Rating: 
Summary: Too much Patriotism!
Review: The films are good, but they have a large part of bad hollywood patriotism in it which we could've done without! US Flags are all over the place and the anthem plays practically all the time when looking at it. There should be updates coming every 2yrs or something with more updated knowledge and videoclips of recent history.Baseball 4ever /vince
Rating:
Summary: Part of the Story
Review: Like the celebrated video version, the Ward-Burns book is but one chapter of baseball history. The entire saga of our inter-national pastime did not take place (as Ward and Burns would have us believe) almost exclusively in New York City and Boston. And where is the chapter on the major contributions of Latin American countries and ballplayers to the heritage of Panamerica's national pastime?
Rating: 
Summary: The best ever broadcast over the airwaves
Review: BASEBALL is a masterpiece. Outstanding insights into what has made our National Pasttime into The Greatest Game On Earth. The series is filled with information including incredibly old and occasionally obscure footage (which may explain some of the criticism regarding the unevenness) was wonderfully informative. Takes the viewer places where neither Total Baseball nor the Baseball Encyclopedia ever could: Seeing footage of Babe Ruth (in and out of the House he built) helps explain his impact on the game. "Shadowball" is a most fascinating exploration of the injustice which surrounded the Negro Leagues (and the entirety of the race). And quotes from the President of Harvard railing against the deception of Candy Cummings' invention (the curve ball) show just one the eternal quandries of the game. Even the occasional valid criticisms don't take away from the scope of Ken Burns' work. Sure, there is an emphasis on New York, but as Burns so aptly noted, it was the Capital of Baseball. Unless the series was expanded to 162 parts from nine (maybe we could call each one a "game" rather than an "inning"), some players were going to get the short end of the stick. Those who rail against this work's "casting" would do well to remember that there are not too many things in this society which can bring together the divergent interests and passions of George Will and Mario Cuomo! Buck O'Neil said it best: regardless of what the owners and players do, you just cannot kill Baseball. This series is a fitting tribute. For those who have felt betrayed by the game in the past decade, this will bring you back home. Like the Game itself, this series is greater than the strictures of time. Worth the price.
Rating: 
Summary: The Flaws Stick Out Too Much
Review: "Baseball" had the misfortune to come out at a time when I wanted nothing to do with baseball, the 1994 strike and the cancellation of the World Series. It took me a couple years to finally get around to watching the series, and I can not believe how Ken Burns botched a golden opportunity to tell the story properly. To be sure, there are many commendable segments. But there are also too many sore thumbs that stick out too much. Let's start with the political bias that permeates this series, just in terms of the talking heads (Gould, Goodwin, Terkel) and then we are subjected to reams of stuff about Mario Cuomo's forgettable minor league career. It just so happens that there are two members of Congress, both U.S. Senators, with stronger connections to the game than Mario Cuomo. One is Jim Bunning, a Hall of Fame pitcher who won 100 games in both leagues and threw a perfect game, the other is Connie Mack, grandson of one of the all time great managers. But both of them alas, happen to be conservative Republicans, which perhaps accounts for why they were deemed less significant than Mario Cuomo. Finally, there is Burns's obsession with depicting players in the best light in their labor struggles all the way up to the present. This is valid in the early days, but to see this go on into the greed-obsessed 80s is where Burns loses me completely. He devotes several minutes to the owners collusion scandal of 1986 to show how terrible the owners are, yet he devotes not one second to the players strikes of 1972, 1981 and 1985 which were far more significant events and raised questions about whether players have abused their privilege of free agency. And another thing to Burns, regarding his obsession with Bill Lee. If you want to make a folk hero out of a talking head, don't bother with one who thinks its noble to wear a hat emblazoned with a CCCP banner.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: What a mixed bag this one is. I am a baseball fan living in Africa with rather limited access to my favorite sport. So I looked forward to seeing this documentary. Of course, Ken Burns did an excellent job in assembling old old photos and film footage and coverage of recent baseball highlights. BUT, I thought documentaries were supposed to be factual. The 1938 Pirates, which reportedly refused to hire blacks in spite of their shaky team, in fact, almost won the pennant losing on Gabby Hartnett's famous homerun. Curt Flood did make a attempted comeback with the Washington Senators after suing baseball. Such errors abound. But worse was the discrepancies between the narration and what was being shown: Branch Rickey's St. Louis Browns at spring training looked suspiciously like St. Louis Cardinals of later years; Roger Maris' 61 home runs did not, as I recall, include home runs against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1964 World Series; Pitchers pitched, batters hit homeruns in front of catchers from another team, and circled the bases against still other teams. I think this type of presentation, which was all too common, is intellectually dishonest in a documentary. And finally, there was the insipid voice over ruining what is argumentatively the most exciting broadcast moment in baseball history: Bobby Thompson's home run. Oh, I guess that was necessary because it is a documentary!
