John Thorn

Award trophies, as opposed to letting the players define and claim their own. Ultimately, pay them to play so that their activity not only resembles work but is work. ↗

— John Thorn

#award #claim #define #letting #only

Baseball presents a living heritage, a game poised between the powerful undertow of seasons past and the hope of next day, next week, next year. ↗

— John Thorn

#between #day #game #heritage #hope

But the citizens of Cincinnati loved their Reds because they won, no matter what their addresses had been the year before. They rooted for the Old-English 'C' on the players' shirts. ↗

— John Thorn

#been #before #cincinnati #citizens #had

But the dream is never forgotten, only put aside and never out of reach: Where once the dream connected boys with the world of men, now it reconnects men with the spirit of boys. ↗

— John Thorn

#connected #dream #forgotten #men #never

Distant replay morphs into instant replay, and future replay cannot be far off. ↗

— John Thorn

#distant #far #future #instant #into

Donning a glove for a backyard toss, or watching a ball game, or just reflecting upon our baseball days, we are players again, forever young. ↗

— John Thorn

#backyard #ball #ball game #baseball #days

Finally, for all of us but a lucky few, the dream of playing big-time baseball is relinquished so we can get on with grown-up things. ↗

— John Thorn

#big-time #dream #few #finally #get

For many of us, sport has provided the continuity in our lives, the alternative family to the one we left behind. It gives us something to talk about, to preen about, to care about. ↗

— John Thorn

#alternative #behind #care #continuity #family

I think that much of this was running in background as I contemplated whether or not to attend the PS 99 reunion, although I certainly anticipated that I would not; it smelled like death, not youth. ↗

— John Thorn

#anticipated #attend #background #certainly #contemplated

And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.' ↗

— John Thorn

#business #came #ceded #control #frightened