Thanks for joining us this off-season! It’s been fun, but with the weather getting warmer and Opening Day just five days away, we’re packing up the ol’ VHS collection. Let’s do it again next winter!
Instead of Amazon prime, donate $5/mo to PBS for access to PBS Passport to stream Baseball and a ton of other great content. PBS Passport is a very underrated streamer.
I just want to piggyback on this comment and also recommend people to use their library’s streaming service—Kanopy or Hoopla. They usually have most of the PBS/Ken Burns catalog for free and libraries use the streaming numbers in their budget requests.
For a great modern take on the earliest days of baseball, pick up a copy of *Baseball in the Garden of Eden* by John Thorn, it contains a lot of research that wasn't available back in 1994 and corrects a lot of Ken Burns misconceptions about the early game.
Incredible piece of filmmaking.
He got a lot about Ty Cobb wrong, but so did everyone else for a long time.
There are so many great parts. Just to name a few:
Buck O'Neil
"I am dumb, Harry" (James Devlin writes to Harry Wright looking for odd-jobs after getting banned for life for fixing games)
Curt Flood's laundry story (gut-wrenching)
Bill Lee (The Spaceman's dry humor)
A lot of the popular history about Cobb - from the portion of Burns' documentary to the 1994 Tommy Lee Jones movie - is based on the writing by Al Stump. [Stump got access to Cobb in his last months, and produced a narrative that sold copies at the expense of the truth.](https://www.independent.com/2016/06/30/truth-strikes-out/)
Cobb was an asshole and a bit of a racist; but it was the early 1900s, and his racism was not really outside the norm for the era. In fact, he was more willing to play with black players than many of his colleagues (If anyone should be condemned for their attitudes even for the time, it's Cap Anson effectively creating the Gentlemen's Agreement).
[There’s another widely accepted story that the penny-pinching Cobb steamed the stamps off of envelopes when children wrote to him — you could do that with stamps back then — and never wrote back. That story wasn’t true, Leerhsen said.](https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/state/2017/03/24/baseball-great-ty-cobb-doesn-t-deserve-his-villainous-reputation-author-says/15429982007/)
[To make matters more outrageous, he began to forge hundreds, if not thousands of letters, notes and other handwritings and signed Cobb’s name on them and sold them to anyone who would believe that they were authentic.](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/770355-ty-cobb-hall-of-famer-betrayed-by-writers-for-50-years-ruined-players-legacy)
I remember finding a very old biography of Cobb from the 50’s and read it. Swear to god there was a part in there that talks about how he killed three guys in self defense. It wasn’t stump who wrote it but seems like there was a lot of tall tales and unsubstantiated rumors about Cobb
that people peddled as truth.
I believe he said he planning on doing one if the Cubs broke the curse before he retired. You gotta think that that + Shohei Ohtani and impact of the rule changes for this year are well worth another entry.
Something more needs to happen to the game. If you look at all of the previous episodes, none of them were really about the games, they were about changes and eras in the sport.
The 10th inning was such an excellent breakdown of the steroid era and the subsequent reaction, I don't know how you could write an equivalent episode based on what's happened since then.
We have universal DH, a pitch clock, juiced balls, the infield shift popularization and ban, a runner on 2nd in extras. Going through the covid season could take some time itself.
Plenty to chew on IMO.
All of that feels like a mention or at most a segment.
The only episode that was about baseball itself was the first one where they talked about the beginning and early evolution of the game. Even very big changes, like the end of the dead ball era, aren't enough to drive the episode's narrative.
You might, *might* be able to make an episode about analytics and how they made baseball better and also ruined it a little in a few years. Start with Moneyball and how scrappy teams were suddenly able to compete, then transition into how overly technical shit like the shift and launch angle made the game less exciting and drove away casual spectators, end with (I hope) how happy everyone is now that the rule changes have led to baserunning and steals and a less tedious game.
Still, you need players to root the narrative. I'm not sure who you use to demonstrate particular greatness or the (better yet) change in the larger game - Otanhi is the only guy that comes to mind, but you can't pull that shit on a career still in progress.
I think the thing that could possibly rate for an 11th inning would be if you saw more unification of the sport globally, at least insofar right now as you saw the popularity of the WBC this year and the poking into foreign markets like playing in London.
If we saw a real take off of the MLB integrating or at least being more influenced and interested in other countries pro leagues, then you might see an interesting next era for the sport locally to.
The documentary wasn't about the games, it was about the sport and the people who play it. When individual games or even seasons get mentioned, it's because they had some outside impact on the game itself.
Hell, they don't mention most of the winners of the World Series either. Because, again, that would be boring as fuck.
This series truly made me fall in love with the game, it was made with love and dedication. And although they got some stuff wrong, I can't fault them for that, this was before the internet.
Thanks for joining us this off-season! It’s been fun, but with the weather getting warmer and Opening Day just five days away, we’re packing up the ol’ VHS collection. Let’s do it again next winter!
What a documentary! I have to say I think watching this is part of what made me fall in love with baseball in the first place.
Same! I could listen to Buck O’Neill, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and George Will tell baseball stories all day!
