Baseball

I really enjoyed the Baseball series. The segments on the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson, and Ty Cobb are especially strong. and as a lifelong Giants' fan, I got shivers watching the segment on Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World.

However, there is a major flaw in the series - especially the later parts - its very evident New York bias. The people being interviewed, aside from former players, all seem to be New Yorkers. In the segment about the Dodgers and Giants moving west, for example, we are repeatedly told how it was a horrible tragedy for the teams to leave New York, but it's barely mentioned that, before those teams left, New York was barely supporting them, or that, while New York had three major league teams, the entire western half of the United States had none. And while some attention was payed to the post-move Dodgers (specifically Sandy Koufax), the episode on the 60s pretty much ignored the post-move Giants, even though their teams included several future Hall of Famers, including Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, and Gaylord Perry. I'm sure other teams were similarly overlooked in favor of the Yankees and Red Sox, but as a Giants fan, that especially stood out for me.

What makes this documentary great is, well, everything. At the foundation, it is meticulously researched. Without that wealth of background information, all the style in the world wouldn't have saved the doc. From that fount of knowledge springs a geyser of historical glory.

The music is pitch perfect. Burns sticks with an Americana theme for his soundtrack. Variations on "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" provide the primary background music. They are joined by a number of classic baseball songs and tunes that defined generations. The music puts you in the era and adds to the simultaneous definitions of the game and the country.

The storytelling style was a bit jilting at first. Each inning is told in segments. A title pops up on the screen, and then that story is related. At the end of that segment, a postscript is added that may or may not have anything to do with the preceding tale. Initially that was disorienting, but once one realizes how the doc is going to work, it's no longer bothersome.

Ken Burns' defining technique is his use of still pictures, panning and zooming over and around them in a fashion that nearly brings them to life. Accompanied by various ballpark sound effects, that style is perfect for the game of baseball. The deliberate pace of the documentary matches the deliberate pace of the game. But most remarkable about "Baseball" is the archival footage. Antique film of early century heroes like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth literally caused my jaw to drop at times. I had no idea such video existed, and seeing all the classic footage for the first time is like being introduced to a whole new ballgame and cast of characters. Oddly enough, the entire film works better before colorized film and photos are introduced. Perhaps because of the romantic nature of monochromatic hues. Perhaps because they seem new and fresh when compared to the colors we are bombarded with today. Whatever the reason, the first two-thirds of "Baseball" stand out, due in part to the simple yet elegant pictures.

Aside from the archival footage, the highlights of the documentary were not the historical accounts themselves, but rather the commentary by various people who expound upon the intricacies of baseball. Bob Costas reminds us that baseball is a beautiful game. Robert Creamer explains the social aspect of baseball. Billy Crystal tells of his wide-eyed attitude as a youngster. Moments like these will bring a smile to your face, as you nod your head enthusiastically in agreement.

Through the 1950s, Burns covers everything I could think of, along with many great tangents. A major theme to that point is race, as Burns consistently makes a point to explain how baseball is not just a game but also a social barometer. Side stories such as the history of the ballpark frank and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" provide the documentary with a well-roundedness that appeals to people besides the hard-core baseball fan.

My only complaint about this piece of work is a common one. A little too much Northeast bias once the series hit the 1960s. Up to that point, I didn't notice much, probably because baseball did more or less revolve around New York and Boston until expansion. But since the 1960s, the game has truly become national, even international, and I feel that the documentary didn't quite reflect that. Admittedly, the expansion of the game made it more difficult to cover all that has happened in the last quarter century. Also, part of the reason I felt shortchanged was undoubtedly because I am familiar with a larger number of recent events and knew more about what was absent. I realize that with the final 25 years crammed into one two hour episode, many great events had to be truncated or eliminated, but I was still left mildly disappointed.

Like the players that participated in the game it describes, this mini-series is not perfect. However, to maintain the baseball analogy, Ken Burns' documentary is both Hank Aaron and Roger Maris...er, Barry Bonds. It has phenomenal singular moments and also has the longevity to attain Hall of Fame status.

Bottom Line: The scope of "Baseball" combines with the dead-on moments to present a near perfect history and explanation of why baseball is the greatest game ever. 10 of 10.

Ken Burns' Baseball is a beautifully crafted telling of the history of baseball, perfectly weaving the story of the game into the story of America through archival footage, interviews, and the like. Its 9 episodes are, on aggregate, rather long, but after a while you just don't notice. It's a wonderful viewing experience and well worth watching by all - sports fans or not.

Unfortunately, there is one major flaw: the obsession with Boston and (especially) New York. While in some sense this is forgivable - highlighting these cities added some structure and continuity to the narrative, in others, it was blatant favoritism. For example, episode 7 is called "The Capital of Baseball", which can be seen as referring to many things metaphorically, but most directly, to New York City. To put things in perspective, the New York Yankees won the World Series in 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, and 1962. When, in 1960, Bill Mazeroski hit a dramatic home run in the 9th inning of game 7 to win the World Series for the long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates, the focus was not on the joy of Pittsburgh (or the rest of the country) in seeing the mighty Yankees / New York Teams finally tamed. No, the focus was on the shock and sadness felt by Yankees fans and players. We get to hear comedian Billy Crystal tell us how crushed he felt, despite the previous Yankee championships and even though we see from other segments with him that he seemed to change his allegiances from Yankees to (Brooklyn) Dodgers to Mets as the winds blew. Sorry if I have a hard time sympathizing.

It also stands to note that while doubtlessly others will nitpick here and there about things that have been left out of Burns' telling, none stands out more than the omission of the 1980 National League Championship Series between the Phillies and Astros, which unquestionably ranks as the best playoff series ever played between two teams in the history of baseball. But, no, that's left out and instead you get another 10 minute story about New York instead.

Still, don't let my comments distract from the overall greatness of this series. Highly, highly recommended.

When it first aired, there was supposedly something like 2 dozen factual errors that were later corrected in time for the video and later dvd release. The only things I didn't like was that it focused heavily on 3 teams far more than any other. Red Sox, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Yankees. It skips from the '67 Series to the '69 Series, then it glosses over the next few years until the 1975 series. And it took all of their info on Ty Cobb on Al Stump's now debunked biography of Cobb. David Okrent, who features heavily in this also appears much later in a documentary about Tigers' legends and he admits that much of what we knew about Cobb was either overblown or outright false thanks to the biography by Charles Leerhsen (A Terrible Beauty) that was actually researched. Apart from those the documentary is another gem in Ken Burns' belt and I watch it every year at the start of the baseball season and again around World Series time.

This series should have been titled "Baseball in Boston and New York" because that seems to be the only cities w/ any kind of tradition or such. Other that forgetting the other 28 cities that have major league baseball this was a good series.