Ken Burns Baseball on...

[Jim VB]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

Loved it, and glad for the liberal bias. With the Great Depression all but forgotten now, it's refreshing to see a documentary about America touting unionization as heroic. These last 40 years have broken down the infrastructure of the New Deal to the point where our new diety, the Market, has damaged every piece of industry in this country, including baseball and baseball cards.

Ken Burns is a welcome voice, in my humble opinion.

Yes... unions will solve the problems caused by the Market. Got it.


Didn't you cause enough trouble yesterday? (LOL)

[Rob D.]

Why do I think that by the end of the day we'll be aching for yet more discussion about an obviously fake T206 Wagner?

[barrysloate]

Brian- you haven't been on the board that long but in the past, when we've had discussions about the state of the country, this community has generally blown a gasket. So we try to avoid any incendiary comments about unions, about liberals, etc. Those kind of threads never end well. Just a little pointer for future reference.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Brian- you haven't been on the board that long but in the past, when we've had discussions about the state of the country, this community has generally blown a gasket. So we try to avoid any incendiary comments about unions, about liberals, etc. Those kind of threads never end well. Just a little pointer for future reference.

It's as if I started the rhetoric? C'mon, Barry. If someone is going to knock the film for its "obvious liberal bias," why can't someone come in a defend the film too? Oh, wait, I forgot... I'm new to the board. That's right. Lack of tenure.

Yes, Ken Burns's series had a bias towards labor and civil rights. Big deal. If protecting the working-class and the minority is a bias, then I'll take that bias, thank you very much.

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

It's as if I started the rhetoric? C'mon, Barry. If someone is going to knock the film for its "obvious liberal bias," why can't someone come in a defend the film too? Oh, wait, I forgot... I'm new to the board. That's right. Lack of tenure.

Yes, Ken Burns's series had a bias towards labor and civil rights. Big deal. If protecting the working-class and the minority is a bias, then I'll take that bias, thank you very much.

It's supposed to be a baseball documentary. I was just pointing out that it sometimes has a biased view of baseball. I didn't say that was bad or good, only that it exists so that anyone unfamiliar with the documentary will know what it's about.

Funny you took that as an "attack" that needed "defended".

Lighten up Francis.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

It's supposed to be a baseball documentary. I was just pointing out that it sometimes has a biased view of baseball. I didn't say that was bad or good, only that it exists so that anyone unfamiliar with the documentary will know what it's about.

Funny you took that as an "attack" that needed "defended".

Lighten up Francis.

Yes, and professional baseball is a business. It's easy to say, "Hey, man, it's just baseball. Lighten up. Stop trying to intellectualize everything." But the story of baseball is a serious story, and a reflection of our values as a nation.

Again, it wasn't some heavy thing to me. Just pointing out that this so-called liberal bias should be explained before people reading your post take your word at it. In this case, Ken Burns's "liberal bias" was the covering of blacks in baseball extensively, as well as the reserve clause and labor rights.

[teetwoohsix]

Brian-Chidester="He Who Stirreth The Pot With Very Big Stick"
(it's a joke Brian,don't spiral on me)

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

Yes, and professional baseball is a business. It's easy to say, "Hey, man, it's just baseball. Lighten up. Stop trying to intellectualize everything." But the story of baseball is a serious story, and a reflection of our values as a nation.

Again, it wasn't some heavy thing to me. Just pointing out that this so-called liberal bias should be explained before people reading your post take your word at it. In this case, Ken Burns's "liberal bias" was the covering of blacks in baseball extensively, as well as the reserve clause and labor rights.

Thanks for explaining what I meant, considering you couldn't have possibly known.

My reason for stating it has a liberal bias was actually directed at his interviewee list, not his positions on integration or labor.

Nice to watch an interview with Bill Lee about baseball while wearing a CCCP cap. And Mario Cuomo was the best they could come up with to comment on 50's baseball? Apparently Castro wasn't available.

[Brian-Chidester]

I bow to your condescending wisdom.

[barrysloate]

No condescension intended...I often found myself right in the middle of all the political discussions, and usually regretted doing so. Imagine a group of liberals and a group of conservatives simultaneously banging their heads against a brick wall, and that's pretty much they way things went.

[barrysloate]

Brian- you are free to express any opinion you want around here...just be prepared for the fallout.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

No condescension intended...I often found myself right in the middle of all the political discussions, and usually regretted doing so. Imagine a group of liberals and a group of conservatives simultaneously banging their heads against a brick wall, and that's pretty much they way things went.

I wan't saying you were condescending, Barry. Just the two that commented on me causing trouble and being blind to an obvious T206 fake.

Agreed about political arguments. Just thought someone should posit an antidote opinion to the one which claimed Burns's liberal bias brought the series down.

[Rob D.]

My comment wasn't so much directed at you being blind to an obvious fake as it was to given a choice between dredging up discourse on the Cobb/Edwards Wagner or having another liberal-vs.-conservative train wreck on a board dedicated to baseball cards, I'd choose the former.

[slidekellyslide]

Let's keep all political talk off the main board...there is a watercooler area for general sports talk that I suppose if anyone wants to use it to argue about politics they can take it there. Not here.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by Rob D.

My comment wasn't so much directed at you being blind to an obvious fake as it was to given a choice between dredging up discourse on the Cobb/Edwards Wagner or having another liberal-vs.-conservative train wreck on a board dedicated to baseball cards, I'd choose the former.

