Back in the early 1960's, Lawrence Ritter had the idea of searching out great and good baseball players from the past and interviewing them from a book. (He now says it was something of a tribute to his father, who had just died at that time.)

The book that came out, "The Glory of Their Times," was an instant classic. Everyone connected with the game loved hearing first-hand stories about what baseball was like in the first 30 or so years after the turn of the century. While the technique was copied several times after that, Ritter was there first, and deserves great credit for bringing oral history to sports study.

So if the book was great, what does that make the audio version? Even better.

The tapes of the interview Ritter made with such players as Joe Wood and Sam Crawford were turned into cassettes and CD's a couple of years ago after sitting in the Baseball Hall of Fame for more than three decades. Listening to these old-time players talk is a wonderful experience. You can hear the emotion when they describe what it was like to be in the ballpark during Merkle's boner (1908) or Snodgrass's muff (1912). The memories were still sharp more than 50 years later, as Ritter discovered when he did some fact-checking. All of the players on the tapes are still sharp, and some of them are even willing to admit that today's players could hold their own with the stars of their era.

Ritter edited the conversations into essays, which read well enough. But the actual talks struck me as more enjoyable. You really do feeling like you are sitting on the front porch, listening to a bygone era.

Obviously, the tapes are less comprehensive than the book, even at four-plus hours. Some players' interviews have been left out. But what's left is terrific.

If you already have read "The Glory of Their Times," I think you'll still enjoy listening to it. If you haven't, the tapes will be a wonderful new adventure. And if you buy it at the price I paid for it at a discount book store - $2.99 - you'll feel like you should be arrested for larceny.

Thank you for reading this.

Recommended: Yes