Since people are adding checks, I think I will add my letter from Bucky Walters to Mr. Ritter. I like how he shares his appreciation and like for the book.

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Postcard used in book...

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So all the members of the Underground Railroad were racists? It doesn't matter that whites were risking their lives, and sometimes dying, helping blacks. Branch Rickey must have been a racist too. How about Pee Wee Reese?

$2,027.99 to be specific. :)

$2,027.99 to be specific. :)

I'm a Christian man. The seed of hatred and discrimination lies within us all.

There has been and always will be the ability to accept one minority without accepting them all. There were many a white abolitionist who thought that removing Native Americans from their families and reservations and forcing them into schools far away so that they could assimilate into white culture was best for them and their kind.

And further, being an abolitionist didn't mean one stood for equality in all segments of society. Being an abolitionist meant that you didn't believe one man could subjugate and enslave another. Abolitionists weren't advocating interracial marriage. Many didn't even advocate women's right to vote.

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Some maybe, but ALL? All who were risking their lives were still racists? Isn't that diminishing what real racism is? People today like to throw around that term to make themselves superior to others they disagree with. Racism injured and killed real humans. It is a word that shouldn't be used lightly.

I think this is the salient point. I'm not a particularly active member here, nor am I anything approaching a competent baseball historian, but I have been blessed/cursed to have to walk this earth observing and evaluating my every move (ISTJ, represent!) Stereotyping is a common heuristic for dealing with unfamiliar situations. So, the question isn't whether a person is prejudiced or not, because everyone carries around some level of prejudice. The question is whether we can recognize that prejudice within ourselves and compartmentalize it away from our interactions with the world in general, and individuals specifically.

So, think of Cobb as Schrödinger's racist.

Well said....

A year earlier, as posted above, Edd Roush got one for $935. I guess that would be around nine grand today. Wow! Makes me wonder if Larry even kept any for himself

audio of "Glory'
 

An interesting thing about the audio version of Ritter's work is what was left out.

Chief Meyers, a charmer on tape, remained bitter about the treatment of Native Americans, something we couldn't pick up on in the book.

Rube Bressler, who was cut by the Cardinals at the end of his career, was still very angry about his treatment in St. Louis. His take on Branch Rickey is eye-opening.

Ritter was interviewed by Mike Shannon for "Baseball The Writers' Game." It is very insightful. Ritter mentioned interviewing a player who was senile (we don't discover who). He also said not all of the interviews were productive, but he blamed himself for that. Someone (it may have been Ritter) said Willie Kamm was so dispassionate about his baseball career that he could have been talking about someone other than himself.

As for Cobb being a racist, where this thread seems to be leaning, let's just say that Ty Cobb was difficult. Odd might be a better fit. There IS plenty of evidence of that.
lumberjack

Racism is not treating a group of people equally because of race or heritage. One does not need to burn a cross or lynch a man to be racist. When Hank Aaron couldn't sleep in the same hotel as his teammates was that not racism? When he had to wash his uniform at the black laundry on the other side of town, was that not racism? So then his teammates who said, "gosh Hank, I'm sorry, but that's just the way things are," don't they bare some burden for the problem continuing? They aren't just innocent bystanders. They could sleep elsewhere, they could eat elsewhere, but they didn't.

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Why are hijacking this thread and making it about whether or not long dead men that were raised and lived during times many of us were not born in either were or were not racist to some degree or another?

There will be no consensus reached here people! We don’t know the answer, nor will we ever know. It is like watching Don Quixote attacking a windmill!

Nice comment. I like the Don Quixote reference. I'll stop.

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Of course it is. The statement akin to 'everyone is a racist' diminishes racism to the extent of saying every person alive is breathing. If indeed, everyone is a racist, what is the point of even being concerned with racism at all? Beyond being a bludgeon for preferential usage of the term.

Tschock, your answer was given by carlsonjok, who said it very well.

Or, if you're a bible believer, it's to realize your imperfection, to begin to follow the Lord's commands and to change your habits (to love thy neighbor as thy self, or to follow the golden rule), and to accept the redeeming power of Christ.

I'm sorry to hijack this thread like someone said earlier. I really like theory, theology, and philosophy and the attempts to turn theory into real life application.... and the difficulties this presents in trying to accomplish it.

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Having seen the royalty checks posted here , and seeing others in the past I wonder about the differing amounts per player , and how the royalty amounts for each player were determined as well as how long did the players receive the royalty checks ?
One thing is clear and that is that Ritter did a great job with the book and by all I’ve ever heard or read he tried to treat the players fairly throughout the process .

Interesting, it doesn't appear there was a set amount each player rec'd as the amounts in the checks are very different, although they were all written at different times so no true 1:1 comparison. The Roush check being the largest is interesting but it also appears to be the oldest check (1967) so maybe that was an initial amount rec'd for the ability to interview & their time and the later smaller amounts were royalties based on book sales? I believe the book came out initially in 1966.

