Ken Burn's Baseball documentary

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Posted By: Alan

I've just started watching the Ken Burn's Baseball documentary. Just curious what you all think of it. Thanks.

Alan
Jewish sports collector

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Posted By: barrysloate

It was an extremely ambitious and comprehensive look at the history of the game; however, there were some errors and some liberties taken by Mr. Burns. But it's tough to find fault with someone who made such a major contribution to documenting the history of the game in pictures and words.

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Posted By: Darren_Duet

I loved it.

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

I watch it at least once a year. If there are some embellished stories, who cares, it's all about the game, how much of history do we actually know is true. I never knew take me out to the ballgame could be played in so many different ways.

I think it is wonderful!!!!!

Lee

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Posted By: Ben

I picked up the DVD boxed set a while back, and loved it too. I sorta wished they devoted more time to the 19th century, but since they had to cover 100+ years of baseball history, I can understand why Burns chose not to. I thought the chapter on the negro leagues and Jackie Robinson were especially well done. The Buck O'neill interviews were another highlight for me too....what a great guy.

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Posted By: Howard W. Rosenberg

If you want to save a few minutes and yet not miss anything, fast forward whenever Doris Kearns Goodwin has a story to tell.

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Buck O'Neil is an American treasure. Doris Kearns Goodwin is insufferable.

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Posted By: Josh A.

Goodwin is a fantastic story teller, probably one of the better parts of the whole piece, (along with the late Stephen Gould). All in all, if you like East Coast baseball, it's a good show!

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Posted By: Rob L

One of my favorite DVD sets. I have watched the 19th Century and Dead Ball era "innings" numerous times. Buck O'Neil is a fantastic story teller. He has been on the Jim Rome's shows several times and I could listen to his stories for days!

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

I cannot stand to hear Doris Kearns Goodwin pontificate about anything, much less baseball. On the other hand, I think I could listen endlessly to the gifted Buck O'Neil, the only other sports figures I would put in the same category as interesting and entertaining to listen to are Ted Williams and Bill Russell. There was a TV special about 10 years ago here in Boston with Ted, Orr, and Bird and the other two might as well not even have been there. Russell often gives extended radio interviews on occasions when he returns to Boston and the man's intelligence, wit, and depth are mesmerizing.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

WHAT'S THIS??

PASJD HAS REVEALED HIS FULL NAME!?

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Yeah, in response to Leon's post about anonymity.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

By the way, Peter...

You need to make the following additions to this part of your bio:

Professional Activities: Mr. Spaeth is a member of the American Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association. "HE ALSO SHARES HIS WIT AND WISDOM ON A REGULAR BASIS WITH THE GUYS (AND JULIE) ON THE NETWORK54 VINTAGE BASEBALL CARD WEB SITE."


I think that counts as "professional" activity. At least that's how I bill it.

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Posted By: Adam J. Moraine

We had Buck O' Neil at the Bob Feller Museum, Feb. of 2004 along with an awesome display of Mr. O' Neil's playing career, and personal life in order to promote the museum, and black history month. Mr. O'Neil is a class act.

Best Regards,

Adam J. Moraine

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Posted By: Max Weder

I liked the documentary, notwithstanding the east coast predominance. The SABR email list discussed to death the factual errors that were made, but as others have said, my overall impression of the work is high.

Another interesting DVD set to get is When It Was A Game (3 DVDs, the first two are my preferred). It features early color home movies taken of ball players in the 1930s, and if I recall also has some 1920s footage. This was the first time I had seen most of the 1930s players in color, and it was truly incredible.

Max

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Posted By: leon

Peter- while I respect your decision to "come out" with your name you know you don't have to. Again, I personally think everyone should but am not going to force the issue until there is one (issue).

Hal- quit instigating or I'll make you put your credentials on every post....slowly beating the board to death

later
leon

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Posted By: dennis

i really liked it a lot. i'd love to see a part 2.

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Posted By: jay behrens

My all-time favorite player for stories is Art Donavan. He was always a riot on the Letterman show and got to talk with a few times at card shows. The late Lou Dials was also a fabulous person to talk to. He loved it when I would show up with my son. Too bad my son wasn't old enough to remember him.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

That won't take him long to post.

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Posted By: Chris

I wholeheartedly agree with the praise of Buck O'Neil. He is an amazing man and extremely kind.

I try to watch the first 4-5 Innings at least once a year. Completely factual or not, it's still better than most other stuff on TV.

