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Post by p23w on Jun 5, 2020 12:46:27 GMT -5
There is a wealth of information with respect to "Blue Laws" and early baseball. The application of these laws seemed (to me) right of the alley for Burns' racial narrative of baseball. There's that and the fascinating story of pre-civil war baseball (mostly involving New York "clubs") and baseball during the civil war, particularly in Union POW camps, with anecdotal stories of how both Southerners and Blacks got interested in the game. Then there is the fabulous story of immigrants and baseball. Burns leaves a lot out to craft his feel good narrative. For me, he missed a lot, but I suppose in his line of work he got he wanted out of it.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jun 5, 2020 16:17:01 GMT -5
"Baseball must be a great game. Because the owners haven't been able to kill it." -Bill Veeck As they say, if at first you don't succeed... |
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Post by p23w on Jun 6, 2020 21:16:16 GMT -5
"Baseball must be a great game. Because the owners haven't been able to kill it." -Bill Veeck As they say, if at first you don't succeed... Veeck was around to see owners reject foreign ownership (1946) and integration from Black owned teams from the Negro leagues (1952?). Baseball IS a great game. "Baseball is the greatest game in the world" Babe Ruth circa 1933 while on tour in Japan. FTR the Japanese picked of the game from Hawaii in the 19th century. MLB is just an offshoot of American big business. Veeck knew that even the machinations of "Big Business" could not "kill it". |
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Post by Mike Andrews on Jun 11, 2020 13:57:31 GMT -5
Episode 10 came out in 2010, covering the 1990s. The Dominican influx, the Braves, Yankees, millionaire vs. billionaire labor issues, the strike, Cal Ripken, the home runs, and steroids. A lot of it was like deja vu all over again.
"Ever since 1890 ... players have found ways to bend or get around the rules. For the most part, the game's many transgressors have been celebrated for their creativity, as much as they have been castigated for their misdeeds. When New York Giants third baseman Bobby Thompson hit one of the most famous home runs in the history of the game, he and his teammates were using an illegal sign stealing system that told the hitters what pitch was coming."
"During the 1994 season, the owners made a proposal they knew the union would never accept ... they offered to share revenue with each other ... but only if the union agreed to a salary cap."
"I still think this can be settled. The parties are just going to have to decide if thy want a baseball season in 1995, and what the long-term damage to baseball will be, and therefore the economics of both sides, if it doesn't happen." - Bill Clinton
"They sometimes forget that they're in the entertainment business. They forget that, without fans, they're back on the farm playing ball before cows. Because there's nothing intrinsically valuable about the ability to smack a ball with a bat." - John Thorn
"To a country transfixed by the revelation that the President cheated on his wife and lied about it, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa provided a welcome distraction."
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Post by Mike Andrews on Jun 19, 2020 8:40:58 GMT -5
Finished the series today. Part 11 covered the 2010s decade, stuff like returning from tragedy, more salary stuff, a lot about steroids, and a heavy focus on the Red Sox. Favorite quotes ...
"The following Monday, when they opened Wall Street, the streets were lined with men in machine guns. There was still smoke pouring out of the pyre of the World Trade Center. After about four hours of walking around downtown, a cop recognized me. He says, 'How are you, Keith?' I said, 'I'm alright, how are you?' He says, 'I'm worried.' I said, 'Yeah, I'm worried too.' He says, 'I'm worried about the Mets.' And I sort of snapped out of it. I said, 'You're worried about the Mets!?' He said, 'Yeah, well, I mean, the season resumes tonight and they're in Pittsburgh. I mean, do you think they've got enough to get back in the pennant race? I mean, they were doing so well, can they catch the Braves?' I said, 'How on Earth could that possibly matter?' We were standing with the smoke [from ground zero] coming up from behind us. And he says, 'Well, it doesn't matter. Of course it doesn't matter. I've got 300 friends dead. It doesn't matter. But tonight, at 7:00, and all day for the rest of today, I can look forward to 7:00 when I can put my feet up and pretend like it does matter.'" -Keith Olbermann
"At the beginning of free agency in 1975, the average salary of a big league player had been $45,676 a season, just three times what the average American earned in a year. Now, with revenue pouring in from cable and satellite TV, radio, the internet, international markets, and new ballparks, the average baseball salary had soared to nearly $2.4 million, almost 50 times what the average American makes."
"Think about all the people that lived their entire lives without seeing that moment. It wasn't just about 2004. It was about people's fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers and all these people who have waited all these years, they're all connected. I've never seen a championship in any sport that meant more to people in a region than I saw with the Red Sox in 2004." -Tom Verducci
"I sometimes sit and stare out the window and wonder, 'What could I have done with my life if I had not spent all this time on the Red Sox?' Might I have completed this novel I've been working on for the past 25 years? Might I have done something else? But what it becomes in the end is like raising your children. If you raise them well and they love you and you love them back, at the end of the day you know that when you leave this life your children won't be thinking about 'Oh what a great column he wrote in October of 1972.' They'll be thinking of the time they spent with you as a father. That's how I think of the Red Sox." -Mike Barnicle
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Post by mrcoatess on Mar 2, 2022 5:08:31 GMT -5
Thank you for your post. This game is undoubtedly a game of statistics. Besides the thrill of knowing who scores in the game, the excitement of how statistics unfold draws me even more.  |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 3, 2022 0:11:50 GMT -5
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Post by tomhank on Jun 28, 2022 4:56:49 GMT -5
This is it, your Graceland, if you're a fan of baseball. The history of baseball and America's pastime is presented by Ken Burns in an exhaustively well-researched and precisely detailed manner. If there is anything to be said about baseball's past, it may probably be found in this documentary. The path from the origins of baseball to relatively modern times is lengthy yet fascinating.
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