New SABR oral history collection

ThePrideofShiner

Crests prematurely
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
10,687
Washington
A buddy of mine helped get this project off the ground and I figured it should be shared with the baseball loving masses at SoSH.

From the press release:

From Carl Hubbell to Buck O'Neil, Johnny Vander Meer to Harvey Haddix, and Richie Ashburn to Jimmy Zinn, the SABR Oral History Collection includes interviews with some of the most memorable players in baseball history.

And now you can listen to those players tell stories in their own voices with our new SABR Oral History Collection website at oralhistory.sabr.org.

The SABR Oral History Collection includes more than 500 audio files of interviews conducted with ballplayers (Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, Negro Leagues, AAGPBL), executives, scouts, authors, writers, broadcasters, and other figures of historical baseball significance.

These interviews, some of which date back more than 50 years, were conducted by members of SABR’s Oral History Research Committee; many of these recordings were digitized through a collaboration with the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

The SABR collection not only includes interviews with prominent players such as Frank Robinson and Yogi Berra, but also special sessions from SABR events, such as Buck O'Neil's inspiring talk during the 1996 SABR Convention in Kansas City, a Seattle Pilots panel with Jim Bouton during SABR 36 in Seattle, and Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa's one-on-one interview at the 2015 SABR Analytics Conference. We're also proud to make available some interviews conducted by longtime SABR member and former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent for his series of oral history books, We Would Have Played for Nothing, The Only Game in Town, and It's What's Inside the Lines That Counts.

You can also find special pages for Oral History interviews in our collection with Hall of Famers, Negro Leaguers, broadcasters, writers and researchers, and special interviews from SABR's annual convention.
The full oral library is here: https://oralhistory.sabr.org/
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
One of the joys of going to SABR conventions was meeting old ballplayers (Major, Minor and Negro League), sometimes managers, GMs, coaches, and the like. I've actually met Smoky Joe Wood shortly before he died; Zip Collins, who was a teammate of Honus Wagner back in the early teens; had drinks with Joe Hauser (63 and 69 HR in the minors) and Ralph Kiner.

One of the other great things that happened was Lawrence Ritter, who wrote The Glory of Their Times, based on interviews he did of old ballplayers, would play his recording for those in attendance. He just got the players started talking and then left them to carry on. I don't believe that Ritter's recordings are part of SABR's Oral History collection as they would make something great even better.
 

joyofsox

empty, bleak
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
7,552
Vancouver Island
Ritter's interviews were released on a 4-CD set about 10 years ago. (The Glory of Their Times is one of the all-time great baseball books, but Ritter extensively rewrote the interviews. Many years later, he described what he did as "weaving [the] material into a narrative", which also involved adding new stuff to the existing quotes.)
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
Yes, he did rewrite his interviews for his book but attendees of SABR national conventions some years back were able to hear the tapes he recorded. I know that PBS did a show on some of his work back in the late '70s.
 

richgedman'sghost

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
May 13, 2006
1,870
ct
Ritter's interviews were released on a 4-CD set about 10 years ago. (The Glory of Their Times is one of the all-time great baseball books, but Ritter extensively rewrote the interviews. Many years later, he described what he did as "weaving [the] material into a narrative", which also involved adding new stuff to the existing quotes.)
Do you know if there is anyway to purchase the 4 cd set?