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Posted By: John J. Grillo

I have the DVD boxed set and I love it. Burns is truly a master filmmaker. If I have only 1 critique of the film it was the amount of time devoted to Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson was a pioneer and no man should have to endure what he went through, and he is HOF material, I just do not think his stats put him in the category of greatness. I would have liked to see more on Gehrig, Dimaggio, Aaron, Clemente, and Rose. Just my opinion.

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Posted By: Bob Marquette

not quite up to the Civil War documentary he produced, IMHO.
I know there were time constraints but the almost total omission of the Hitless Wonder White Sox champs and the story of the Miracle Boston Braves were glaring. I loved Buck and also thought Costas and Shelby Foote were great and Garrison Keillor's voice was wonderful.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

On a purely baseball level I agree Jackie Robinson while of course great is not as great as DiMaggio and Gehrig and Aaron, but I think the documentary was as much social history as it was baseball. Sitting here in 2005 we probably can never fully appreciate the magnitude of Jackie Robinson's contribution, the unbelievable pressure he must have been under, and the way he responded both in terms of athletic performance and restraint. From the distance of years one can take the point of view that the integration of baseball, and the breaking down of racial barriers in other contexts, was "inevitable," and that Jackie was just the instrument of that inevitable progress of history, but at the time Jackie first stepped onto a field it was anything but. Hindsight always gives a false perspective because we know how things turned out and we tend to view events in light of subsequent events, forgetting that at the time, there were no subsequent events.

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Posted By: qualitycards.com

For a Baseball fan, you can't ask for more. Hours upon hours of footage, stories & stats. When they initially aired on PBS, it was a treat to watch each & every episode. The wife even bought me the VHS set for a birthday present. It sure beat her usual gift of a polo shirt & after shave. Burns did a great job.
Any truth to the rumour that he is creating another episode of what has transpired in Baseball since his last video?

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Posted By: Ben

Very well put Peter, I agree wholeheartedly.

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Posted By: Greg Ecklund

John,
I agree with you somewhat...I thought Burns had a tendency to get overbearing with the race issue at times. While it is a true injustice that the great Negro League players never got to play in the majors, Burns failed to shed much light on the positive role Baseball had to play in the integration movement as much as he did the negative aspect. Baseball was in fact one of the first aspects of society to be integrated (many schools, bathrooms, hotels, etc were still segregated at the time) and played a positive role in changing racial attitudes in this country.

My neighbor across the way grew up as a Giants fan in New York, with Willie Mays as his boyhood hero. He has told me many times that rooting for Mays and other players such as Hank Thompson and Monte Irvin played a large part in making him more open minded about all races and a great supporter of the integration movement. I think Burns missed the boat on that idea for the most part...a boy growing up with someone like Mays as his hero surely could not then support an idea that forced Mays to use a different bathroom, or his children to go to a segregated school.

I also agree that the documentary missed out on many important teams and players in the interest of staying with its main themes. The teams Bob mentioned were not seen at all, and players like Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove were also mostly ignored or mentioned for a few seconds. One issue Burns could have explored more was the plight of many players after their playing days (Foxx, Willie Keeler, and Grover Alexander are good examples) and how many players were ignored by the game and left in poverty until the Players Union secured a pension system.

I will also echo the comments about Buck O'Neil - what a true gem he is! I have met him on several occasions and he seems to be giving off pure joy at all times. Life gave Buck many chances to be bitter, but he has always kept smiling - there is nothing nicer than seeing him finally getting his due as a national treasure.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Yeah Jay, it's in production and the title is "Steroids".

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Posted By: Bob Marquette

Kind of surprised that Burns (and no one else for that matter) has ever put together a definitive documentary of the Revolutionary War. I've seen the Civil War and Baseball by Burns, The Great War (WW1) and the PBS WW2 series', both excellent, History of Rock and Roll, Jazz, etc. but never a really good in depth and enlightening documentary about the most important event in our history. Seems odd.

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Posted By: steve k

I watched it years ago when it first came on. Virtually no stories about the Philadelphia Phillies - so f**k Ken Burns.

Seriously though - it was an interesting documentary although very slanted towards the injustices done in baseball history. Granted these injustices were of course wrong and needed to be addressed, and were addresssed, but it was tiring to hear about them over and over again.

