What do you think?
Rate this book
Baseball When the Grass Was Real: Baseball from the Twenties to the Forties, Told by the Men Who Played It
Donald Honig crossed the country to meet and interview former big-league ball players. They shared their memories with him and the result is a book packed with nostalgia, statistics, action, revelations—an extraordinary oral history of baseball in the halcyon days beween the two world wars. Babe Ruth, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig, and many others are brought to life through the recollections of Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Bucky Waters, Billy Herman, Cool Papa Bell, Spud Chandler, Pete Reiser, and a host of others. Those were the days when the grass was real, salaries were modest, Bob Feller was America's most famous seventeen-year-old, and idealism was in full swing. "Baseball builds your pride," said pitcher Wes Ferrell, who played it in order "to be a better guy."
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
1 person is currently reading
121 people want to read
About the author
Donald Honig
128 books7 followersDonald Martin Honig is a novelist and historian who mostly writes about baseball.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
June 25, 2019
This is one of my favorite baseball books, and, having authored three baseball books of my own, I’ve read a lot of them.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
June 25, 2019
This is one of my favorite baseball books, and, having authored three baseball books of my own, I’ve read a lot of them.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
June 25, 2019
This is one of my favorite baseball books, and, having authored three baseball books of my own, I’ve read a lot of them.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
The title is appropriate for a book first published in the mid-70s, when increasingly the grass wasn’t real in major league baseball. The author conducted a series of interview with men who played ball in the preceding two generations. Honig spoke to both superstars and regular, unremarkable players about their experiences in baseball.
If you’re curious, here’s the list: Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Lefty Grove, Bucky Walters, Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, George Pipgras, Billy Herman, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Clyde Sukeforth, Doc Cramer, Max Lanier, Spud Chandler, Frank McCormick, Rip Sewell, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. Some superstars, for sure, but some normal guys as well.
If you enjoy stories about baseball in a biographical format, you can’t go wrong with this book. You’ll learn a bit about what it was like to play baseball between the 1920s and 1940s as well as the personal stories of some of the men who played the game.
The only things one might critique about the book is that, one, it’s derivative of Lawrence Ritter’s 1966 classic The Glory of Their Times. Same format—a series of interviews with players about their life in baseball. Second, the book has a little of that Gold Old Days feel to it. It’s not really a book with a point, other than to tell stories about baseball.
However, if what you’re looking for is stories about baseball, then look no further.
January 16, 2012
Ernest Hemingway invites half the 1942 Brooklyn Dodger ball team to his Havana home during spring training. Guns are fired and lots of alcohol drunk. Hemingway takes a shining to enigmatic pitcher Hugh Casey, and requests a sparring session that quickly turns into a violent, no-rules wrestling match, and ending with 'the old man' demanding a duel to the death.
Albert Pujols's dollars could never pay for such an experience.
Albert Pujols's dollars could never pay for such an experience.
May 7, 2025
One of my favorite reads from last year was more of a listen: The Glory of their Times, featuring audio of old-time ballplayers telling stories from the early days of baseball. Baseball When the Grass was Real is a pseudo-sequel to that, featuring oral histories from the 1930s & 1940s. albeit with a different author. Donald Honig floated the idea to Lawrence Ritter, but the Glory author wasn’t up for another project of such ambition. Although this audio book doesn’t have the actual recordings of these men talking, its narrator Stephen McLaughlin has a good range of accents, voices, cadences, etc and delivers an enjoyable experience. Honig’s selection of players offers more range than Ritter’s original, including stories from players in the Negro Leagues as well as the perspective of scouts and umpires. While none of the subjects are household names the way Gehrig or Williams might be, larger-than-life players often appear in the stories. We experience Branch Rickey’s first meeting with Jackie Robinson, and the subsequent partnership they worked out to break the color wall in pro ball, through the eyes of one of Rickey’s scouts who had been told to investigate Robinson’s prospect and was caught completely by surprise when he heard Rickey’s pitch. (He thought Rickey was planning to create his own Negro League team and wanted a pivotal shortstop!) Ernest Hemingway also makes a splash, getting drunk with a few ballplayers, challenging one to a besotted boxing match that destroys his living room, and then challenges the mean to a duel at dawn. Swords or pistols, his pick! (Hemingway recanted the idea in the morning….) There’s a lot of like in this collection, assuming you enjoy listening to ball players talk about their youth – and as one wryly commented, “The older you get, the better you ‘were’”. One thing that leapt out to me was that the Cardinals have evidently always had a strong farm system, and they used it sneaky, too: one player revealed that not only had the Cards been watching him since elementary school, when he attended public tryouts where they were present, they immediately cut him on day one so that no other scouts could eyeball him and realize his strengths. Instead, they approached him at home with a deal.
April 2, 2022
In the mid-1970s, Donald Honig sought to interview major league baseball players whose careers occurred between 1920-1955. Thousands of men played between those years; most were dead by the time Honig began interviewing. Undoubtedly, many who were still alive were inaccessible for one reason or another: age, infirmity, distance, irascibility, irrelevance. Eighteen made the cut, some famous, some not. Some I’d heard of, some not.
Wisely, Honig sought (apparently) a mix of players. Some names I recognized immediately are Charlie Gehringer, Lefty Grove, James “Cool Papa” Bell, and Bob Feller, all hall-of-famers. Other hall-of-famers included are Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, and Billy Herman. Now I know why they’re included, and I won’t fail to recognize their names again. Some very good players and delightful personalities who didn’t make the hall of fame made the list as well. Even the role players, the ones who likely were interviewed primarily because they were asked, had good stories to tell about the stars on their teams, the managers, and even in some instances the management.
