The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

by Lawrence S. Ritter

Lou was the kind of boy if you had a son he’s the kind of person you’d like your son to be.

I never walked through the players’ entrance at the Polo Grounds without getting goose pimples.

I love the good old days. They were great: Coogan’s Bluff…Hilltop Park…Mathewson…my idol, George Burns.

Right there—forty years too late—I learned the secret of successful hitting. It consists of two things. The first is clean living, and the second is to bat against a pitcher who’s laughing so hard he can hardly throw the ball.

Note: Goose Goslin was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1968.

Here’s the original check, by the way. The Chicago White Sox gave it to me years later. A hundred thousand dollars for me! What do you think of that?

Well, maybe the White Sox did throw it. I don’t know. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. It’s hard to say. I didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. But I think we’d have beaten them either way; that’s what I thought then and I still think so today.

Babe Ruth was a nice guy, though, there’s no doubt about that. I never held it against him.

Babe Ruth was the ultimate home-run hitter of his time and of all time. He was the greatest player in the history of the game, and whether someone breaks this home-run record or that one can’t change that fundamental truth.

And I was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player again, I think the only time someone has won the MVP award at two different positions.

The only pitcher where I wouldn’t take the signs was Bob Feller.

Those Pittsburgh fans were always fine fans, did you know that? They sure were. And I presume they still are, for that matter.