His documentary about the Civil War was much, much better.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Greg,

Your observation regarding Burn's BB production is well
stated. After a while it was tedious to watch. Burns, did
the same with his Jazz rendering. It is like he had an
"agenda" to promote in at least these two productions. In
both, he could have emphasized the positive. Namely, how
Baseball and Jazz are probably the most influential factors
in breaking down the barriers between Blacks and Whites
in this country. And sure, it took some time, but these two
forms of entertainment certainly served as catalysts in
improving race relations this past century.

You noted the problems of BB film, so I wont to add to them.
However, in his Jazz rendering, two early pioneers who were
well known in Jazz, were Hoagy Carmichael and Lionel Hampton
(a White guy and a conservative Black); and, Burns totally
disregarded them.

To me, Burns looks at a glass half full and tries to tell us
it is empty. I tend to be an optimist, and I see that same
glass of water as partially full. It is a real shame, because
BaseBall and Jazz are real Americana; and, definitely deserved
a more objective and fair treatment than Burns gave us.

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

Peter,
"Steroids" was the tentative title, Ken decided to go with "Juiced" for its mainstream appeal.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I was bored out of my mind. I tried to watch it when it ran on PBS and fell asleep every damned night. The pacing was glacial. ESPN's Sports Century and A & E Biography do a much better job with similar materials.

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Posted By: T206Collector

Is the best baseball documentary every made. Period. On DVD you can choose whatever chapeter you want with the click of a button, to brush up on Ty Cobb, Rube Waddell or the Christian Gentleman, Christy Mathewson. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but it's very hard for me to believe that people with a real interest in vintage baseball would find time to criticize a movie which lionizes that period in baseball.

By the by, I'm a huge Lefty Grove fan and I do not think Burns gave him short shrift. Would I have liked more Lefty? Of course. But given the context and circumstances, I thought the coverage was appropriate.

In terms of the race issue, it's hard for me to separate between my feelings that Burns may have overdone a theme and an unshakeable disappointment that the great black ballplayers will never find themselves immortalized on cardboard in a pack of 1909-11 Sweet Caporal cigarettes. Really, if the likes of Unglaub and Breitenstein were good enough to make the list, then it strains reason or credulity that the Gibsons and the Charleston's never made it. Can a T206 set ever really be complete without them?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I happened not to like the series; that's MY HO, not anyone else's.

BTW, I think a T206 set is very complete without Gibson in it...considering that he was born after the set was issued

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

What I would love to see is a Ken Burns style of documentary on individual players. I like espn's Sports Century series, but I've seen them all, and I'm not sure if they're even making them anymore. The espn series is also shy on the early 20th century players, which is my favorite baseball era.

I thought the best part of Ken Burn's Baseball was the segment on the 1919 Black Sox. I can watch the first four innings of Baseball over and over, but I rarely ever watch anything beyond that.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

For me anyhow, that was part of the documentary's success. Baseball is, after all, a relatively slow game, with lots of time for pause and reflection. In a sense it is like jazz; the rests make the music as much as the notes.

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Posted By: Cy

There are definitely good moments in the 10 DVD series. But I have to agree with Adam. It was slow throughout the entire session. And when you consider that there wasn't any film in the 1900-1910 segment, only still pictures in front of the narration, I prefer listening to Larry Ritter's actual interviews in the Glory of Their Times CD set than to watch the Burns DVDs.

I don't think anything in the 1900-1910 segment was as thrilling as actually listening to Smokey Joe Wood, Sam Crawford, Davey Jones, Chief Meyers and my absolute favorite of the four discs, Jimmy Austin (plus others) These interviews are exciting as you get to listen to the actual men tell their stories.

If I had a choice to keep the Burns 10 DVDs with a big screen TV or the Glory of Their Times with a Walkman and I had to throw away the other, it wouldn't be a choice. I'd keep Larry Ritter's real interviews any day.

Plus, I was greatly disappointed that Burns gave no time to the 1960 Pirates. That was a thrilling World Series for everyone except Yankees fans. That is why it is rarely shown. And that is a shame.

Cy

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Posted By: tbob

My two votes for most thrilling moments in the DVD were 1) when Buck was talking about how baseball was down and out and along came the Babe and 2) the poignant moment which made my eyes water when the story was told about how Ty Cobb went in to Joe Jackson's liquor store and Joe acted like he didn't recognize Cobb out of Joe's sense of shame.

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Posted By: Bob Beyerle

The fact they pronounced (arguably) one of the games greatest players name wrong (HO-NESS?) is a HUGE Black mark in my book. Especially when the original recordings from Ritters book are (obviously) correct.