Baseball - A Film by Ken Burns

Baseball - A Film By Ken Burns Inning One, Our Game, looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and takes the story up to 1900. Burns refutes the myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown and traces its roots instead to the earliest days of the nation ? there are records of a game called "B...	Sports Illustrated: The Baseball Book Continuing in the tradition of Sports Illustrated’s 50th Anniversary Book and The Football Book comes a spectacular celebration of baseball that will be treasured by fans of the National Pastime. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that p...	When It Was a Game - Triple Play Collection When It Was a Game (1991); When it Was a Game 2 (1992); When It Was a Game 3 (2000)	The War - A Film By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/02/2007	The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2005 Director: Ken Burns
The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 History buffs, Ken Burns fans, and anyone whose life has been touched by war will be awed by Burns's new book, The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, a stunning companion to his PBS series airing in September 2007. Focusing on the citizens of four towns, The War follows more th...	Baseball: A Film By Ken Burns - Original Soundtrack Recording Hailed as perhaps the greatest filmed document in the history of the sport, Ken Burns's epic series chronicled more than a century's worth of baseball lore. The producers paid nearly as much attention to the audio as the stunning visuals, but this soundtrack is slightly uneven. B...	Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World's Finest Private Collections Among the national treasures you'll find: The only known photographic image of baseball's first organized team, the New York Knickerbockers, circa 1846. Original copy of the first written rules of modern baseball. One of the earliest known color advertising posters promo...	Eight Men Out (20th Anniversary Edition) Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 03/18/2008 Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Pg	The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns The most successful public-television miniseries in American history, the 11-hour Civil War didn't just captivate a nation, reteaching to us our history in narrative terms; it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator. When people describe documentaries us...

Ken Burns scores a knockout
If you are a baseball fan, you've got to appreciate Ken Burns documentary on baseball. From the writing, to the filming, narration, pictures, video, research, and everything else that make up this series, this is a five star production that was made possible by the film and digital age.

The best
This series was so interesting and so well done that I bought sets for two friend and three of my children. Not only did it cover baseball it covered Americana.

Baseball: An Illustrated History
I liked the book so well that I would like to purchase two more. One for my brother and son.

The Old Ball Game
Only the sport of baseball could lend itself (via its long, rich heritage) to a Ken Burns-style documentary. Of course, Burns nails it once again. Though not as emotionally touching as his Civil War or World War II documentaries, Baseball captures the essence of America's pastime. From Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, and Ty Cobb to Willie, Mickey, and the Duke, to Yaz, Pete Rose, Mick Schmidt, and everyone in between, Burns recounts all the rousing stories that old fans will recite from memory and younger fans will be fascinated by. Guest commentators wax poetically about the game, old veterans tell their stories, and Burn's traditional mix of period music, solo piano, and aching violin provide an emotional punch, whether positive or negative. However, what really sets this film apart from others is Burn's willingness to "pull no punches" in terms of describing the often-flawed sport of baseball. Whether it be the rowdyism that plagued the game in its early existence, the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, or baseball's outright racism until the late 1940s, Burns explains those issues without letting too much personal bias creep in. Overall, this is a wonderful documentary for baseball fans who truly value the rich history of the sport. When watching, you will fell as if you actually exist in whatever decade Burns happens to be describing. This is the ultimate "biography" of our national pastime.

A tribute to baseball by Ken Burns and his team
This volume contains a lot that is very good. Its structure is a bit forced (nine innings, or periods, of baseball history). The 9th inning, as others have noted, covers a large time frame compared with earlier "innings." I'm not sure that the decade is the best way of organizing baseball history, either. Still and all, that's more a matter of taste than anything else. The book's authors candidly observe that they will focus on eastern teams, e.g., Boston Red Sox and Brooklyn Dodgers, "because we felt their stories especially rich in the human drama that accompanies the history of every team." However, I agree with a reviewer (who bears the name of one of Detroit's best first basemen ever) who laments that this really does slight the deep baseball history that covers much more territory than New York to Boston. Again, though, certainly not a fatal flaw by any stretch in this book. This book is seen as complementary to the documentary series on PBS, designed to elaborate certain issues in ways not possible in the TV medium. Some of the special features in both the documentary and book are the recollections of Buck O'Neil; interviews with historians, writers, managers, and players. Finally, essays by a number of "guests" represent an interesting twist. Roger Angell has a wonderful Introduction, "Hard Lines," in which he juxtaposes the apparent ease of playing baseball with the harsh realities of players often fighting just to stay in the big leagues or losing the joy for the game (note the brief discussion on Carl Yastrzemski). He observes that: "Once we understand how really hard it is, we become citizens of baseball, admiring its laws and just paths, even when the luck of the day hasn't gone our way." Other guest commentators include George Will, Bill James, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. But the book is about baseball, so the nine innings are themselves the heart of this book. The early years, up until 1900, feature a strange game to us today, with very different rules--as well as the origins of racial segregation in the game (the issue of race is one of the main themes of the book). The second inning discusses the game as "Something like a war," when players played and fought hard. And so on. No need to provide a full chronology. Some special segments: the role of Babe Ruth, in the Fourth Inning, helping baseball dig out from under the disaster of the Chicago Black Sox, who threw a World Series. The Sixth Inning features the end of segregation in baseball, with Jackie Robinson's big league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. A final quotation from Buck O'Neil illustrates how the game can be addictive--to players (and even to fans), when he says: "There is nothing in life like getting your body to do all the things it has to do on the baseball field." All in all, an ambitious work, trying to capture the spirit of baseball, its sins, and its contributions. While I do have some questions about this volume, as already noted, it ends up not quite being a home run, but it surely is extra bases.