The book includes interviews of eighteen different men who played at different times, so it’s difficult to discern insights or trends that tie them all together. They’re best taken as discrete memories of the “I was there when…” genre. Some were witness to baseball history, but that’s not the primary charm of the book. The enjoyment, for me, was the sense that all of them loved the game and remembered their major league days fondly. They were men playing a game and being paid for it. Few of them have regrets, gripes or sour memories.
Memory is selective and contextual. I was a purchaser of baseball cards in the 1950s. I pinned them to the fender support of my bicycle so that they’d thwap when the spokes hit them. I cut out the symbols of the Yankee top hat and cane, the Indians’ racist caricature, the one-eyed Pirate, keeping the symbols and throwing out the cards unless they were of Mantle or Feller or their ilk. But I looked at the cards, shuffled them, read the backs, chewed the gum. Thus was born my love of baseball and the beginning of my fascination with the players.
Working backwards chronologically, Honig’s book picks up just at the point where I didn’t know most of the players or the history. That’s why I wanted to read it. After reading their collected recollections, I better understand why I’d not heard of some, and why it’s a shame I hadn’t heard of others. One great discovery for me in reading this book is that the generation before mine included some truly remarkable players. I’m happy to have met them here.
Wisely, Honig sought (apparently) a mix of players. Some names I recognized immediately are Charlie Gehringer, Lefty Grove, James “Cool Papa” Bell, and Bob Feller, all hall-of-famers. Other hall-of-famers included are Johnny Mize, Ted Lyons, and Billy Herman. Now I know why they’re included, and I won’t fail to recognize their names again. Some very good players and delightful personalities who didn’t make the hall of fame made the list as well. Even the role players, the ones who likely were interviewed primarily because they were asked, had good stories to tell about the stars on their teams, the managers, and even in some instances the management.
The book includes interviews of eighteen different men who played at different times, so it’s difficult to discern insights or trends that tie them all together. They’re best taken as discrete memories of the “I was there when…” genre. Some were witness to baseball history, but that’s not the primary charm of the book. The enjoyment, for me, was the sense that all of them loved the game and remembered their major league days fondly. They were men playing a game and being paid for it. Few of them have regrets, gripes or sour memories.
Memory is selective and contextual. I was a purchaser of baseball cards in the 1950s. I pinned them to the fender support of my bicycle so that they’d thwap when the spokes hit them. I cut out the symbols of the Yankee top hat and cane, the Indians’ racist caricature, the one-eyed Pirate, keeping the symbols and throwing out the cards unless they were of Mantle or Feller or their ilk. But I looked at the cards, shuffled them, read the backs, chewed the gum. Thus was born my love of baseball and the beginning of my fascination with the players.
Working backwards chronologically, Honig’s book picks up just at the point where I didn’t know most of the players or the history. That’s why I wanted to read it. After reading their collected recollections, I better understand why I’d not heard of some, and why it’s a shame I hadn’t heard of others. One great discovery for me in reading this book is that the generation before mine included some truly remarkable players. I’m happy to have met them here.
January 10, 2023
Awesome book. It reads like you’re sitting at the bar listening to former big leaguers tell their stories from their playing days. I was worried this wouldn’t live up to “The Glory of Their Times”, but it definitely got close.
June 18, 2017
Good book-great stories!
November 14, 2018
Donald Honig picked up the oral history mantel from Lawrence Ritter in 1975. This is a classic.
October 17, 2025
Good companion book to The Glory of Their Times by Ritter, good read for any baseball fan.
July 20, 2008
Really neat book consisting of oral histories of baseball players who played from the 1920s to the 1940s. Some of the best players in history sit down with Honig and his tape recorder, and spin some great stories. One of the things I really like is that often a number of players use some old expressions and phrases that have just completely disappeared today, so it's neat to see them in use here. My favorite was one catcher a number of players described, who apparently was an amazing hitter, but extraordinarily slow running the bases, so he never became the superstar that other players became. More than once, various people in the book describe him as "slow afoot," which is an expression you never hear anymore, and it's a shame to see old phrases like this disappear. It's also refreshing to read about players who came from an era when their salaries weren't so enormous, and their egos weren't either.
February 22, 2007
Not as good as Glory of Their Times (to which this is a sort of sequel), but it's very good. The author tracked down baseball players from the 30s and 40s and the book contains their interviews (with the questions removed so that it reads more like a narrative). The charm is that these are old men, who had long ago given up baseball to pursue normal lives, describe their playing days as the most exciting period in their lives. You can feel their enthusiasm.
October 8, 2010
An acknowledged followup to "Glory of Their Times" although by a different author. I liked "Glory" better, probably because it covered an earlier era, one that I have a particular interest in. This book was entertaining, though; an oral history with contributions from players like Lefty Grove, Bob Feller, and Pete Reiser. A fun, breezy book
August 1, 2016
Oral history of baseball from WW1 to WW2. Told by the men who played the game.
May 11, 2015
I re-read it every ten years or so.
September 6, 2016
read some time in 1977
June 21, 2021
This story is absolutely fantastic.
April 20, 2017
This is a good book with interviews by many baseball players from the 1930's and 1940's. Many of them are not as familiar at the time of the writing or today than the top stars of their times. It makes for a fun read and you get a sense of why these guys played and what life was like for them. Anyone that cares anything about baseball will have fun reading this book.
Read
August 4, 2017A great collection of stories from the stars who played from the twenties to the forties. Some of them were in WWII. Some are in the hall of fame and some are not. Really entertaining. I liked the way it was divided into section by each player. Easy to take a break and pick up again. I could have sat down and read it cover to cover in one setting it was so well done.
Read
August 23, 2018Excellent if you love reading about the pioneers of baseball - '20's, '30's & '40's.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews