Rating: 
Summary: Even if you hate Baseball, you'll love this documentary
Review: I am not a baseball fan. I have never watched a baseball game on TV. I don't care who gets into the world series. A friend sat me down, and made me watch the first episode, and I was hooked. This is a wonderful, engrossing history of America's favorite pasttime. I cheered when Jackie Robinson was hired to play in the white leagues, I laughed at many of the anecdotes. This is just a great show, and watching it, you learn as much about America and Americans through the past hundered years, as you do about baseball.
Rating:
Summary: Blockbuster
Review: A tour de force of a book to accompany the PBS video series. This book is one of the best to examine the history of baseball and its impact on America and the American people. Highlights include the coverage of Jackie Robinson and the Negro Legues, particularly the interviews with Buck O'Neil (who should be in Baseball's Hall of Fame). The only disappointment was that it was a bit short on information about Mickey Mantle. Still, this is a major work that belongs on the coffee table of baseball lovers everywhere.
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Summary: If you love baseball, watching this series will tell you why
Review: Throughout my life, I've always had a fondness for baseball. Being first a Yankee, then Mets fan, I learned the highs and lows of supporting your team. With heartbreaking disappointment in 1981 and 1988, I walked away from the game. In 1998, I fell in love again with the New York Mets, crossed my fingers watching the HomeRun Derby, even giving credit to the Yankees' (my mortal enemies) amazing season. After watching the Baseball series, I remembered why I love this game. Not only did I learn the game's origins and history, but I began to understand WHY this game is so interwoven into culture. Baseball cannot exist without America, America cannot exist without baseball. Time and time again this series shows us how the game renews itself, bringing pride, energy and unifying us as a nation. The 1994 strike has whittled away with last year's triumphs and tragedies. The game has once again returned to the American people.This is a must for baseball fans and students of the game alike. This is an investment. I only hope Ken Burns will add to the series in the future.
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Summary: this is a 'must see' for people who love baseball
Review: THIS BEAUTIFUL AND METICULOULSY CRAFTED FILM ABOUT THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL, TRACES IT'S ROOTS IN AMERICA FROM THE 1830' TO THE 1990'S. ANYONE WHO HAS SEEN KEN BURN'S CIVIL WAR SERIES KNOWS HOW WELL THE AUTHOR COVERS HIS SUBJECT. THIS NINE TAPE SET LETS YOU SEE THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAS GAME. THROUGHT A COLLECTION OF STILL PHOTOGRAPHS AND EARLY MOTION PICTURES YOU CAN SEE THE LEGENDS THAT YOU HAVE ONLY HEARD OF IN BOOKS AND FROM YOUR OLDER RELATIVES. CAP ANSON AND 'HOME RUN BAKER COME TO LIFE, TY COBB AND HONUS WAGNER, AND GROVER CLEVELAND DISPLAY THEIR ATHELETIC PROWERESS ON JERKY SPOTTED FILM. THE NARRATIVE IMPECCABLY DONE BY JOHN CHANCELLOR AND A HOST OF WELL KNOWN FANS SUPPLIES YOU WITH A RUNNING COMMENTARY OF THE PLAYERS AND THEIR STORIES OF MOST OF THE HONORED MYTHS. THE STORY IS TOLD IN A CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER SEPARATED INTO ININGS, A TOTAL OF NINE. THEY ALSO COVER THE 1910'S AND THE BLACK SOX SCANDAL. THE 20'S AND THE 'BABE'. THE 30'S AND THE 'IRON HORSE'. ON INTO THE 40'S WITH 'JOLTIN JOE' DIMAGGIO AND TED WILLIAMS. THE WAR AND IT'S EFFECT ON THE GAME WITH THE BIRTH OF WOMEN IN PROFESSIONAL BALL. THE INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF JACKIE ROBINSON AND THE INTERGARATION OF THE 'NATIONAL PASSTIME'. INTO THE 50'S AND THE RISE OF NEW STARS LIKE MICKEY MANTLE,WILLIE MAYS,HANK AARON AND THE TRIALS OF THE BROOKLYN DODGERS. THE SERIES COVERS THE EFFORTS OF PLAYERS TO OVER THROW THE HATED RESERVE CLAUSE WHICH BOUND EVERY PLAYER TO ONE CLUB FOR HIS LIFETIME. EACH TAPE HIGHLIGHTS THE WORLD SERIES OF MOST OF THE YEARS. THE THROWING OF THE SERIES BY 6 SOX PLAYERS, THE PICTURE OF BABE RUTH CALLING HIS SHOT AGAINST THE PIRATES. THE MIRACLE CATCH BY MAYS IN '54' AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF AMERICA IN DIMAGGIO'S INCERDIBLE STRING OF 56 GAMES SAFELY HIT IN. IT ALSO