Baseball - A Film by Ken Burns

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Summary: The definitive book on baseball history.
Review: I've read Ward & Burns' book twice. I could look at the historic photos for hours. It is NOT filled with stats, batting averages, or on-base percentages. I was amazed at the true origins of my favorite sport. The quotes are thought provoking and it takes me down memory lane each time I pick it up. If you want to smell the green grass on a summer afternoon, hear the crack of a wooden bat smothered by the roar of the crowd or wipe the dirt from your uniform after you slide into second, then read Baseball:An Illustrated History.

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Summary: Outstanding!
Review: Very well put together. Has excellent pictures and a delightful interview with Negro Leagues legend Buck O'Neil. Great companion for the PBS series.

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Summary: A good book - but not the greatest. . .
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. . .

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Summary: LEGENDS AND AMERICAN HISTORY MAKE THE BOOK ASTOUNDING
Review: BASEBALL HEROES AND EVERYDAY PLAYERS AND THE PART THAT HISTORY EVOLVES AROUND THE GAME MAKE THIS BOOK ONE OF THE BEST THAT I HAVE READ. THE PICTURES THEMSELVES ARE INCREDIBLE AS THEY PORTRAY THE GAMES GREATEST MOMENTS AND THE GAMES MOST DISAPPOINTING EVENTS. THE TEXT IS COLORFUL AND FULL OF IMAGES THAT BRING BACK THE GAME AS IT WAS PLAYED AT THE START AND EVENTS FROM THE LAST TWO DECADES ARE BROUGHT BACK INTO MEMORY AS GREAT GAMES THAT I REMEMBER SEEING. THE EVOLUTION OF THE GAME IS INCREDIBLE TO SEE AS WELL AS THE CHANGES THAT TECHNOLOGY HAS BROUGHT TO THE GAME. FINALLY IT BRINGS GREAT RECOGNITION TO THOSE UNFORTUNATE THAT BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE WERE NOT RECOGNIZED AS BASEBALLS GREATEST DURING THEIR ACTIVE PLAYER CAREERS. THIS IS A MUST FOR THE AVID BASEBALL FAN. (GERARDO MAGANA

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Summary: An annual rite of spring: watching "Baseball"
Review: Every spring I watch Ken Burns' celebrated documentary "Baseball" on the weekend of Opening Day. Even if I am not sitting glued to the tube while it is on, listening to John Chancellor tell the story of the game is an enjoyable experience. Each "inning" takes on a specific focus, providing a defining element in the way Ty Cobb played the game, the Black Sox Scandal, the way Babe Ruth played the game, the struggle of the Negro Leagues, the dominance of New York temas in the Fifties, the creation of Free Agency, etc. Concise profiles of many of the game's greatest players and managers are spread throughout the nine volumes. More importantly, virtually every great moment in the history of the sport is to be found, not to mention some wonderful old-fashioned baseball songs.

Clearly, the climax of the documentary comes in Inning 6, "The National Pastime," when Jackie Robinson starts playing for the Dodgers. The series begins with a prologue on Ebbets Field and Robinson is laid to rest in the final episode. While the focus is on the Major Leagues throughout, Burns always checks back in with what is happening with the black players and the Negro Leagues, building towards Robinson breaking the color barrier. I think it is fair to say the documentary loses some steam after that point, but then that is the point where the series gets to players and moments that overlap our own lifetime. Once we get to colored images from television there is a different feel to "Baseball" from the black & white images to which we have become accustomed.

Also, the more you know about the history of baseball the more you will see the glaring omissions. Stan Musial is the obvious example cited by other reviewers, but he is eclipsed in the episodes covering the 40's and 50's by Jackie Robinson and the New York teams, just as he was during his career. In terms of the talking heads it is hard to appreciate Billy Crystal and George Will, devotees of the game though they are, after listening to Buck O'Neill (who is the breakthrough "Shelby Foote" of "Baseball"). However, I prefer to ascribe these shortcomings to editorial decisions and the fact this is only a nine-tape set instead of maliciousness. So, yes, it could be better, and maybe it is too reverent, but there is a fundamental love of the game here comparable to such treasured feature films as "The Natural," "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams." All of these are necessary spring training workouts for preparation of enjoying the boys of summer.

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Summary: View it as entertainment, not as history
Review: Ken Burns is becoming well-known as much for what he leaves out of his documentaries as for what he tells you and how he tells it. One sees it somewhat in the Civil War documentary (unless of course you are a Lost Cause devotee, in which case you view that series as horribly biased and riddled with errors), and it is definitely (and troublingly) evident in his Jazz documentary, where 40 years of jazz is virtually glossed over in favor of an almost obsessive fixation on Louis Armstrong. In the case of "Baseball," Burns again leaves out huge chunks of the story, although the end result is nonetheless entertaining.

In the case of "Baseball," the unrelenting focus is on New York City, Babe Ruth & Jackie Robinson, and to be fair, there is no way you could discuss the subject of baseball without devoting a great deal of time to these subjects. However, the title of the documentary is "Baseball," not "The New York City, Babe Ruth, and Jackie Robinson Story," and it is possible to watch this documentary at times and come to believe that nothing else was happening out side of New York most of the time.

