Great Books

The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence S. Ritter. This is the book that started the long term oral history projects in baseball history. In the early `60's Larry Ritter raced around America collecting the memories of lots of ballplayers from the first decades of the 20th century. Their stories are remarkable, while detailing for us a time where "love of the game" was the reason they played. Somewhat hilariously, they almost all of them make the case that the player of today (circa 1965) couldn't compare to the players of their era.

My grandfather gave me this book to read on the train back to NYC when I was about ten or eleven, and I've picked it up every few years since. If you don't have it, do yourself a favor and pick it up. You can do it through Amazon.