Book Review: The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence S. Ritter

The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When they started their careers, professional baseball players were lowly regarded and by the end they’re exploits sold newspapers and had people standing in crowds waiting for details of the game they were playing across the nation. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter is a collection of 26 players telling the story of their careers in their own words from the dawn of 20th Century when baseball became a national obsession.

When originally published Ritter had only interviewed 22 players—four players including a Hall of Famer were added for this enlarged edition—whose careers went just before the turn of the century to mostly the early 1920s with a few exceptions. At the time only three players of the group were Hall of Famers and after publication four more were elected, but this collection of “important” and regular players gives this book a wonderful mix as well as the player’s backgrounds. Interestingly Ritter was able to interview several players that were involved in important moments of the time like Merkel’s blunder or Fred Snodgrass’ (featured player) dropped fly in Game 7 of the 1912 World Series, or several Cincinnati players who take exception that they wouldn’t have won the 1919 World Series if the White Sox hadn’t “thrown it”. Of all the 26 players featured in the book, I had only heard of Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg—who was included in the enhanced edition—and didn’t know that much about him so the individual perspectives on how baseball became a major part of the American social-cultural fabric was very interesting.

The Glory of Their Times is a wonderful look into baseball in the first few decades of the 20th Century, Lawrence S. Ritter’s work in transforming a interview transcript into a autobiographical feature that you could imagine the player speaking the words to you was fantastic and made what it is.

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