Inning 7 - The Capital of Baseball (NYC): 1950-1960
If you are not a fan of New York baseball--as in Yankees, Dodgers and Giants--then this "inning" of Ken Burns' classic documentary series on "Baseball" is not for you because those three teams dominate this episode the way they dominated the game in the 1950's. From 1949 to 1958 there was a New York club in every World Series and in six of those series the Yankees battled the Dodgers or Giants. These were the Yankees of Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle; the Dodgers of Walter Alston, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese and Gil Hodges; the Giants of Leo Durocher, Willie Mays and Bobby Thompson. This was the decade that saw Willie Mays catch the blast from the bat of Vic Wertz and Eddie Gaedel walk on four straight pitches, where Thompson hit the most famous home run in baseball history as the Giants won the pennant and Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history. It was also the decade that saw franchises start to move as we suddenly had the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Francisco Giants and the Milwaukee Braves. For me, "The Capital of Baseball" is where my memories and the history of baseball finally start to overlap, since I actually saw Mantle, Mays and Aaron play. The series starts to take on a different feel at this point because we are now up to the age of television, so there are less newsreel clips and black & white photographs. But watching "Baseball" on opening day is a personal rite of spring with me, and even if the game is over at this place, you have to stick around until the game is actually over.