I recall reading a Sports Illustrated article a few years ago that discussed the Philadelphia Athletics from 1929-1931, and made the case that that team was better than the famed "Murderer's Row" Yankees of 1926-1928, and possibly the best team in baseball history. The article's author crunched the numbers, compared the stats, and made a pretty compelling case. He then asked why so little attention has been paid to the A's over the years, and posited that because most of the nation's important papers and sportswriters were based in New York City; by default the majority of the great sportswriting was devoted to the Yankees, while relatively backwater Philadelphia languished in obscurity. It seems to be the same situation with Burns. While other incredibly dominant teams such as (in the early years) the Chicago Cubs, the A's, the Pittsburgh Pirates & the Detroit Tigers are given passing mention, they are quickly shoved on the back burner in favor of the Boston Red Sox & New York Giants. Then the Yankees & the Dodgers begin to coalesce, and it is all New York, all the time. One gets no feeling for how dominant the 1929-1931 A's (or the St. Louis Cardinals of the mid-1930's) were, because Burns continually focuses on Babe Ruth & the Negro Leagues.

When Burns gets to the 1950's he can be excused, because really it was a New York-dominated decade like no other. However, the other decades did in fact see a more competitive balance, and one would not get this impression from the documentary.

It would have been nice if Burns hadn't crammed the last quarter century of his story into one "inning." Are you telling me that the stories since 1970 aren't as compelling as the early years of baseball. I don't believe that Burns would have had to devote that much more time to the post-1970 era to make it feel less cursory and rushed. This is a somewhat annoying tendency of his that was more griveously evident when he made "Jazz."

Also, I get a little tired of the "poetry of baseball" school of thought. It isn't as though I am some knuckle-dragging troglodyte who gets all his news from sports radio; I am just as likely to go to the opera as to the ballpark. This baseball as metaphor for how the cosmos works gets on my nerves after a while (although I consider Roger Angell's comment "there's more Met than Yankee in all of us" to be priceless beyond description). It's not that baseball doesn't imbue our life with a little extra something special, it's just that some of these talking heads tend to get a little overwrought.

I enjoyed watching the documentary the first time, and I have watched it probably half a dozen times since over the years. By comparison, I have watched "The Civil War" about 15 times, I would guess. I was so disappointed with "Jazz" that I managed only a second viewing. In any case, "Baseball" is very entertaining, and that is what largely accounts for my 4-star rating I would only caution those who don't know their baseball history that this documentary omits a great deal of what is a very good story.

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Summary: Adding depth and detail to the PBS documentary "Baseball"
Review: "Baseball: An Illustrated History" is the companion volume to Ken Burns' PBS documentary. The narrative, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, is based on the documentary filmscript by Ward and Burns. What this means in practical terms is that everything you hear and a lot of what you see in the celebrated series is in this book, plus a lot more. Each chapter/inning ends with an essay, such as Bill James on "Stats," Doris Kearns Goodwin on being a "Fan," George F. Will on "Fifties Baseball" and Gerald Early on "Baseball and African American Life." There is also an interview with Buck O'Neil, who emerged from "Baseball" as the game's greatest living good will ambassador. What you will appreciate the most are the little touches: when talking about the dominance of the Yankees in the 1950's we get a full page of choice quotes presenting "The Wisdom of Casey Stengel...and Yogi Berra." There are ads featuring Babe Ruth, pictures of old tobacco cards, the complete "Casey at the Bat," and dozens of other little gems sprinkled throughout the book. As opening day approaches each year my annual rite of spring is to watch "Baseball," and I always take out this companion volume and leaf through it as I watch a century of baseball history. This volume can stand on its own, which might be the single best testament to how good of a baseball book it happens to be.

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Summary: A problem of scope
Review: There are two wonderful documentaries contained here. One is the story of New York baseball, from the Giants to Babe Ruth to the Brooklyn "Bums" to the '86 Mets. The other is the story of Negro League baseball and breaking the color barrier. These two separate documentaries come together wonderfully in the chapter on Jackie Robinson.

The problem is that the film wants to be something more. It wants to be the complete story of baseball, and that ambition comes up short. Many good players and valuable stories were given short shrift because they apparently didn't fit the narrative outline chosen by the film-maker.

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Summary: For anyone who loves Baseball!!
Review: I wasn't interested in Ken Burns', the Civil War until just recently. However, I was interested in viewing this film from the begining as I'm a huge fan of the American pastime. I absolutely enjoyed the interview with Buck O'Neill as he tells his adventures with Satchel Paige as well as Bob Costas' observations of the 1986 World Series. What I didn't like was the interviews with historians as I was baffled on their, so called, baseball knowledge. What worked in the "Civil War", didn't work with this film. As with his other documentary, this film will inspire those who love the game and those who would like to know more about the history.

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Summary: Ken Burns strikes gold
Review: Wow! This is eighteen hours of the most comprehensive baseball coverage i could ever conceive of. Burns does a great job spreading around his focus, using footage and narration to expertly cover the nuts and bolts of the game for past 150 yrs, which includes crucial historical events, games and player bios. He then has famous writers and historians reflect on the game, giving it the sentimentality that no other sport can match. My only caveat is that if you're not an avid baseball fan, it can drag on at parts. However, if you're a baseball nut (like me) or a historian, this is a MUST-HAVE. Worth every penny.