Baseball (TV series)

Baseball was an Emmy Award-winning 1994 documentary series by Ken Burns about the game of baseball. It was broadcast on PBS. It was Burns' ninth documentary.

Format

Like Burns' previous documentaries (most notably, "The Civil War"), he uses archived pictures and film footage mixed with interviews for his visual presentation. Often over the pictures and video, actors provide voice over, reciting written work (letters, speeches, etc.). A narrator provides cohesion to the whole documentary (veteran television journalist John Chancellor provided the narration).

The documentary was divided into nine parts (each appropriately refered to as an "inning", following the division of the game). Each "inning" reviewed a particular era in time.

Each "inning" began with a brief prologue that acts as a review of the previous "inning" as well as a preview of the "inning" to come. The prologue ends with the playing of The Star Spangled Banner (just as a real baseball game would), with the particular rendition played as it might have been in the era being covered in that inning (most notably, while covering the 1960's, the rendition of the Star Spangled Banner used is the same as played by Jimmi Hendrix at Woodstock).

Major themes explored throughout the documentary are those of race, business, and labor relations.

The Nine Innings

1st Inning: Our Game

This inning covers baseball's origins and the game as it evolved prior to the twentieth century.

2nd Inning: Something Like A War

This inning covers approximately 1900 to 1910, and includes the formation of the American League and its integration with the National League. Ty Cobb is discussed in depth (the title of this inning comes from one of his many quotes).

3rd Inning: The Faith of Fifty Million People

This inning covers approximately 1910 to 1920. It heavily focuses on the Black Sox Scandal, taking its title from a line in the novel The Great Gatsby. The line refers to how easy it was for gamblers to tamper with the faith that people put in there being a fair game.

4th Inning: A National Heirloom

This inning covers approximately 1920 to 1930, and focuses on baseball's recovery from the Black Sox Scandal, giving much of the credit to the increase in power hitting throughout the game, led by Babe Ruth.

5th Inning: Shadow Ball

This inning covers approximately 1930 to 1940. While Burns has not shyed away from discussing the plight of African-Americans up to this point, a great deal of this inning covers the Negro Leagues, and the great players and organizers who were excluded from the Major Leagues.

6th Inning: The National Pastime

This inning covers approximately 1940 to 1950. The emphasis here is on baseball finally becoming what it had always purported to be: a national game, as African-Americans are finally permitted into Major League Baseball, led by Jackie Robinson. This inning also looks at how the game was impacted as a result of World War Two.

7th Inning: The Capital of Baseball

This inning covers approximately 1950 to 1960. Burns emphasizes the greatness of the three teams based in New York (the Yankees, the Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers). This inning also covers the major changes that are coming to baseball as teams begin to relocate.

8th Inning: A Whole New Ballgame

This inning covers approximately 1960 to 1970. As the nation underwent turbulent changes, baseball was not immune. Expansion and labor are major topics in this inning.

9th Inning: Home

The final inning covers events after 1970, approximately through 1990. While baseball survived the 1960s, the changes were not over, and in some ways its most bitter conflicts were just beginning. Major topics include the formation of the players' union, the owners' collusion, free agency, and drug scandals.

Interview Subjects

The following is a non-exhaustive list of people not involved in baseball who were interviewed in the documentary:

• Roger Angell, editor and writer, The New Yorker
• Billy Crystal, comic actor
• Mario Cuomo, politician, then governor of New York
• Gerald L. Early, Professor of Modern Letters, Washington University, St. Louis
• Shelby Foote, writer and historian
• Doris Kearns Goodwin, writer and historian
• Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist
• Shirley Povich, sports writer
• John Sayles, filmmaker (most notably Eight Men Out)
• Studs Terkel, writer and journalist
• George Will, political commentator

The following is a non-exhaustive list of people who were more involved in the game of baseball, and were interviewed in the documentary:

• Henry Aaron
• Red Barber, broadcaster
• Curt Flood
• Bill "the Spaceman" Lee
• Mickey Mantle
• Marvin Miller, union organizer for Major League players
• Buck O'Neil
• Double Duty Radcliffe
• Rachel Robinson, wife of Jackie Robinson
• Vin Scully, broadcaster
• Ted Williams

External links

• PBS page on Baseball
• Baseball at IMDb