Sad News - Lawrence Ritter, Glory of Their Times

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Posted By: Durward Hamil 

This message was passed on to the SABR members who are interested in the deadball era. His "Glory of Their Times" works has helped enhanced the enjoyment of card collecting in this period for many of us.

Lawrence S. Ritter, who wrote the baseball classic “The Glory of Their Times,” as well as the authoritative textbook on money and banking for university studies, died this morning (Feb. 15) at his apartment in New York City.

Dr. Ritter, 81, died following a series of strokes.

He is survived by a son, Stephen, of Papscuaro, Mexico, a brother, Dr. Kenneth Ritter of Seattle, and one granddaughter.

There will be no funeral service. A private memorial gathering of friends will be announced.

“The Glory of Their Times” was published in September 1966 for a $3,000 advance. Four years in preparation, Larry, accompanied by his son, took a reel-to-reel tape recorder to gather oral histories from baseball players from the early part of the 20th century. The tales of Ty Cobb, John McGraw and Honus Wagner enthralled readers and gave a first-person narrative to the rough-and-tumble days of baseball just after the turn of the century.

The ‘oral history’ was unique in baseball, although he had been influenced by the father and son team of John and Alan Lomax, who traveled the country in the ‘30s and ‘40s with primitive tape recorders seeking out old and almost forgotten American folksongs, and by the book “Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya: The Story of Jazz Told by the Men Who Made it,” by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, which was published in 1955.

Ritter interviewed players like Rube Marquard, Harry Hooper, Tommy Leach, Sam Crawford and Smoky Joe Wood. Some felt the election of Marquard and Hooper to the Baseball Hall of Fame came from their newfound fame that followed the book’s publication.

Twenty-two players were interviewed, and Dr. Ritter divided the royalties among them all, including their widows when the subjects had passed on. (All now
have, including the widows). In all, he earned less than $35,000 personally on the project, a book which has sold nearly 400,000 copies and remains in
print today, having been re-released in many different editions. A PBS special based on the book aired in 1975, and was followed by the release of the actual
recordings on CD. The original tapes are housed in the Baseball Hall of Fame, with a copy in the Notre Dame library, which requested them.

Born in Queens (May 23, 1922), and a graduate of Boys High in Brooklyn, Dr. Ritter earned a bachelors degree from Indiana University and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. He served in the Navy in World War II, seeing action in the south Pacific. He became a professor of finance at NYU for more than 30 years, eventually becoming chairman of the Finance Department, NYU Graduate School of Business. There is a research room and an endowed chair in his name at the university. In 1989, he received a Great Teacher Award from the NYU Alumni Federation. In 1970, he served as President, American Finance Association. He was the John M. Schiff Professor of Finance, Emeritus, Stern School of Business, NYU.

With Gregory Udell and William Silber, he was the author of Principles of Money, Banking and Financial Markets, first published in 1974 and now in its
11th edition.

In addition to “The Glory of Their Times,” Dr. Ritter was the author of Lost Ballparks, The Babe: A Life in Pictures (with Mark Rucker), The Story of Baseball, The Image of Their Greatness (with Donald Honig), East Side, West Side: Tales of New York Sporting Life, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time (with Honig), and Leagues Apart: The Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues.

Dr. Ritter casually founded an informal monthly lunch gathering on the upper
west side for a dozen baseball writers, a tradition which is now in its 17th year, the purpose of which was simply “to talk baseball on into the afternoon.”
Even in the last three years, Larry, confined to a wheelchair was a regular presence and sharp of wit and recall.

Marty Appel
Marty Appel Public Relations
100 West 57th Street
New York NY 10019
(212) 245-1772
(212) 245-6353 fax
www.AppelPR.com