Baseball Movie Reviews

The only thing I can come up with to compare this documentary to wuld be the 1953 Bowman baseball cards. That was the year Bowman went to photographs, with 64 black & white 2 1/2" x 3 3/4" cards and 160 in color. These remain some of the most beautiful baseball cards ever made, particularly card #32 of the St. Louis Cardinals' Stan "The Man" Musial. When we see footage of Musial in this documentary, his uniform a beautiful combination of black and red, this is just something transcendent about that image. Even when these are just home movies taken before a game, seeing Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, Bill Dickey, Carl Hubbell, Robin Roberts, and Jackie Robinson in color is just so captivating. Even shadowy footage of Satchel Paige in the major leagues at last is memorable. Then there are the shots of some of the living Hall of Famers such as Honus Wagner and Cy Young, including film of the greatest outfielders of the first half century: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker. I have seen black & white photographs of their joint appearance, Ruth ill and not wearing a uniform, but this is in color and the pictures are in motion.

The producers have to come up with something for somebody to say while we watch these fascinating images, and there is a mixture of recollections from former players, poetic observations from sportswriters, and some actual commentary on what we are seeing (I have reason to suspect that some of this is leftover audio from Burns's "Baseball" since they are the same voices). But you will probably have to watch this 57-minute documentary a couple of times to catch everything that is being said because a real baseball fan is just going to lose themselves in these pictures. Players are often identified, which is good because since they are not in black & white some of them are actually hard to recognize. But in terms of the most shocking images that would have to be reserved for the section on the old ballparks where we see Chicago's Wrigley Field when the outfield wall was not covered with ivy and there were no bleachers for the fans. If that does not give you a sense they we have gone back into the distant past when baseball was a game, nothing will.

And while many of the players and ballparks captured on film here were gone long before I was born, I recognized most of them anyway. I especially thrilled in seeing the black & white footage from the 1934 World Series -- the hard slides, the beanballs, the old-school herky-jerky pitching deliveries -- and the color footage from the '38 Series at Wrigley Field. Here you also get to see the fabled Green Monster at Fenway Park, before it was either Green, or called "Monster" -- covered in billboards for razor blades or Lifebuoy soap.

If I had to complain, I'd say that for a beginning or casual fan, the footage presented is confusing at first, since graphics and explanatory voiceovers are kept to a minimum in the first twenty minutes. Eventually, however, all the ballparks shown are identified by name, as are many of the players. The narration is misty-eyed and minimal, and not all of the poems or literary passages recited may be to your liking. However, it should be understood that HBO is quite adept at this form of documentary, and "When It Was A Game" was at the forefront of the HBO revolution. And it's also hard to argue with hearing Burgess Whitehead and Eldon Auker and Tommy Henrich speak for themselves.

Go out and watch "When It Was A Game" for yourself -- with the sound on, painting a word-picture of a time you can no longer see for yourself, or even with the sound off, just to look at the footage (Pepper Martin's juggling trick has to have been done with mirrors!). Then when someone asks you what you watched on TV yesterday, you can say, "Oh, the 1934 World Series..."

The sheer quality of the historical film footage is what particularly fascinated me, far more than who failed to be included but who ought to have made it etc etc which I am sure will bug some people. I have a feeling that the average standard of professional baseball in the post-war years became much higher than that of the pre-war wars, hence the absence of .400 hitters - especially pitchers who hit .400!

Although some of the pre-war players were doubltess great talents the exagerated claim made on video such that Walter Johnson pitched faster than 100mph is just laughable. Just as the fisherman's fish get bigger with time it sounds like the speed of pitchers becomes faster as the years go by. Footage of Johnson pitching is nonetheless fascinating because his mechanics are just as how people remembered him: effortlessly smooth and fluent. But then it is also obvious that his mechanics lack the dynamism of a similar side armer, namely Randy Johnson, who follows through with more thorough weight transfers to the front foot and thus with a flatter back at follow through. That, combined with the fact that Randy is much taller and whippier than Walter can only mean that Walter Johnson cannot possibly be pitching faster than 100mph. However, it is obvious that Walter does have remarkably late shoulder rotation - something that makes a pitcher appear much faster than he actually is.

