The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

While skipping some details which would be interest to the devoted baseball-phile (like how he compared to his near contemporary Ted Williams), this is a wonderful and charming look at this baseball and American great. This movie appeals not only from a baseball and Jewish perspective, but touches upon what it means to be an American. Highly recommended.

As a young girl, I remember his name so well. However, the documentary brought back so many memories. I can't believe that I had actually forgotten about "Greenberg Gardens." I also was somewhat amazed that there were more young people in the audience, than usually seen in a film, that I thought would basically attract older people. Which goes to prove that baseball is and always has been a great national pastime. As a much older girl now, I'm still enamored of him as much as ever. Also the fine production and direction that went with it. Hank, I'll never forget you.

P.S. 2017 (update) Rereading and must add that the film was particularly nostalgic...My husband, Roy was one of Hank's greatest fans.. They attended the same High School in The Bronx.....Even though being a boy from The Bronx, Roy still always rooted for The Detroit Tigers..Ell-4 remained faithful to The Brooklyn Dodgers till they left Ebbets Field and went to LA

Interesting documentary about Hank Greenberg, the Detroit Tigers slugger who was the first major Jewish baseball star. Greenberg braved bigotry in one of the most anti-Semitic cities, and became one of baseball's great stars of the period. The film is good, but presents too much detail of Greenberg's life; every single statistical detail of his playing days is simply unnecessary. Mainly because of this, the film drags a little and is slow at times. A better idea might have been for a film about early Jewish baseball players, with a focus on Greenberg. Still, a good documentary about an important and interesting subject.

A sprightly, lovingly researched, rather misty eyed sports documentary that steeped in ethnic pride. At first the movie is inspiring in a conventional, hero-treads-a-national-icon way. Greenberg, the towering Jewish slugger from the Bronx, joins the Detroit Tigers as a first baseman in the early '30s and becomes a power-hitting warhorse, leading the team from one World Series to the next.

Greenberg defines the image of fearless, cleft-chinned American invincibility.

I bought this DVD because of my life-long passion for baseball history, not as someone interested in seeing a story about a Jewish ballplayer. I am always interested in knowing more about these baseball greats of the past, and this documentary did include facts and stories that I did not know, and I enjoyed the interviews of other ballplayers of the same era. Some were greats of the game as well, some were not, but it is wonderful to put a face and a voice to the photos and stats I grew up memorizing as a kid. The documentary was trying so hard to be an exact copy of the Ken Burns style of film making, so much though that it does serve as a distraction, a feeling of unoriginality dimmishes what could have been a great documentary. With that complaint asside, I felt it succeeded in conveying the whole person behind the Stats, behind the Legend, and the WWII Veteran. 8/10