The Glory of Their Times

By Lou Parrotta

Several years ago, I was fortunate to come across a tattered, paperback copy of the book The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. This magnificent book was written by the acclaimed writer Lawrence S. Ritter. First published in 1966, this book set the standard when it came to recording oral histories in sports. When I read the book in the mid-1990s, 30 years after is publication, the stories provided by the players profiled within its pages captivated me right from the start. 

If you have never read this book, you are unaware that the subjects of this book played their games between 1898 and 1945, and they were in their seventies, eighties and nineties when Ritter tracked them down and sat and talked with them between 1962 and 1966. Using an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, Ritter captured their personal life stories and the stories of their playing days. When you read the book, you are transformed to the early days of the 20th century and are entranced in anecdotes surrounding legendary players like Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Napoleon Lajoie, George Sisler, Babe Ruth, and John McGraw, to name just a few. It is like being transported back 60-100 years ago to when life in baseball, and the world, was much simpler. 

The book takes you on a wonderful journey through the lives and careers of such former players as Rube Marquard, Sam Crawford, Fred Snodgrass, Stanley Coveleski, Harry Hooper, Smoky Joe Wood, Edd Roush, Bill Wambsganss, Sam Jones, Lefty O'Doul, Goose Goslin, Heinie Groh and Paul Waner, among others. Now, you may or may not have heard of some, or all, of these guys, but to baseball historians, both casual and serious, these men are subjects of some of baseball's most famous brainteasers. For example, one of these players, O'Doul, led the National League in batting in 1932 with a .368 average but had his salary decreased by $1,000. Only back then could that happen!  

You hear firsthand accounts about such events as the 1919 World Series, where the Cincinnati Reds faced the White Sox, who went on to become known as the Black Sox due to their throwing of the Series. You read of a time when pitchers regularly won 30-35 games per year. You read about players who had terrific nicknames like "Smoky" Joe Wood, "Wee" Willie Keeler," Frank "Home Run" Baker," and, of course, "Babe." The book is a primary source of what the national pastime was like for the first 45 years of the 1900s. 

Ritter, who was inspired to write this book in 1961 when the great Ty Cobb passed away in Atlanta, Georgia, decided, according to the preface of the 1966 edition of the book, "... to record for the future the remembrances of a sport that has played such a significant role in American life." He traveled 75,000+ miles throughout the United States and Canada in order to fulfill that mission. He went on to write, "I had no idea what to expect when I started out, (but) what I found was a group of friendly and intelligent men who were not only delighted to talk about their experiences, but who were also able to articulate them in such a way as to bring them vividly alive today, often half a century or more after the fact." What Ritter found out then is still true today, almost a century later. The stories are just as vivid and important today as they were then. The book is truly a necessity for anyone trying to learn about baseball and life as it was so long ago. 

Lawrence Ritter passed away Sunday, February 15, 2004. He was 81, and he left a 30-year teaching career at New York University, wrote an Economics textbook in 1974 called "Principles of Money, Banking and Financial Markets," and also penned seven other terrific books on baseball. Despite that impressive career, Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times" book will forever be his claim to fame and justifiably so. It paved the way for hundreds of other historians to conduct oral histories and to conduct them properly. He has definitely left an impression and a legacy that will never be forgotten.         


Editor's Note: Lawrence Ritter was a subscriber to the print version of The Diamond Angle and from time to time would contribute to the magazine. For example, see his short piece on Tommy Henrich. He will be greatly missed.