John Thorn

Professional History

Official Historian of Major League Baseball

Chairman of Baseball Origins Committee, Major League Baseball

Co-founder, Total Ltd., corporation for mobile-phone and tablet encyclopedia applications

Literary agent for institutional and personal accounts

Publishing, Licensing, and Curatorial Consultant, Pro Football Hall of Fame

Publishing, Licensing, and Curatorial Consultant, Museum of the City of New York

Director, Vintage Base Ball Federation

Founding Editor, Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game

Columnist, Woodstock Times

Columnist, Voices (New York Folklore Society)

Partner, The Toy Department, a book production company founded 2002

Publisher/CEO, Thorn Media, Inc. dba Total Sports Publishing, a company formed through the Management Buy-Out of the publishing interests of the internet-based company Total Sports, Inc., including the co-publishing arrangement with Sports Illustrated

Publisher and Executive Vice President, Total Sports, a company founded in April 1997 as a combination of the sports-book company Total Sports and the Internet newspaper Nando.net.

Publisher, Total Sports (Sports Extra), founded 1991 with Michael Gershman; packaged sports books for variety of major publishing houses such as Warner Books, Simon & Schuster, Viking, HarperCollins, etc.

Senior Creative Consultant, BASEBALL, A Film by Ken Burns (also an on-screen commentator), and BASEBALL, a book by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (Knopf), 1991-1994; consultant and on-screen commentator for THE TENTH INNING, PBS, September 2010

Developer with Lifetime Learning Systems of an educational program tying into the BASEBALL film (above); distributed to 3 million junior-high-school students with General Motors underwriting

President, Baseball Ink, a book production company founded 1985

Founder and editor of annual journal, The National Pastime, 1982-90

Author and independent book packager, 1974-1985

Editor in Chief, Hart Publishing, 1973-76

Associate Editor, The New Leader, a biweekly magazine of politics and the arts, 1969-72

Other Professional Data:

Frequent on-screen and on-air commentator for ESPN, ESPN Classic, Major League Baseball Productions, MLBTV, HBO, PBS, NHK, History Channel, etc. Also considerable experience in public speaking on sports matters.

Expert Witness, City of Anaheim, in case against Angels LP

Expert Witness, City of Chicago, Landmarks Commission Hearings on saving Wrigley Field

Member: Authors Guild; New-York Historical Society; Museum of the City of New York; New York State Historical Association; North American Society of Sports Historians; Society for American Baseball Research (SABR); Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA)

Past Publications Director, Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

Past President, Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA)

B.A., Beloit College, 1968; graduate study in English Literature, Washington University, 1969

Bibliography

Pro Football Hall of Fame 50^th Anniversary Book, Grand Central Publishing, Summer 2012Baseball: Our Game, an ebook, Thinker Media, 2011

Baseball in the Garden of Eden, Simon & Schuster, Spring 2011; paperback Spring 2012

First Pitch (children’s history of early baseball), Beach Ball Books, Spring 2011

New York 400 (with the Museum of the City of New York), Running Press, September 2009

The Glory Days: Baseball in New York City 1947-1957 (with the Museum of the City of New York), Collins, 2007, paperback 2008

New York Yankees’ Memorial Park Honorees, a project for the team’s Yearbook, Spring 2007

BASE BALL: A Journal of the Early Game (a scholarly semi-annual), McFarland Publishing, Spring 2007 to date

New York Yankees’ Hall of Famers, a project for the team’s Yearbook, Spring 2006

PLAY, a column for Voices, the semiannual of the New York Folkore Society, Spring 2006 to date

Wake the Echoes, a biweekly column for the Kingston Times, 2004-09

Play’s the Thing, a biweekly column for the Woodstock Times, 2004-09; the column “Mangled Forms” was selected as one of the “Notable Essays of 2004” by the editor of Best American Essays 2005.

Total Baseball, Eighth Edition(with Phil Birnbaum and Bill Deane), Sports Classic Books, Spring 2004

New York Yankees’ 100 Greatest Moments, a project for the team’s Centennial Yearbook, Spring 2003

Teddy Ballgame, by Ted Williams with David Pietrusza, Thorn introduction, Sport Classic Books, Fall 2002

Total Baseball, Seventh Edition(with Pete Palmer and Michael Gershman), Total Sports Publishing, Spring 2001

Total Football, Second Edition (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1999

Total Browns (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), Total Sports, Fall 1999

Total Baseball, Sixth Edition(with Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, and David Pietrusza), Total Sports, Spring 1999

Total Steelers (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1998

Total Packers (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1998

Total Cowboys (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1998

Total 49ers (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1998

Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame, photographs by Dave Jordano, Villard Books, Spring 1998

Total Baseball Catalog (with Bob Carroll, David Pietrusza, and Lloyd Johnson),Total Sports, Spring 1998

Total Football (with Bob Carroll, Michael Gershman, and David Neft), HarperCollins, Fall 1997