Nonetheless a student of the art of pitching could still learn a thing or two from studying the beautifully fluent text-book pitching mechanics of a Walter Johnson, or a Lefty Grove. If that were not enough the superb color pictures of Sandy Koufax pitching are a wonder to behold. I couldn't help but put on the slow motion replay to study him over and over. His mechanics have always struck me as being perfection itself and the footage quoted here only reinforces this.

On the other hand Warren Spahn's pitching mechanics are by modern standards thoroughly Baroque. Gross leaning backwards used to be common fault amongst an older gneration of pitchers such as Bob Feller and Johnny Vander Meer, but Spahn outdoes them all with a degree of leaning backwards that would make a modern pitching coach go pale. It's a small wonder he doesn't fall over backwards and even more of wonder that he was able to maintain control of his pitches with mechanics like that.

Although being a pitcher myself it is harder to comment on hitting mechanics it is obvious that Ty Cobb's hitting mechanics are equally bizzare starting with the hands apart on the bat followed by a ridiculously large 'hitch' in which he almosts touches the home plate with the tip of his bat before lifting it up to start his swing. On the other hand seeing Ted Williams (in beautiful color) swing the bat is a joy to behold as a model of perfection. You can see how hitters in opposing teams used to come out just to watch and learn from him when he was at bat.

The third volume in also the most organized in the series. There are rather distinct "chapters" on the great pitchers of the decade (Gibson, Marichal, Koufax), the glory days and rapid decline of the New York Yankees, the lowly birth and sudden success of the New York Mets, and the case for Willie Mays being the greatest player of the decade. There even is a bit of sports journalism involved in suggesting that the decline of the Yankees had to do with the refusal of the team management to sign black ball players. This time you will also find that more often than not whoever's voice you hear, whether it is Al Kaline or Joe Pepitone, actually appears on the screen. Billy Crystal is back to talk about baseball again as is sportscaster Bob Costas, and there are more baseball poems, including, of course, Grantland Rice's "Game Called," which brings the show to a close.

As always, the ultimate appeal of the "When it Was a Game" series is that you get to see the baseball players you grew up admiring, who lived before your time and were only available as black & white images in color. Rich, gorgeous color that makes the red on the bill of Hank Aaron's cap, the blue on Don Drysdale' hat, the organge of the name "Oriole" on Brooks Robinson's jersey, and the green of the Yankee Stadium grass look as good as you have ever seen them. Again, I am reminded of the classic Bowman 1953 baseball cards that had gorgeous color photographs.

For afficianados of the game there will be many glaring omissions but for the general reader this book is all you need to get a handle on the history of the game, casting aside the Doubleday myth (Spalding's invention) and treating yourself to the early New York Knickerbockers who wrote the rules of the game, which have essentially stayed the same ever since. Ward has an eye for detail, noting that Cartwright took the game to Hawaii, from where it eventually spread to Asia.

Ward spends a great deal of time on the divisions in baseball, not just that between the American and National leagues, but black ball and white ball. He gives an engaging discription of the Negro leagues and the eventual integration of the game with the immortal Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also notes many of the other negro greats who weren't so fortunate to be called up to the big leagues.

He also gives a good look at the free agency disputes of the 70's, which opened the doors to the astronomical salaries players get today. There is also a requiem on Mr. Baseball, Pete Rose, and the gambling that has plagued the game throughout its history. The most notorious example being the Chicago "Black Sox." Despite these lapses, the game has not only managed to survive but flourish into quite possibly the world's greatest game.

He hits all aspects of the game: The development of the game itself and the leagues, the labor history, the stars and great teams and personalities, the great moments in the history of the game, and so on. He also gives us a pretty good look at the old Negro leagues and we get to hear some of the great stories from those days before MLB was integrated.

The only bad thing I can say about this collection of dvds is that by the time it was over I was really sick of hearing different versions of "Take Me out to the Ballgame."

The great stories in this collection more than make up for that one drawback, however. He does more than just interview and quote the players, managers, umpires, owners and sports writers. He includes stories from fans. Doris Kearns Goodwin told about how she grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, then after they moved away, she found herself in Boston, becoming a Red Sox fan, just in time to have her heart broken again.

All fans of baseball should see this collection.

IT IS SO SAD THAT THE GAME HAS BECOME MORE FOR THE NAME ON THE BACK OF THE PLAYERS JERSEY INSTEAD OF THE FRONT.