Each player may have negotiated their own contract. If you have ever read anything about Roush he was a pretty shrewd and somewhat demanding player when it came to his contracts so he may have just negotiated better? Or it could be based on portion of the book that was dedicated to their story... the more interesting players likely got more press and thus a larger check? Interesting questions.

re.Glory
 

Here's what Ritter told Mike Shannon: "I don't remember how much each [subject] got...but it was something like 10, 15, 20,000 dollars.....Even when they died, we had written documents as to who was to get their share in the future."

This went on until, as Ritter said, the bookkeeping got to be too much. He eventually bought out everybody for $500 for their share. This would have been around 1987.

Ritter did not take anything from the project as it would have created tax problems for him. He was pretty well off and certainly in better shape than the retired players.
lumberjack

It would make sense that the largest checks were at the beginning, then diminished over time. I'm pretty sure Larry didn't have any contracts with the players since he had no publisher for the book when he did the interviews and didn't really know if there would be one. He told us that Billy Werber refused to be interviewed unless he was paid, so there was no interview. Werber told Larry he planned to write his own book, so why would he give Ritter the information for free? Larry took some satisfaction in recounting how his book made many of the players famous again and how he was sure that Werber regretted his decision. It's surprising to me that so few of Larry's "Glory" checks have surfaced over the years considering he probably wrote at least one a year to all 28 players in the book for years. But I don't think I've ever seen one later than the early 70s. You would think if some of them came out, they all would have come out. In the dim recesses of my mind, I think autograph dealer Doug Averitt might have bought them from Larry, I know he had a bunch of them in the late 90s.

Larry Ritter
 

Memory is a funny thing.

Ritter told Mike Shannon that he interviewed Bill Werber. He considered the interview "terrific." It was kind of explosive. Weber had second thoughts and threatened to sue Ritter. Okay. Werber stayed out of the book.

When Don Honig began his tape recorded interviews with former players, Bill Werber turned up in his second book, "Baseball Between The Lines."

Ritter gave Honig three of the interviews that never made it into "Glory." We can assume that the Werber chapter is one of the three.

Werber, by the way, once threatened Red Smith before the start of a game. Smith recalled that he was ready to hit Werber with his typewriter. Why would anybody threaten Red Smith?
lumberjack

Thanks for the information, my memory is certainly not what it used to be. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that Larry told us the reason Werber declined to let him use the interview had to do with money, that Werber figured he could cash in on his memoirs so why would he give it away? I'm guessing after the success of the book and the renewed prominence it gave the players, Werber realized he had made a mistake and allowed Donald Honig to use it. And yes, Larry said that his friend Honig kept bugging him so much about doing a sequel to "Glory" that Larry gave Honig the four interviews he hadn't used and told him, "I did my book, if you think there should be a sequel then go ahead and do it yourself!"

ritter
 

Henry, I believe you. Ritter did all of those interviews in the early '60s, however, and maybe he developed sort of a composite memory of what happened as the decades rolled by. "Glory" remains a treat.
lumberjack

[QUOTE=lumberjack;1948596]Henry, I believe you. Ritter did all of those interviews in the early '60s, however, and maybe he developed sort of a composite memory of what happened as the decades rolled by. "Glory" remains a treat.
lumberjack[/QUOTE

Larry did develop a selective memory around certain aspects of Glory, as Neal and I discovered to our amusement when we were working with him. (He's quoted as extending the period of his searching and interviewing to as many as six years, when it actually all took place within and year and a half, for instance.) Other aspects of the Glory legend, in his telling, don't hold up to scrutiny, either, but none of it diminishes or tarnishes the monumental significance of what he accomplished. It's still hard for me to believe, even now, that I was lucky enough to have contributed in a small way to his incredible project.

This is really interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing the info so it won't be lost for future hobbyists.

Thanks to you, Leon, for providing such a worthy forum.

Reviving old thread that got a little side tracked on Cobb. I just finished listening to the audio book and oh my god I loved every minute. My absolute favorite was the story of Charlie Faust as the unexpected mascot (good luck charm) for the Giants winning the pennant every year.

After listening to the book I have concluded (obviously):
1) Walter Johnson was the hands down best pitcher of his era. Basically every single player asked said so, always the first name that came up.

2) Christy Mathewson was the coolest guy. I am pretty much going to save every penny from now on to buy one of his T206s. He just seemed like the all American type guy - great pitcher, great man, great teammate. Although have to admit my excitement was a little tempered by Joe Posnanski’s recent article on The Athletic website counting down the top 100 players of all time. He has Matty at 36 and although corroborates his reputation for being good at everything and well respected, he tells a lot of stories about Matty blaming teammates and throwing them under the bus for some of his loses after the fact.

I finished the book wishing I had about 20 more of those CDs to keep going. Anyone have any other suggestions for books, audio or movies in the same vein?

In keeping in the same vein as Glory of their times, there is an excellent book by former 1930's-1940's pitcher Elden Auker called "Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms: A Lifetime of Memories from Striking Out the Babe to Teeing It Up with the President". It's a good read if anyone is interested

I'm in the middle of "We Played the Game" and this 600+ page book is great. I don't <strike>have</strike> take the time to read much outside of waiting rooms, so I'm only on 1956 and it'll be a while until I get through the '60s.

https://www.amazon.com/We-Played-Gam.../dp/0786860081