I never thought I would nod off while watching a documentary on baseball, but I hadn’t previously encountered Ken Burns, the so-called epic filmmaker who, above all, is a master of overkill. I witnessed the first five installments of his “Baseball” last week, each two hours of laborious viewing, and found it pretentious and repetitious.
It is the “War and Peace” of baseball, but whereas Tolstoy enthralls, Burns slugs us with minutiae. Worse, he splices his account with intellectual nonsense. Baseball is likened to a religious rite. I didn’t know I was at the ballpark to pray. I thought I was witnessing a boys’ game played by men.
Harvard eggheads Stephen Jay Gould and Doris Kearns Goodwin offer their highbrow interpretations along with a squad of politicians, captains of industry and an array of dramatists who fade in and out reciting snippets of diamond history, often without giving credit to their sources.
Burns should have left the amateurs on the cutting-room floor. Their tedious bubblehead recitations are of no consequence and drag the action. Had they been eliminated, the show could have been cut in half. But Burns’ apparent aim was for nine cassettes, not four or five. Also for sale-and this is precious-is an hourlong offering on how the show was assembled.
Like everyone else I am a great admirer of Babe Ruth, but Burns has the Babe working overtime. I didn’t count, but in the first five chapters I would estimate that the Babe is pictured hitting 20 to 25 home runs, circling the bases with each mighty blow. The Babe apparently never hit a single. Nothing but towering smashes.
History is also distorted. Several of the talking heads, who have some knowledge of the game and should know better, insist Arnold Rothstein, the notorious New York gambler, fixed the 1919 World Series. Making Rothstein responsible allows Burns to trot out the well-worn passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby:”
” `Who is he, anyhow, an actor?’
” `No.’
” `A dentist?’
More Top Picks Best Callus Removers For Feet
” `. . . No, he’s a gambler.’ Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: `He’s the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919.’
” `Fixed the World Series?’ I repeated.
“The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of 50 million people-with the singlemindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
” `How did he happen to do that?’ I asked after a minute.
” `He just saw the opportunity.’
” `Why isn’t he in jail?’
” `They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man.’ “
It makes for wonderful theater. But Rothstein was too smart. He was asked to participate but regarded the fix as much too clumsy. As Eliot Asinof emphasized in his book, “Eight Men Out,” Rothstein was not involved directly. He never spoke to a single player. But once he was certain of the sellout, he began betting and made a bundle. The principal fixer was Abe Attel, a comparative small fry who is mentioned only in passing.
Burns and his minions introduce a new wrinkle with the claim that the White Sox, before the fix, were known as “The Black Sox” because of their dirty uniforms. Owner Charles Comiskey, that old skinflint, had forced them to do their own wash.
I called several authentic baseball historians and told them it was one I never heard before. Lawrence Ritter, the author of “The Glory of Their Times,” which is repeatedly quoted in “Baseball” (without credit), said it was also news to him.
“I giggled when I heard that,” Ritter said. “It sounds like one of those silly stories that gets made up after the fact.”
And, once again, Comiskey is the heavy. Studs Terkel, a knee-jerk liberal who apparently never met an owner he didn’t dislike, pegs Comiskey as the villain because his players were ill-paid. I have no doubt the White Sox players were not rewarded sufficiently, but neither were hundreds of others. So far as I know, a comparison of player payrolls of that time never has been published.
Poor Shoeless Joe Jackson is portrayed as a “dumb farm boy,” an innocent who could neither read nor write. But Shoeless Joe knew how to count and was angry. He was short-changed. He was promised $20,000 but got only $5,000. The day after the Series ended, Jackson went to the ballpark to give the $5,000 to Comiskey, who refused to see him. Jackson was told to go home.
Comiskey was not without sin. But he has been hung for the wrong crime. He knew the fix was in from Game 1, also the identity of the eight fixers, but remained silent. The players were valuable chattel, and he was hoping they would remain in his employ.