SABRcast with Rob Neyer: John Thorn (Episode #36)
Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer. SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.
Subscribe to SABRcast on your favorite podcast networks, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play, and listen to each episode as soon as it’s released.
Neyer is a longtime baseball writer and editor for ESPN.com, SB Nation, and FoxSports.com. He began his career as a research assistant for groundbreaking baseball author Bill James and later worked for STATS, Inc. He has also written or co-written seven baseball books, including The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Bill James), winner of the Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award, and most recently Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, winner of this year’s CASEY Award.
Episode #36: December 2, 2019
Our guest this week is John Thorn, the noted author of The Hidden Game of Baseball (with Pete Palmer), Baseball in the Garden of Eden, and many other baseball books; former editor and publisher of Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball; an incomparable scholar of the origins of the game through his lively and entertaining Our Game blog at MLB.com, and today the Official Historian of Major League Baseball. He has been a SABR member for nearly 40 years and he was the recipient of SABR’s highest honor, the Bob Davids Award, in 2006 and the Henry Chadwick Award in 2013.
Click here or press play below to listen to Episode #36:
What’s Rob reading this week?
Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player
By Jeremy Beer
Buck O’Neil once described him as “Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one.” Among experts he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime he became a legend in Cuba and one of black America’s most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today. In a long career spanning from 1915 to 1954, Charleston played against, managed, befriended, and occasionally fought men such as Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Jesse Owens, Roy Campanella, and Branch Rickey. He displayed tremendous power, speed, and defensive instincts along with a fierce intelligence and commitment to his craft. Charleston’s competitive fire sometimes brought him trouble, but more often it led to victories, championships, and profound respect.
- Also reading: The 2019 Bill James Handbook (ACTA Sports)
- Read more: Click here to check out Rob’s full list of book recommendations on Goodreads.com
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