Total Mets (with Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, David Pietrusza, and Matt Silverman), Total Sports, 1997

Total Baseball, Fifth Edition (with Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, and David Pietrusza), Viking, Spring 1997; includes CD-ROM, Total Baseball '97

Total Braves (with Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, David Pietrusza, and Dan Schlossberg), Penguin, 1996

Total Indians (with Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, David Pietrusza, and Paul Hoynes), Penguin, 1996

Total Baseball, a World Wide Web site (www.totalbaseball.com) with seven satellite sites (Total Braves, Indians, Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, White Sox, World Series); with Mindscape and MediaFlow, 1996

Total Sports, a service of the AT&T Interchange Network, 1995

Baseball: Our Game, Penguin Books, 1995

Total Baseball, Fourth Edition (with Pete Palmer), Viking, Spring 1995

Total Baseball (ROM card for handheld electronic book), Franklin, 1995

Complete Baseball, Second Edition (personal computer compact disc for Windows, DOS), Microsoft, 1995

Complete Baseball (personal computer compact disc for Windows, DOS), Microsoft, 1994

Total Baseball, Special Edition, (with Pete Palmer), CMC ReSearch, Spring 1994 (personal computer compact disc for DOS and Mac)

Total Baseball, Special Edition, (with Pete Palmer), CMC ReSearch, 1993 (personal computer compact disc for DOS and Mac)

Total Baseball, Third Edition, (with Pete Palmer), HarperCollins, Spring 1993

Total Baseball, Special Edition, (with Pete Palmer), CMC ReSearch, 1992 (personal computer compact disc for DOS and Mac)

The Young Pitcher by Zane Grey; foreword by John Thorn, Morrow Junior Books & Beech Tree Books, 1992

The Shortstop by Zane Grey; foreword by John Thorn, Morrow Junior Books & Beech Tree Books, 1992

Ted Williams: Seasons of the Kid (with Richard Ben Cramer and Mark Rucker), Prentice Hall, 1991

Total Baseball, Second Edition, (with Pete Palmer), Warner Books, 1991

Total Baseball, Special Edition, (with Pete Palmer), Sony Electronic Books, 1991 (DataDiscman compact disc)

The Official Major League Baseball Record Book (with Pete Palmer), Simon & Schuster, 1991

The Whole Baseball Catalogue (with Bob Carroll), Simon & Schuster, 1990

The 1990 Total Baseball Update (with Pete Palmer), Warner Books, 1990

The 1990 Baseball Annual (with Pete Palmer and Eliot Cohen), Warner Books, 1990

The National Pastime: The Big Bang Era (with Mark Rucker), SABR, 1990

The Football Abstract (with Pete Palmer and Bob Carroll), Warner Books, 1989

Total Baseball (with Pete Palmer), Warner Books, 1989

The Game for All America, The Sporting News, 1988

The Hidden Game of Football (with Bob Carroll and Pete Palmer), Warner Books, 1988, 1989; Total Sports, rev. ed., 1998

The Armchair Traveler (with David Reuther), Prentice Hall Press, 1988, 1989

The Pitcher (with John Holway), Prentice Hall Press, 1987, 1988

The Armchair Book of Baseball II, Scribners, 1987; Collier, 1992

The National Pastime, Warner Books, 1987; Bell, 1988

The Armchair Angler (with Terry Brykczynski and David Reuther), Scribners, 1986; Collier, 1993

The National Pastime: The Dead Ball Era (with Mark Rucker), SABR, 1986

The Armchair Book of Baseball, Scribners, 1985; Collier, 1993

The Hidden Game of Baseball (with Pete Palmer), Doubleday, 1985, 1984

Sphere and Ash (edited new edition of Jacob Morse's 1888 book), Camden House, 1984

The Armchair Mountaineer (with David Reuther), Scribners, 1984; Menasha Ridge Press, 1989

The National Pastime: The Nineteenth Century (with Mark Rucker), SABR, 1984

Days of Greatness: The Providence Baseball Club, 1875-1885, SABR, 1984

The Armchair Aviator, Scribners, 1983

The Armchair Quarterback, Scribners, 1982

Pro Football's Ten Greatest Games, Four Winds Press, 1981

Baseball's Ten Greatest Games, Four Winds Press, 1981

A Century of Baseball Lore, Galahad, 1980; Hart 1976, 1974

The Relief Pitcher, Dutton, 1979

Contributions to various periodicals and newspapers, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Base Ball, Creative Nonfiction, The Sporting News, Voices, Sport, ESPN The Magazine, Yankees Magazine, Elysian Fields Quarterly, The World Series Program, The All-Star Game Program, and American Heritage; forewords and introductions to numerous volumes, including two in 2009; book reviews (Boston Globe) and occasional essays for a number of books in collaboration with colleagues, such as BASEBALL (by Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward).

Personal

Born April 17, 1947; three sons (34, 29, 22)

Resides in Saugerties, New York