Missing baseball right about now? I, like many of you, long for the days when we’ll be at the ballpark, driving in the car with the game on, or relaxing in our easy chair at night following our national pastime. Many of us are watching rewinds of past games or playing baseball video games to try to fill the void. Regardless of what we do, it still doesn’t compare to having live baseball with us.
I highly recommend another remedy to bridge the gap between our present day situation and the time live baseball returns. “Baseball”, a documentary produced by filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, is a must see if you call yourself a baseball fan. Ironically, “Baseball” premiered on PBS during another dead era in baseball, the 1994 players’ strike.
Ken Burns’ original documentary series is divided into nine episodes or “innings”. A tenth inning, consisting of two parts, was produced and aired in 2010, which chronicles the game from where the original series ended in 1992 up until 2009. The entire box set includes eleven DVDs with each episode approximately two hours in length.
The series begins with baseball’s origins in the 1830’s. The first inning leaves doubt as to how baseball was invented. The prevailing belief is that baseball was the brainchild of Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York around this time. Some historians question this and believe this is likely not the case.
Narrated by longtime NBC News anchor John Chancellor, the early innings debunk many of the long held stereotypes about the early game. The early players from the 1800’s to the early part of the 20th century didn’t merely play “for the love of the game”. As columnist George Will pointed out, these were hard men, tough men. While the wealth in the early game was certainly not what we see today, the players back then still made more than the average American wage earner. Many of the early players were not well educated. For most, it was a way of escaping life in the factories and coal mines, which had horrible working conditions.
The national pastime was far from pure and pristine from its inception. Labor and management strife was rampant throughout the late 1800’s, so much that three leagues developed as a result. The Players League was an off-shoot of the original National League. If you can believe it, there was a professional baseball league known as the Beer and Whiskey League. Rowdiness and drunkenness was common at games during this period. Fights would often break out in the stands, to the point several old, wooden stadiums burnt to the ground in the late 1800’s. The good ‘ole days they were not.
Ken Burns in producing this documentary does a fabulous job in presenting baseball from many viewpoints. There are broadcasters such as Red Barber, Bob Costas, and Vin Scully. Buck O’Neil, who played in the Negro League with the Kansas City Monarchs, Curt Flood, who fought to remove baseball’s reserve clause, leading to free agency, and Bill “Spaceman” Lee, offer various perspectives. There are other actors and politicians such as Billy Crystal and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo who are longtime baseball fans. Every possible angle is used in telling the story of our nation’s history through our national pastime.
In watching the series you can almost feel the pain and joy of the collective fan bases. The tragedies of the Boston Red Sox are portrayed throughout. From the 1967 impossible dream season, to the dramatic 1975 World Series game six, in which the Fenway Park organist played Handel’s Hallelujah chorus after Carlton Fisk hit the famous home run, it was as if you were there, feeling what the fans were feeling. In 1986, you could almost hear the collective groan when Vin Scully started out by saying “Little roller up along first”. In the final episode, the Red Sox finally broke the curse by vanquishing the demons of the past 86 years. There was the pain of loss when the Giants moved west to San Francisco, shortly followed by the unthinkable happening…the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for L.A.
There are so many magical and tragic moments which have shaped our national pastime. In the twenty-two hour series, to me, there are four major themes which thread throughout the entire documentary. First, and most prominently featured, was the fight for civil rights for all. While we fought the Civil War in the 1860’s, prejudice kept black players out of the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke through in 1947. As courageous as Robinson was, Dodgers executive Branch Rickey was equally as courageous in bucking the tide of racism by other owners. Stories of many talented Negro League ball players are well chronicled. Of course, Robinson’s entrance into Major League Baseball didn’t end the battle over civil rights. Jim Crow laws created a hostile environment to black players, particularly in the south. Hank Aaron in the 1970’s endured countless racist acts as he set to break Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. Even in the 1980’s, Dodgers’ executive Al Campanis’ insipid racist comments on ABC’s Nightline, were featured. African-Americans were still having difficulty becoming field managers and front office executives. This thread had a sense of closure in the ninth inning when the Toronto Blue Jays’ Cito Gaston became the first black manager to win the World Series in 1992.
Perhaps the most poignant moment in the discussion of racial tension in baseball were some comments made by longtime broadcaster Red Barber. Calling games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, two years before Jackie Robinson joined the club, Barber stated that he opposed integration. He later realized he was wrong. That moment really forced us to examine our own prejudices. If we were living in 1945, having grown up in the south, like Barber did in Mississippi, how would we have reacted? I like to think I would have stood for the right thing but would I have caved to the predominant attitudes of the day?
The second major theme is that of scandal. From the early days of the Beer and Whiskey League to the present, scandal has threatened the game on many levels. Early scandal dealt with gambling, in which games were thrown by players as early as the 1800’s. The most infamous scandal dealing with gambling is the 1919 Chicago White Sox “Black Sox” scandal, in which several White Sox players were paid off by gamblers to throw the World Series. Players later tried to find ways to gain an edge either with pitchers altering the baseball or hitters doctoring the bats. Drugs threatened the sport in the 1980’s while use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs were the major issues of the ’90’s and 2000’s.
Thirdly, labor unrest has been an issue since players began playing the game for a paycheck. This parallels the rise of labor unions in all areas of industry. The issue of labor is chronicled by the ending of the reserve clause in the 1970’s, climaxed by the player’s strike of 1994.
Finally, baseball despite any issues it may have had, has always been resilient. New players and stories have come along when the game needed them most. Following the White Sox scandal, the 1920’s featured stars like Babe Ruth, who helped save the game. Baseball survived the Great Depression, when attendance dipped to record lows. The game stayed alive during World War II, as the nation needed relief from the daily news of the war overseas. Baseball survived the players strike, resulting in no World Series in 1994, as fans become captured by the streak of Cal Ripken and home run hitting prowess of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa.
Like the game of baseball, we Americans are resilient and will bounce back stronger than ever once life returns to normal.
If you are a baseball fan of any age, do yourself a favor and watch “Baseball”, a documentary by Ken Burns. I promise, it will be twenty-two hours well spent. The entire box set can be purchased at Amazon.com.
