{"id":1356113,"date":"2022-03-03T05:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1356113"},"modified":"2022-03-03T07:55:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T12:55:28","slug":"ken-burns-new-documentary-reminds-fans-why-they-love-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ken-burns-new-documentary-reminds-fans-why-they-love-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Burns\u2019 New Documentary Reminds Fans Why They Love Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fken-burns-new-documentary-reminds-fans-why-they-love-baseball%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1356113&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/jackie-robinson1920-506098-640x360-1.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Even as the first hints of spring have begun arising from the south, the sport of the \u201cboys of summer\u201d remains entrenched in a strife-ridden winter. Baseball owners continue <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/mlb\/with-us-baseball-s-opening-day-under-threat-parties-meet-in-labor-dispute\/ar-AAU8XYx?ocid=entnewsntp\">prolonged negotiations<\/a> with the players\u2019 union regarding a collective bargaining agreement after the owners locked out the players last December 2. Major League Baseball already canceled its first round of spring training games, and said it would postpone Opening Day (currently scheduled for March 31) and start canceling<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/mlb\/a-deadline-is-a-deadline-mlb-informs-mlbpa-that-if-there-s-no-deal-by-monday-the-regular-season-will-be-delayed\/ar-AAUe8i0?ocid=entnewsntp\"> regular-season games<\/a> unless an agreement arises by Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The time, therefore, seems ripe for lovers of the national pastime to rediscover Ken Burns\u2019 documentary on the game. Titled simply \u201cBaseball,\u201d the original nine-part documentary was released during the fall of 1994 when a labor stoppage canceled the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Just as the miniseries helped keep alive the love of the game during baseball\u2019s longest and most acrimonious labor dispute, by reminding the public what they most enjoyed about baseball in the first place, it can serve a similar function during the present dispute.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"history-and-nostalgia\">History and Nostalgia<\/h2>\n<p>Alone among major American sports, baseball stands out for its history and longevity. Baby Boomers interested in sport can credibly claim to have lived through most of the history of professional football and basketball, both of which did not come to prominence until after World War II.<\/p>\n<p>Not so with baseball. While Abner Doubleday did not \u201cinvent\u201d the game in Cooperstown, New York in 1839, baseball has approximately two centuries of history to plumb, which Burns does with adroitness.<\/p>\n<p>He spends three of his nine \u201cinnings\u201d focused on the \u201cdead-ball\u201d era, which ended around 1920, when Babe Ruth\u2019s emergence as a slugger heralded a greater emphasis on power hitting and home runs. During those early episodes, Burns explores such important incidents\u2014but incidents mostly forgotten to modern fans\u2014as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fred_Snodgrass#1912_World_Series\">Snodgrass\u2019 Muff<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Merkle%27s_Boner\">Merkle\u2019s Boner<\/a>,\u201d the latter of which led to the Chicago Cubs\u2019 1908 World Series triumph \u2014 their last in 108 years.<\/p>\n<p>Baseball not only serves as the national pastime\u2014it helped create our national anthem. Burns\u2019 third episode recounts the incident at Game 1 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1918_World_Series#Game_1\">1918 World Series<\/a>, where a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner during the seventh-inning stretch proved so popular with the World War I crowd that it became a fixture for the rest of the Series. The tradition migrated to other sports, and Congress made The Star-Spangled Banner our official national anthem in 1931\u2014a note of history lost on many of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/an-anthem-answer-for-jon-stewart-patriotism-national-anthem-america-baseball-mlb-red-sox-cubs-11642630335?mod=opinion_major_pos4\">athletes and others<\/a> who now kneel during the anthem.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"working-class-roots\">Working-Class Roots<\/h2>\n<p>Telling those early stories also reveals a side of baseball often missed by commentators who denounce modern players as millionaire prima donnas: For much of its history, baseball had a decidedly working-class flair.<\/p>\n<p>The pictures of players from baseball\u2019s first century\u2014up until the postwar era\u2014show hard, tough men accustomed to hard, tough labor. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Honus_Wagner\">Honus Wagner<\/a>, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame\u2019s inaugural class, dropped out of school at age 12 to work alongside his father in the coal mines. Little wonder that he, and many players of his era, found refuge by earning a living playing a game\u2014but lived in fear of the injury, or slump, that could send them back to the mines from whence they came.<\/p>\n<p>Far from an idyllic, pastoral scene evoked by the movie \u201cField of Dreams,\u201d baseball\u2019s rough-and-tumble players reflected the sport as a whole. For decades, baseball\u2019s image problems came not from high ticket prices or steroid use, but associations with alcohol and hooliganism. From the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Association_(1882%E2%80%931891)#History\">beer and whiskey league<\/a>\u201d of the late 19<sup>th<\/sup> century to a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Royal_Rooters\">group of Boston Red Sox fans<\/a> who caused a near-riot at the 1912 World Series, the sport faced questions from elites who considered the game less than respectable.