HAS ITS SHARE OF ZANIES AND SHOWS SOME OF THE WARTS OF THIS GREAT GAME. THE CURSE ON THE BOSTON REDSOX BY BABE RUTH AND THE INCOMPRABLE SATCHELL PAGE. THE MIDGET HIRED BY BILL VECK AND THE EXPRESSIONS COINED BY THE LIKES OF CASEY STENGEL AND YOGI BERRA. THE LOVEABLE CRAZINESS OF BILL LEE. IT'S ALL HERE IN ABOUT 10 HOURS OF VIEWING WHICH WILL PASS IN FLASH LIKE THE PICTURES ON THE SCREEN. YOU MUST WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY IF YOU GREW UP IN AMERICA IN THE 40' AND 50'S LIKE I DID- TO RECALL THOSE WONDERFUL LOSE DAYS OF CHILDHOOD SPENT ON THE BASEBALL FIELD AND THOSE WHO WERE NOT FORTUNATE ENOUGH, TO SEE THE FABLED PLAYERS OF THE PAST.
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Summary: A hint of summer to last the off season
Review: This is the finest baseball documentary ever assembled. I find myself watching the tapes every January, when it's been just a little too long since the fall classic and baseball fever begins to grip me in anticipation of spring training.
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Summary: Own a piece of Cooperstown...in your own living room.
Review: Without peer, this anthology of Baseball is the greatest achievement in sports journalism caught on film. If you are a Baseball fan, there are a few required references: Field Of Dreams, Ken Burn's "Baseball" book, and this boxed set from Burns. It will put a lump in your throat, and a love for the game in your heart that will never leave. It transcends everything wrong about today's culture and captures everything good about the people in it. Simply fantastic. If God didn't invent Baseball, he must have invented the home run instead.
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Summary: Greatest Baseball Video Anthology Ever
Review: If you enjoy calling yourself a true Baseball fan, you must own this. It is easily the best piece on baseball ever. From the roots all the way to present day, it covers everything. It will make you appreciate the greatest sport on earth even more.
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Summary: Huh? This is a joke right?
Review: I must respectfully disagree with the following on-line review: "Yes, Booklist, there is a MUCH better volume on baseball than this one and (in particular) the Baseball Encyclopedia. It is Total Baseball!!! For that matter, I found the books "Ball Clubs" and "Baseball Uniforms of the Twentieth Century" to be better books. Nevertheless, this book is still a good one. It's just not THE greatest. . ." I am familiar with these books and am stunned with this perspective. These books are great if you're interested in dry and boring facts and figures. They read like history text books. The strength of this book is that is it about people. Their feelings, their passions, their loves, their hates, their strength, weaknesses, histories, successes, and failings. Oh, and by the way, all these people also happen to love and play baseball. The Ward/Burns is unique in that it reads like a novel not another boring collection of jock stories with stats and pictures pasted here and there. Case in point. I always thought that Babe Ruth was greatly over rated as a player until I read this book. Now I understand why he is the greatest baseball player to ever lived and why he ever shall be so. I also finally understood why my intense primal hatred of the Giants and Yankees. I now understand that I am firmly in the tradition of the Dodger faithful from time immortal. In honoring the traditions of the game - like this one - I honor every player baseball fan and player who has ever loved the game as I do. I too am part of the baseball story. I am part of the ongoing saga. If stats and boring facts are your thing then by all means pass on this book. However, if you love people and love life this book will make your heart sing, break, quiver, and fly like a Mark McGwire home run or a Wally Moon moonshot. /fwa
Rating:
Summary: Top notch sketch of baseball history.
Review: A thorough yet readable account of baseball history compiled in the typical Ken Burns style.
Rating:
Summary: You've read the rest, here's the best!
Review: This is the best book on baseball that I have ever read. I have other books on baseball but this is the one that I keep coming back to again and again and again. You've read the rest, here's the best!
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