Rating:
Summary: Formidable and compelling story of America's game.
Review: Ken Burn's style and approach yet again produce a compelling and massive work that can be more admired for its reach than for its apparent deficiencies at capturing everything one hopes it would have accomplished. Much like The Civil War, Baseball cannot and does not pretend to be the end all on the subject. Far from it, it frames the history of the game in an assessable manner that was nonetheless challenging at least to this baseball novice. Again, like Burn's previous documentary on the Civil War, this series is a beginning to fully understanding baseball's rich and uniquely American history. Or, as is a common theme throughout some of Burn's previous works, is he actually exploring the American character through a uniquely American template? Yes, he is.
Rating: 
Summary: The One Star is for effort only
Review: Baseball was done a great disservice by Ken Burns. Sure it brought a story of American history to many different people, but the story is very rough and researched very poorly. Eleven hours is not nearly enough time to tell the story of Baseball: America's pastime. Burns knew this and tried valliantly to cram as much into the series as he could. This would have been fine, but the research is as arid as swiss cheese in some areas. More attention should have been paid to detail rather then appearence.
Rating:
Summary: An evocative book that touches the true soul of the game.
Review: Anyone who ever played or watched the game cannot fail to be moved by the rich tapestry of baseball legend that comes to live in the text and especially the illustrations of this book. The essay by Doris Kearn reminiscing about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and tying that into the love for her family is haunting and very beautiful, while Thomas Boswell's reflections on his mother's love for the Washington Senators is moving as well as dryly hilarious. In its essence each player discussed in detail comes to life in poignant detail. A must for anyone who cares deeply for the game.
Rating:
Summary: This collection is aptly titled
Review: Can there be a rhythm in a word as short as baseball...? Should a game give us reason...? Ken Burns doesn't give us this series, he bleeds it into existence. I was born and raised a Red Sox fan. Does part of this series lean towards New York clubs? Sure it does, but so did great ballplayers and world championships and a good part of the United States population of the 1920's, 30's, 40's and 50's. Stating that this collection is accurately titled is the highest praise I, or anyone else, can bestow upon it. The time watching these videos was a joy. The time was a balloon expanding, an explanation, a survey, a conflagration, an inquest, a justification. These videos were given to me as a gift. The price you see above is incorrect, there can no price attached to what Mr. Burns has done.
Rating:
Summary: Great in parts, awful in others
Review: This series does a wonderful job of focusing on many of the most important aspects of the game of baseball. Although the aspects that it focuses on it does very well, I don't feel that Burns does a good job at all of covering a variety of subjects. There is an overwhelming New York bias and many great players from other areas aren't mentioned while marginal to slightly great players and teams from the New York area are harped on incessantly. To give you one example, in the video covering the 40's Stan Musial's name isn't even mentioned. In this decade Musial won three MVP awards and three world series. He was also named the fifth greatest player of all time by Baseball Weekly recently, ahead of many of the Yankee players who were covered extensively. Instead of talking about Musial in the episode covering the 40's, New York governor Mario Cuomo's failed minor league career is focused on for a while. If you want to know the history of New York baseball, this video is for you, otherwise skip it.
| 
