jjcoop36.bsky.social
JJ Cooper @jjcoop36.bsky.social · 2d
I watched four MLB playoff games in a day just like I do every October.

IMO the massively improved pace of baseball as seen on Saturday makes the entire experience significantly more pleasurable than it was 5-10 years ago.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
You're right, Cecilia. Maybe you? I have a fat file of research notes that I'd be happy to provide.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
Lost since the 1890s. ourgame.mlblogs.com/baseballs-lo...
Baseball’s Lost Chalice
Baseball’s Lost Chalice This article from the forthcoming Fall 2011 number of Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game appears here with the courtesy of the publisher. For more information about …
ourgame.mlblogs.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
Piling on, I know, for 1886 and 1887:
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
Bob Caruthers of the St. Louis Browns pitched in Game One and Two of the 1885 World Series, then played right field in Games Four and Five. I know that folks like to date the World Series to 1903, or even to 1905, but rival leagues played what was called a World's Championship Series in 1884-90.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
Big baseball day ahead. BTW, the quotation above is from Walt Whitman.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 3d
“Well — it’s our game; that’s the chief fact in connection with it; America’s game; it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions; fits into them as significantly as our Constitution’s laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.”
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 5d
The Massachusetts Game diagram was published in Porter's Spirit on Dec. 20, 1856; the diagram for the New York Game on Dec. 6. Not until February 1857 were "paces" replaced by yards, with the distance between first and second base (30 yds) governing, not that between first and third.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 5d
The Massachusetts Game had four bases PLUS a striker's point. The fourth base was home, which a runner had to touch to score. Below is the New York Game (same story), with a distance between first and third base of "42 paces OR yds." [Emphasis mine; see: ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-making-o... ]
The Making of Baseball’s Magna Carta
The Making of Baseball’s Magna Carta Something odd, unusual, unexpected, even — to one not inclined to superlatives — utterly amazing has just now turned up, some 160 years since it vanished …
ourgame.mlblogs.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 5d
BTW, one of my "perks of office" was a sufficiently deep pocket to purchase this volume, so desirable among my early-baseball peers--especially for this, from the issue of December 6, 1856.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 5d
This celebrated horse was the "bob-tail nag" referenced in Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races," and thus should be of special interest to fans of a one-time Met, Lucas Duda. Flora Temple, rare lithograph supplied as frontispiece to Porter's Spirit of the Times (New York), Vol. I, No. 1; 1856.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 5d
As three winner-take-all games unfold on this Thursday, these snips may be worth viewing, again. www.pbs.org/kenburns/unu...
Baseball
From the playlist "Baseball" on Ken Burns UNUM.
www.pbs.org
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 6d
Oh, that last minute and ten seconds! www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpu...
Blue Again. Louis Armstrong 1932. 78rpm.wmv
YouTube video by Mads Nielsen
www.youtube.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 6d
In-person seats for this event are now fully booked, but a free livestream of MLB & NYC: A Love Story will be available for all to join on the NYS Museum’s YouTube channel beginning at 6 PM.

nysm.nysed.gov/about/press/...
MLB & NYC: A Love Story—An Evening at the Museum with Major League Baseball’s Official Historian John Thorn | The New York State Museum
nysm.nysed.gov
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 6d
To the 800 triple plays in @sabr's database, today are added 60 from the Negro Leagues. A handful of these are outside the @mlb recognized period of 1920 through 1948. sabr.org/tripleplays
SABR Triple Plays Database – Society for American Baseball Research
sabr.org
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 7d
In the 6th game of the 1889 WS, when NY trailed BKN 3 games to 2, Ward batted with his Giants down 2–1 in the bottom of the 9th, no men on, 2 outs. He singled, stole second, stole third, then scored the tying run. With two outs in the 11th he drove in the winner. Pre-Reggie, he was NY’s Mr. October.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 8d
Walter Johnson Baseball Game, 1925. Will write about that year's World Series soon, a centennial story.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 9d
Wrapping up my "Greatest Plays You Never Saw" series with a local hero, Dick Johnston. Running after flies hit over his head with reckless abandon--not merely drifting--he was Tris Speaker before Tris Speaker. medium.com/our-game/dic...
Dick Johnston — July 12, 1889
The Greatest Plays You Never Saw, №22
medium.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 10d
In 1960 I went to a New York Titans game at the Polo Grounds. Al Dorow was the quarterback and Sammy Baugh was the coach. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HAF...
www.youtube.com
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 12d
In 1908, Nora Bayes (born Rachel Eleonora Goldberg) married fellow performer Jack Norworth. He wrote "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"; she sang it.
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johnthorn.bsky.social
John Thorn @johnthorn.bsky.social · 12d
Not true--"soaking" was part of the Massachusetts Game but not, since the 1830s, the New York version, which won out.
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