Ken Burns Baseball on...

[nebboy]

Last nights segment had interviews of Buck Oneil. One of baseball greats story tellers. He had such a great canter to his voice and a smile that never stopped! I glad that Kens series in on MLB TV so we can see how much some of these guy spent there lives to making baseball the best sport of all.
I was luck enough to be a game in KC, when Buck was on field to through out the first pitch. Then retired to his seat behind home plate. I when down to say "HI" and tell him how much I enjoyed is Nigro League Musium in KC. Also asked for an Auto, which he was happy to do.
Now for the great part. As I asked him a couple of leading question to see if he was in the story telling mood, and oh ya he was. He started in with one after another, after another. 20 mintues later he said in mid story said that the chair next to him is not being used that night and I could "rest here for the game". The only time he stopped talking all night was when he was singing (anthem and take me out). He talked about the past, his playing days, guys he played with, traveling in the south, buses, air plains, finding players and signing them to MLB contracts, players on the field that night, everything they did right and wrong (always a scout). See I ramble also. It was an amazing night of just listen, and watching the game with one of lthe games best ambassadors. This was me best baseball memory by far - by far.

Buck for all he did for baseball, he should get some more interest from the Hall of Fame, he already one to me.

[donmuth]

that was published along with the documentary movie. It's a good read and I am almost done with it now. After this I will probably take a short break from baseball reading before I read The Glory Of Their Times next.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?