BY PATRICK “PACKY” MADER
A man with many interests, Stew Thornley has discovered a multitude of ways to share his interests in regional sports, baseball in Minnesota, skydiving, and graveyard hunting. Writing and speaking have allowed him to transform from a research consumer to a research producer.
Stew’s father, Howard, was a prisoner of war at the famed Stalag 17 near Krems, Austria, for 14 months during World War II and later had a career as a postal employee in Minneapolis. His mother taught at the University of Minnesota (U of M) and had season tickets for all Gopher athletic events. Stew, born in 1955, and his father took advantage of the benefit and attended many of the sporting activities available once the family moved to Minneapolis from St. Louis Park (MN) where Stew lived the first 10 years of his life.
Star shortstop Bob Fenwick’s (Anoka, MN) younger brother was the bat boy for the Gopher baseball team, and Stew must have impressed some of the players with his duties as bat boy at summer collegiate league games at Delta Field, the predecessor of Siebert Field as the Gophers’ playing venue. He was named the team’s bat boy for the 1968 and 1969 seasons when the Fenwicks left because Bob was drafted in the first round of the secondary phase in 1967. It led to Stew’s most memorable sports moment: The Gophers sweeping a doubleheader over conference leader Michigan State in the final games of the 1968 season to capture the Big 10 title. “It was a great experience,” Stew says of his tenure as bat boy. “The players treated me well and I really looked up to them.”
As a baseball player himself, Stew played first base for Marshall University High School (Minneapolis). “I never had a good infielder’s arm,” he says, laughing. “I was kind erratic.” After graduating, Stew became a sports announcer, disc jockey, and staff announcer for radio stations in Missouri and Sauk Centre, Minnesota, when he decided to follow the advice of people who encouraged him to enroll in college. A B+ in a political science course proved to be the turning point and Stew ended up excelling at college after a mediocre high school academic career. Joining Toastmasters and Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) became instrumental for Stew as he earned a business degree in 1981.
on SABR website
Chronicling every game of the minor league baseball Minneapolis Millers, which ceased operations in 1960, Stew published “On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers” with Nodin Press in 1988.
“SABR is the reason I got going on this,” says Stew of his publishing endeavor. “It made a splash and led to more opportunities.” Indeed, successful books on the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, colorful broadcaster and journalist Halsey Hall, and collaborating with Gopher sports announcer Ray Christiansen and Twins’ play-by-play announcer Herb Carneal followed. Stew has written several children’s books for reluctant readers through Lerner Publications and Enslow Publishing and even a science book.
Toastmasters provided a double bonus: speaking and meeting Brenda Himrich, the Safety Manager of Bus and Light Rail for Metro Transit. They would marry in 1996 and she served as a resource for his science book and announcing official scoring in Spanish when they traveled to the World Baseball Classic in 2017.
Joining the Minnesota Department of Health in 1993, Stew is a health educator concentrating on communications for the drinking water protection program. He finds the dedicated field engineers in the department to be among the people he most respects.
Stew’s diverse interests include more than a dozen skydiving jumps, finding graveyard sites of presidents and baseball Hall-of-Famers, writing SABR biographies of baseball players, traveling, and being one of the two official scorers (with Gregg Wong and Kyle Traynor also having served in the role recently) for the Minnesota Twins games since 2007 and a backup official scorer at Minnesota Timberwolves basketball games. At games when he is not serving as the official scorer, Stew does datacasting of every pitch. And then there is all the public address announcing Stew has done at the high school – particularly St. Louis Park – and collegiate levels in many team sports!
Wrigley Field is Stew’s favorite sports venue. Young athletes successful at the professional level such as Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Mickey Mantle, and Alex Rodriguez captivate him. In fact, two of the cats he and Brenda have had over the years were bestowed the names Mickey and A-Rod, a third was named Jeter (Derek). You may notice a favoritism toward Yankees.
In 2014 a large malignant tumor was discovered in Stew’s right hip. He has had six surgeries and three hip replacements. It has slowed his mobility, but not his mind or activity.
“Opportunities lead to opportunities,” Stew says of his many travels and interests. Yes, covering baseball games in Japan, the Puerto Rico Winter League, and Cuba’s National Series are among his global journeys. But appreciating his job and time with Brenda and the cats in Roseville (MN) are pretty rewarding too.
• • • • • •
• Originally Published in May 2022 on “MNAthletes.com” •
THIS ARTICLE FROM “MNAthletes.com” WEBSITE IS REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. IT HAS BEEN RETYPED, BUT NO CONTENT HAS BEEN CHANGED, EXCEPT GRAPHICS.
Patrick “Packy” Mader has written several books, including two large volumes on Minnesotans who were in the Olympic Games or competed in world competitions. To view hundreds of articles on Minnesota athletes, be sure to visit Packy’s website: MNAthletes.com. You can click on the link below:
To keep up-to-date on additions to BaseballCardFun.com, subscribe below*
* Your email address will never be shared and is only used to announce new articles
BaseballCardFun.com 