Rob... first off, I wasn't dredging up anything on the Cobb/Edwards card. The thread was started by someone else two days ago. And I told everyone quite clearly that [1] I was not a part of the older thread and [2] I had never seen the card. I was interested more in seeing if we could identify exactly what reprint the card came from, as it looked fake to me from first glance. But having not seen it before that day, nor having been a part of the old conversation, I thought I'd give it the old one-time to see if it held up on any level whatsoever. Alas, it did not, and everyone was right. But I enjoyed the conversation.

As to a liberal-vs.-conservative discussion here... this had nothing to do with political parties. It was said that the Burns series had a "liberal bias," of which I could only see that being from the POV of labor rights and civil rights. In my response to that, I made making no statement about congress or political parties or anything. Just trying to say, when it comes to blacks in baseball and the reserve clause in baseball... if THOSE issues are the so-called "liberal bias," then give me the liberal bias.

I never even said I WAS a liberal.

[Brian-Chidester]

Originally Posted by Jim VB

Yes... unions will solve the problems caused by the Market. Got it.


Didn't you cause enough trouble yesterday? (LOL)

Actually, labor rights and the New Deal DID solve the problems caused by the Markets.

[Jim VB]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

Actually, labor rights and the New Deal DID solve the problems caused by the Markets.

Brian,

I wasn't being condescending, at all. I am only condescending to one single person on this board and "they" all graduated, Magna Cum Laude, from a top notch Ivy League school. Since you aren't "them", you're in the clear.

The point I was trying to make, with humor, is that it can be argued that just as you claim, that labor rights, the New Deal, and unions, solved problems caused by markets, the other side of the argument is equally valid. Markets, even Market collapses, solve problems caused by some entitlement programs and some unions.

Our auto industry didn't collapse because Americans like foreign cars. It's in collapse because union contracts rendered the US automakers non-competitive v. foreign makers.

About once a year, you read an article about some proposal to import some foreign insect that will solve a problem caused by some other pest. It never seems to work out quite like it's planned.


Edited to add: Here's the latest example. This just sounds like a bad idea to me.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119787&page=1

[Brian-Chidester]

Jim,

I disagree that the market is the ultimate arbiter of democracy, but I think we should take this off-board, if you want to continue it. PM me.

Again, my only point way at the beginning of this thread was that, if blacks in baseball and the reserve clause were considered the liberal bias, then that is a bias I will proudly applaud. Because other than those two issues, I can't see what other liberal bias there might have been in the Burns series.

[Jim VB]

Originally Posted by Brian-Chidester

Jim,

I disagree that the market is the ultimate arbiter of democracy...

If only someone had said that, your disagreement would be valid.

[Chris-Counts]

I'll stay out of the political debate, but I will confess I'm in the minority in that I have very mixed feelings about the Ken Burns baseball series. First of all, there is way too much camera time alloted to people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Jay Gould and Donald Hall, who as far as I'm concerned, have nothing to do with baseball's history ... they would have been better off filling up the screen with old ballplayers or simply putting all the voices in the background and show baseball clips when people are talking. And the series is undeniably slanted toward the New York teams, especially during the parts on the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s (my favorite eras). It's makes me wonder how much Burns really understands baseball history. There were 16 teams in the majors during these eras, but Burns focuses mostly on just three of them.

[bmarlowe1]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

And the series is undeniably slanted toward the New York teams, especially during the parts on the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s (my favorite eras). It's makes me wonder how much Burns really understands baseball history. There were 16 teams in the majors during these eras, but Burns focuses mostly on just three of them.

Chris is right. I would add that he also got the 1900's wrong. The Cubs were the best team, the Pirates 2nd, the Giants 3rd. You would never know that from Burns' film.

[Robextend]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

First of all, there is way too much camera time alloted to people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Jay Gould and Donald Hall, who as far as I'm concerned, have nothing to do with baseball's history ... they would have been better off filling up the screen with old ballplayers or simply putting all the voices in the background and show baseball clips when people are talking.

I totally agree with Chris. Hearing those guys talk about how they reacted to a certain World Series outcome and so on and so forth got a little tiring. I'd rather hear more from the likes of Buck O'Neil, Bob Feller, etc...

[Theoldprofessor]

Overall, of course, it's a grand documentary. But too much of the time Burns seems to think that baeball was invented somewhere between White Plains NY and Brocton MASS, and that anything played outside of the Boston NYC corridor really doesn't count as major league at all.

Another small but, I think, important observation. In covering the 1960 Series (whose outcome is lamented by NY born and bred author and part-time plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin), Burns uses Chuck Thompson's exciting and excited voice-over of the bottom of the ninth. On the whole, Thomson's call was absolutely dead on the money, except for a few minor errors. I think I can recall the way it ran pretty clearly.

Thompson: "Well, a little while ago, when we mentioned that this one, in typical fashion, was going right to the wire, little did we know. Art Ditmar throws .. THERE'S A SWING AND A HIGH FLY BALL GOING DEEP TO LEFT ... THIS MAY DO IT ... BACK TO THE WALL GOES BERRA. IT .. IS .. OVER THE FENCE, HOME RUN THE PIRATES WIN!"

Except Art Ditmar wasn't on the field -- he was warming up in the bullpen. Ralph Terry threw that pitch. So the thompson voice-ever has been doctored to have him say "Ralph Terry throws ... " There was also an error in Thompson's call of the final score, though I can't remember it as clearly. But the new "call" gets everything exactly right.

So what's the big deal? Doctor a few tapes. So what? (I think I'll just leave that alone and let it stink for a while.) So what is that Historian Burns should know lots better. You know he wouldn't have thrown in a few faked Brady photographs in "The Civil War." Why do it here?