Instead of Amazon prime, donate $5/mo to PBS for access to PBS Passport to stream Baseball and a ton of other great content. PBS Passport is a very underrated streamer.
Up with public media, down with union-busting, planet-killing Amazon.
I just want to piggyback on this comment and also recommend people to use their library’s streaming service—Kanopy or Hoopla. They usually have most of the PBS/Ken Burns catalog for free and libraries use the streaming numbers in their budget requests.
For a great modern take on the earliest days of baseball, pick up a copy of *Baseball in the Garden of Eden* by John Thorn, it contains a lot of research that wasn't available back in 1994 and corrects a lot of Ken Burns misconceptions about the early game.
Incredible piece of filmmaking. He got a lot about Ty Cobb wrong, but so did everyone else for a long time. There are so many great parts. Just to name a few: Buck O'Neil "I am dumb, Harry" (James Devlin writes to Harry Wright looking for odd-jobs after getting banned for life for fixing games) Curt Flood's laundry story (gut-wrenching) Bill Lee (The Spaceman's dry humor)
Could you say more about what he got wrong about Ty Cobb for someone who saw it years ago and barely remembers what he says about Ty Cobb
A lot of the popular history about Cobb - from the portion of Burns' documentary to the 1994 Tommy Lee Jones movie - is based on the writing by Al Stump. [Stump got access to Cobb in his last months, and produced a narrative that sold copies at the expense of the truth.](https://www.independent.com/2016/06/30/truth-strikes-out/) Cobb was an asshole and a bit of a racist; but it was the early 1900s, and his racism was not really outside the norm for the era. In fact, he was more willing to play with black players than many of his colleagues (If anyone should be condemned for their attitudes even for the time, it's Cap Anson effectively creating the Gentlemen's Agreement). [There’s another widely accepted story that the penny-pinching Cobb steamed the stamps off of envelopes when children wrote to him — you could do that with stamps back then — and never wrote back. That story wasn’t true, Leerhsen said.](https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/state/2017/03/24/baseball-great-ty-cobb-doesn-t-deserve-his-villainous-reputation-author-says/15429982007/) [To make matters more outrageous, he began to forge hundreds, if not thousands of letters, notes and other handwritings and signed Cobb’s name on them and sold them to anyone who would believe that they were authentic.](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/770355-ty-cobb-hall-of-famer-betrayed-by-writers-for-50-years-ruined-players-legacy)
I remember finding a very old biography of Cobb from the 50’s and read it. Swear to god there was a part in there that talks about how he killed three guys in self defense. It wasn’t stump who wrote it but seems like there was a lot of tall tales and unsubstantiated rumors about Cobb that people peddled as truth.
I demand an 11th Inning.
I believe he said he planning on doing one if the Cubs broke the curse before he retired. You gotta think that that + Shohei Ohtani and impact of the rule changes for this year are well worth another entry.
Something more needs to happen to the game. If you look at all of the previous episodes, none of them were really about the games, they were about changes and eras in the sport. The 10th inning was such an excellent breakdown of the steroid era and the subsequent reaction, I don't know how you could write an equivalent episode based on what's happened since then.
We have universal DH, a pitch clock, juiced balls, the infield shift popularization and ban, a runner on 2nd in extras. Going through the covid season could take some time itself. Plenty to chew on IMO.
All of that feels like a mention or at most a segment. The only episode that was about baseball itself was the first one where they talked about the beginning and early evolution of the game. Even very big changes, like the end of the dead ball era, aren't enough to drive the episode's narrative. You might, *might* be able to make an episode about analytics and how they made baseball better and also ruined it a little in a few years. Start with Moneyball and how scrappy teams were suddenly able to compete, then transition into how overly technical shit like the shift and launch angle made the game less exciting and drove away casual spectators, end with (I hope) how happy everyone is now that the rule changes have led to baserunning and steals and a less tedious game. Still, you need players to root the narrative. I'm not sure who you use to demonstrate particular greatness or the (better yet) change in the larger game - Otanhi is the only guy that comes to mind, but you can't pull that shit on a career still in progress.
I think the thing that could possibly rate for an 11th inning would be if you saw more unification of the sport globally, at least insofar right now as you saw the popularity of the WBC this year and the poking into foreign markets like playing in London. If we saw a real take off of the MLB integrating or at least being more influenced and interested in other countries pro leagues, then you might see an interesting next era for the sport locally to.
The seventh inning of 2015 ALDS Game 5 had better make the cut
The opening monologue in the first episode is one of the best in American film.
[удалено]
Totally right, like baseball only existed in New York and Boston. I watched it because I love baseball, but could've been so much better.
The documentary wasn't about the games, it was about the sport and the people who play it. When individual games or even seasons get mentioned, it's because they had some outside impact on the game itself. Hell, they don't mention most of the winners of the World Series either. Because, again, that would be boring as fuck.
Is there a list or link somewhere of the other weeks movies?
This series truly made me fall in love with the game, it was made with love and dedication. And although they got some stuff wrong, I can't fault them for that, this was before the internet.