Product Description

Ken Burns tops himself with this epic of American history, told in "nine innings," with a skilled narration by John Chancellor and the voices of Paul Newman, Jason Robards, Billy Crystal, and other stars. The series spans 150 years, starting with the myth-debunking tale of baseball's true beginnings -- when it was a game "one degree above mayhem." Then follow the growth of America's National Pastime through the decades of glory and record-setting achievements, as well as the scandals, the bigotry, and the big money. The series portrays the game as a mirror of America itself -- the passions, prejudices, and ambitions that have shape the country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1145 in DVD
• Brand: Team Marketing
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 10
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 1140 minutes

Features

• Officially Licensed
• Highest Quality Recording

On the DVD
Ken Burns's Baseball works magnificently on DVD, if only for the reason that scene selection in such a massive documentary is essential for viewing and re-viewing your favorite sections. The DVD menus are purely functional, and the timelines and baseball stats will appeal primarily to diehard fans of the game. Clicking on the PBS logo will take you to the stats and bios of players, although the bios are minimal. Each of the first nine discs contains these as well as trivia questions. Get the question right, move on to the next question. Get it wrong and a snippet of the documentary plays, showing you the correct answer. The real appeal of the DVD set (other than, of course, the fabulous documentary itself) is the 10th, "extra inning" disc. This final disc contains the documentary The Making of Baseball, as well as team info (which, again, is pretty basic) and episodes of Charlie Rose's talk show, in which he interviews Ken Burns, Bob Gibson, Yogi Berra, Bob Costas, and Rachel Robinson (the widow of Jackie Robinson). --Jenny Brown

Customer Reviews

The consummate set of videos about Baseball.
Contained in these ten DVD's are just about every historical moment in baseball.

Inning 1 Baseball from its inception in the 1840's to the 1900's This explores baseballs roots from Abner Doubleday to the beginnings of what we know as modern day baseball.

Inning 2 1900 to 1910. The beginning of the World Series. Great footage and photos of old parks and players.

Inning 3 1910 TO 1920. Covers Babe Ruth, the Black sox, Grover Cleveland Alexander and more. Footage of Fenway being built

Inning 4 1920 to 1930 Really the beginnings of the Yankee dynasty but the Cardinals rule the Natonal league with the famed gass house gang.

Inning 5 1930 to 1940. More footage of all the great stars of the day, Ruth, Di Maggio, Williams and more.

Inning 6 1940 to 1950. The effects of war on the American pastime. The splendid splinter goes to war, he comes back and picks up where he left off.

Inning 7 1950 to 1960. The Yankee dynasty continues. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, The shot heard around the world, Don Larsons perfect game. The Giants and Dodgers pick and leave.

Inning 8 1960 to 1970. The Los Angeles Angels are born, The Kansas City A's become the Oakland A's, The Royals and Mets are born. The Padres are born and move into a small stadium outside of San Diego. And then there was the Seattle Pilots. Those amazin Mets win the World series. Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax get agents but are unsuccessful in changing baseballs anti trust act and re sign with the Dodgers. Maris passes the Babe with an asterisk.

Inning 9 1970 to 1994. Curt Flood loses his war against baseball but the players eventually win. The players union gets stronger. The Reds come to power. The A's win a couple world series. Roberto Clemente's life cut short. Washington loses another team called the Senators.

The film also has some great commentary interspersed through out all of the DVD's. At the end of each DVD is a trivia game based on the decade that the DVD covered.


While the movie is based for the most part on New York teams this is truly a must for all baseball fans. There is no other collection of materials that covers baseball like this one does in terms of breadth and depth.

Essential Viewing for Baseball Fans & American History Buffs
This set isn't cheap, but it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Burns' storytelling is always fascinating, focusing on the evolution of not only the game of baseball, but in an indirect way, American history as well. It is particularly meaningful that he interviewed some baseball greats (Williams, Mantle, Buck O'Neil) before they passed on. My only complaint is that the series stops at 1994. (I would love to see a coda/epilogue made covering the achievements and scandals of the last 13 years.) If you are a baseball fan, this is defintely worth having. Some nice special features too.

Baseball in New York
I am a long time fan of both baseball and Ken Burns's documentaries. Here Burns does a great job of describing the highlights of baseball's golden years in New York, from the Yankees in the 1920s through the battles between the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees in the 1950s, including a nice presentation of the story of the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson. Great newsreel footage is used to excellent effect. If you are a fan of New York baseball, it probably does not get any better than this.

But Burns needed to make choices. One he made was to avoid even trying to tell the complete story of major league baseball. As a Philadelphia fan I was disappointed because Burns's coverage of the Phillies, founded in 1883, is limited to a detailed section on Grover Cleveland Alexander (who pitched for the Phillies from 1911 to 1917) and a brief mention of the team's racist taunts of Jackie Robinson during his 1947 inaugural season. That's it for the over 120 years of Phillies history. I thought Burns would feel obligated to be a bit more encyclopedic and that 18 hours would give him enough time to show a little bit of the Phillies history as part of the overall story. I was wrong.

A more accurate title for the documentary would have been Baseball in New York. On that topic it was a success.