Talking Baseball: Reading and Listening to The Glory of Their Times (1966)

Ritter's book with the compact disc (CD) audio version of The Glory of Their Times that was released in 1998 and with some of the original tape recordings and transcripts, which are archived in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.Comparing, contrasting, and contextualizing different versions of The Glory of Their Times in different media can help us better appreciate these texts, their strengths, and weaknesses.Further, engaging The Glory of Their Times enables us to think critically about how form and historical practices enrich and sometimes stymie our understanding of the past.And in the process, we learn that the book is not what it claims or appears to be. An Economist Turned HistorianWe should begin with Lawrence Ritter, who died in 2004 when he was 81. 4 A native New Yorker and a Navy veteran (1942-1946) with deep affection for baseball, Ritter was a professor of economics and finance at New York University from 1961 to 1991. 5 He earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1951 and taught at Michigan State University before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of New