'Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns' Episode Review: 'Inning 6: The National Pastime (1940-1950)'

Inning 6: The National Pastime  (1940-1950)

Written by: Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns

In Europe, in the Pacific, on the homefront, both African-Americans and whites fight to make the world safe for democracy. When the war ends, Major League Baseball becomes, in fact, what it has always claimed to be: the national pastime.

But, at the beginning of the decade, Jackie Robinson's debut is still some years away. Meanwhile, Joe DiMaggio sets a consecutive game-hitting streak that still stands. Ted Williams becomes the last man to hit .400. The once-lowly Brooklyn Dodgers win their first pennant. And World War II takes so much talent from the majors that the St. Louis Browns win a pennant. 

24 years ago, fans of Major League Baseball in the U.S. and elsewhere were in a funk. For much of the late summer and early fall, a strike had frozen the 1994 baseball season as the players' union and MLB team owners grappled over - what else - salary caps and revenue sharing. After a series of failed negotiations and in an atmosphere roiled over by the absence of a baseball commissioner and the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee's failure to pass baseball-related anti-trust legislation, the Major League Baseball Players' Union called a strike on August 12, 1994.

The strike - which would last 232 days and end on April 2, 1995 - resulted in the cancellation of 920 games and - for the first time in nine decades - the entire post-season, including the World Series. It ended only after federal judge Sonia Sotomayor (now an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court) filed an injunction against team owners (who were using replacement players and were unwilling to cease their monopolistic practices) on  March 31, thus meeting one of the players' unions conditions to return to the baseball diamond.

By a happy (or unhappy) coincidence, that fall also saw the first broadcast of Florentine Films'' nine-part documentary miniseries, Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns. 

(C) 1994 and 2010 The Baseball Film Project, Inc., PBS Distribution

On September 25, 1994, Inning 6: The National Pastime (1940-1950) made its broadcast debut on the 300 member stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Co-written by director Ken Burns and historian Geoffrey C. Ward, covers the period that begins on the eve of America's entry into World War II and ends with the integration of MLB and its effects on the sport up to 1950. 

Among the many topics covered in The National Pastime are Joe DiMaggio's epic record-setting streak of 56 consecutive games in which "Joltin' Joe" had a game hit in 1941; that same year, the Boston Red Sox's Ted Williams ended the season with a .406 batting average. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and Adolf Hitler's ill-fated declaration of war on the U.S., over 300 of Major League Baseball's best players rush to the colors, including Williams and DiMaggio. As a result, many baseball fans attend games played by members of the Negro League and the short-lived All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League.

In addition, the episode covers the passing of one era with the passing of Lou Gehrig and George Herman "Babe" Ruth (Gehrig in 1941 from ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease; Ruth in 1948 from cancer) and the long-delayed beginning of a new one with the integration of blacks into the once all-white Major Leagues. 

Inning Six, The National Pastime, covers the 1940s and includes Joe DiMaggio's celebrated hitting streak, the awe-inspiring performance of Ted Williams and what Burns calls "baseball's finest moment" — the debut of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Official 'Baseball' site at PBS.org

Following the format established in The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns and other Florentine Films productions, each "inning" of Baseball is separated into several chapters, each of which is introduced with a fadeout and a stark white-on-black title card. Moreover, every episode in Baseball is structured like a baseball game, with tops and bottoms of innings, a rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, which became America's official national anthem in 1931.

Inning 6: The National Pastime (1940-1950) consists of the following chapters:

1. Top of the Sixth
2. Baseball
3. The National Pastime
4. A Summer of Heroes 
5. Did He Get One?
6. The Joy Zone
7. Hilda is Here
8. War
9. Feminine Phenoms
10. The Answer is No
11. The Bottom of the Sixth
12. This I Know
13. The Race Man
14. Heartbroken
15. Big League Material 
16. Josh Gibson
17. He's Coming
18. Inning to Inning
19. April 15, 1947
20. Babe Ruth Day
21. Up in the Race
22. A Great Deal of Pride
23. The Family of Baseball
24. Pitching Stellar Ball
25. So Would the Babe

As in the previous five innings, director Ken Burns and producer Lynn Novick rely on archival footage and still photographs from the period to create the visuals for The National Pastime. This is intercut with contemporary (1990s) cinematography by lensman Buddy Squires that features interviews with Daniel Okrent, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bob Costas, and Shelby Foote.