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"anniversary-of-re-integration\">Anniversary of (Re-)Integration<\/h2>\n<p>While chronicling exploits on the diamond, Burns\u2019 documentary also weaves two broader cultural themes into its narrative. The first surrounds a milestone soon to celebrate its 75<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary: Segregation in baseball, and Jackie Robinson breaking that color line on April 15, 1947.<\/p>\n<p>Burns recounts that history in detail, beginning with the objections by whites, most notably 19th-century star <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cap_Anson#Racial_intolerance\">Cap Anson<\/a>, that led to the unwritten but strictly enforced rule excluding generations of black players. He does not spare the history of man\u2019s inhumanity toward man\u2014the N-word features in each of the original nine episodes of \u201cBaseball,\u201d from Anson\u2019s willingness to sit out rather than play with black players in the 1880s, through the hate mail <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/01\/27\/home-run-king-hank-aaron-was-also-a-paragon-of-grace-under-fire\/\">Hank Aaron<\/a> received as he broke Babe Ruth\u2019s career home run record in 1974.<\/p>\n<p>Burns explores the Negro Leagues\u2019 history as best he can, interviewing players such as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Buck_O%27Neil\">Buck O\u2019Neil<\/a> (recently and posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame) to tell their stories from their perspective. But because most Negro League teams didn\u2019t hire scorekeepers for most games, black players of the segregation era lost one of baseball\u2019s defining characteristics: The ability to compare historical statistics across players, teams, and eras. Instead, legend and counterfactual \u201cwhat if\u201ds have to suffice to rank players from that era.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"labor-management-disputes\">Labor-Management Disputes<\/h2>\n<p>Burns also highlights the fissures amongst players and owners that date back to the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century, when the sport became a business. The focus on the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reserve_clause\">reserve clause<\/a> \u2014 which gave teams an unlimited right to a player\u2019s services, effectively tying a player to a team for life \u2014 seems antiquated now, nearly half a century after its extinction.<\/p>\n<p>But labor strife defined much of the sport\u2019s history. Competing leagues \u2014 the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Players%27_League\">Players League<\/a> in 1890, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Federal_League\">Federal League<\/a> in 1913-15 \u2014 both illustrated player discontent and forced management to compromise, at least for a time. Notwithstanding the billions of dollars at stake, the fact that players and management cannot agree on a new collective bargaining agreement seems unsurprising given a century and a half of mistrust within baseball.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"warm-glow-of-history\">Warm Glow of History<\/h2>\n<p>Baseball commissioner and Yale English professor <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A._Bartlett_Giamatti\">Bart Giamatti<\/a> famously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quotery.com\/quotes\/baseball-breaks-heart-designed-break\">said<\/a> that baseball is \u201cdesigned to break your heart,\u201d beginning in the spring, blossoming in the summer, but \u201cas soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone.\u201d (Tragically, baseball broke Giamatti\u2019s heart \u2014 in some respects, quite literally \u2014 when he died of a heart attack in 1989, weeks after banning Pete Rose from the game for gambling.)<\/p>\n<p>But Ken Burns\u2019 \u201cBaseball\u201d shows the other side of Giamatti\u2019s claim. As America\u2019s national pastime and the sport with the longest and most storied history, it provides a glow that can remain in the hearts of loyal fans through the coldest of winters, even those extended by baseball\u2019s self-inflicted wounds.<\/p>\n<p>A quote attributed to team owner and promoter Bill Veeck observers that baseball\u2019s inherent greatness comes from the fact that the game\u2019s owners \u2014 despite best efforts ranging from the current lockout to the socialistic monstrosity known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/down-with-the-designated-hitter-rule-mlb-rob-manfred-national-league-professional-baseball-tradition-11645566010?mod=opinion_lead_pos8\">designated hitter<\/a> \u2014 have yet to kill it. Ken Burns\u2019 series demonstrates why.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ken Burns\u2019 <\/em>Baseball<em> is available on DVD, or streaming via Amazon Prime or the PBS app.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even as the first hints of spring have begun arising from the south, the sport of the \u201cboys of summer\u201d remains entrenched in a strife-ridden winter. Baseball owners continue prolonged<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1356113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1356113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1356113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1356113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1356113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1356113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}