Terry legal studies professor Nathaniel Grow is a co-recipient of the 2015 Larry Ritter Book Award for his book, Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball’s Anti-Trust Exemption.
The Ritter Award is given by Society for American Baseball Research’s Deadball Era Research Committee for the best book related to the Deadball Era (from 1900-1919) published in the previous year.
The award subcommittee released the following statement:
“It is never easy to write a commendable account of baseball’s storied history, but it is particularly difficult to write a praiseworthy study of the Deadball Era, which has been heavily mined…. Grow and (fellow recipient Chuck Kimberly) have successfully brought fresh voices to the era through their perspectives, materials, and insights, and have met other elements of the Ritter Award criteria. In clear and non-arcane prose, Grow charts the Byzantine-like legal and judicial maneuvering culminating in the landmark 1922 Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs that protected Organized Baseball from the nation’s anti-trust laws.”
The award honors Lawrence S. Ritter (1922-2004), whose 1966 The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It established the standard for baseball oral history.
The award is given to authors who “demonstrate original research or analysis, a fresh perspective, compelling thesis, impressive insight, accuracy, and clear, graceful prose.”