In addition to "talking head" sequences with baseball fans, sports commentators, and historians who share their insights and anecdotes about the impact of World War II on baseball, the courage of Branch Rickey when he decided to sign Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, this episode of  Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns also has a great voice cast: 

Narrated By

John Chancellor

Voices

Adam Arkin
Mike Barnicle
Philip Bosco
Keith Carradine
John Cusack
Ossie Davis
Loren Dean
Anthony Hopkins
Garrison Keillor
Delroy Lindo
Amy Madigan
Charley McDowell
Arthur Miller
Michael Moriarty
Gregory Peck
Jody Powell
Jason Robards
Paul Roebling
Jerry Stiller
Studs Terkel
Eli Wallach

My Take

One of the greatest talents that any filmmaker can have is the ability to get an audience's attention on a topic - be it the Civil War, the history of jazz, the Central Park Five case, Prohibition, or the Vietnam War - and maintain that hold from the beginning of the story to the end. 

It helps a documentary maker like Ken Burns if there is a large number of people who are already predisposed to watch something like The War, which many viewers had asked him to do for many years despite his reluctance to do another similarly themed film after 1990's The Civil War.  And in 1994, due to the Major League Baseball strike that deprived millions of fans of their game, Burns had a large number of potential viewers because to them, even a documentary about baseball was better than no baseball at all.

As a result, the series earned great ratings and went on to win the Television Critics Association (TCA) Award for Outstanding Achievement in Specials and a TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sports. In addition, Baseball won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series, as well as an armful of nominations in other categories.

However, the best measure of any documentary - or any movie or other visual work in any genre - is the ability to hold the attention of someone who is not predisposed to watch it because of its topic. 


I grew up in a household where there wasn't a great passion for sports. Consequently, I'm not a die-hard sports fanatic. I don't have a favorite team in any sport, let alone follow any baseball team.  When I do watch sports on TV - something I don't do often - it's more than likely going to be a football game or a soccer match, especially during the World Cup. I have watched far more NFL games and World Cup matches than I've watched - or attended - baseball games. 


And yet, Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns has proved once again how Ken Burns' talents as a filmmaker and his passion for American history can grab the attention of someone who is not enamored with the game of baseball - and not lose it. 


Over the past few years, I've been adding many of Ken Burns' best-known documentaries to my DVD/Blu-ray collection. I started with the first DVD set of The Civil War around 10 years ago, then purchased The War, Prohibition, The West (which Burns farmed out to Stephen Ives because he was still making Baseball), The Central Park Five, Prohibition, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, and The Vietnam War.



Some of those films told stories which I was already somewhat familiar; others did not. But they were all entertaining and informative, and they all were tiles in the mosaic that is American history. 

So, yeah. I bought Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns. 

Why would a non-baseball fan want to buy Baseball, let alone watch it?

Two reasons, really.

First, I am a native-born citizen of the United States. I have lived in this country for most of my life. As such, I identify more with American culture than I do with that of my parents, who were both from Colombia.

I am an American. I love my country. I love its culture and its history. And because baseball is an integral part of both, I have been watching Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns.

Second, Ken Burns is one of the few documentary filmmakers who can take any historical topic and make it come alive for the average television viewer. He is a natural storyteller, and he surrounds himself with talented men and women - Geoffrey Ward, Buddy Squires, Paul Barnes, Stephen Ives (who also directed The West), Lynn Novick, Jacqueline Schwab, Susanna Steisel, and Molly Mason - who share Burns' commitment to telling America's stories in a moving and fascinating way.