Thorn: How trading cards might populate a new hall of fame
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on May 1, 2018:
Sport matters. So do the individuals or teams of high character and winning ways whose exploits may move multitudes to raise them to the level of heroes, and in the process stand a bit taller themselves. But in the cult of celebrity that grips us now, the routine activities of ordinary men are more amply analyzed than the greatest feats in all the world’s history of sport.
For sport to retain its power to inspire, we may now wish to squelch the noise of what any fan, upon a moment’s reflection, will agree doesn’t matter. There are halls of fame for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and almost any other sport you can name … but until now none for the wide world of sport. Why, one might ask, do we need another? The quick A-to-Z quiz below may provide an answer: match the athlete, in each case a famed champion in his or her day, with sport and nationality; the guess is that you will fall far short of a perfect score.
Read the full article here: https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/wide-world-of-sports-fe0a4aee3717
Originally published: May 1, 2018. Last Updated: May 1, 2018.