1st Inning - Our Game: Beginnings to 1900
Ken Burns' "Baseball" series begins by finding a simple metaphor in Ebbets field: built in Flatbush on a garbage dump called Pigtown where the Brooklyn (Trolley) Dodgers would play and some of the greatest moments in baseball history would take place, including the day Jackie Robinson played his first game in the Major Leagues. Then Brooklyn would finally win their first pennant, only to see the team move across the country. Thus, Ebbets field is where baseball changed forever, while remaining the same. From the very start, this documentary establishes itself as a first rate classic.This "First Inning" in the celebrated mini-series that I watch again every spring, focuses on the beginnings of baseball up to 1900 (where each successive episode focuses on a specific decade). Burns covers the origins of baseball, from the mythic story of Abner Doubleday to the very real contributions of Albert Goodwill Spaulding and Harry Wright. The great players of the century, King Kelly, Cap Anson and Cy Young are featured in notable segments, as are the great teams like the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Baltimore Orioles of John McGraw and Willie Keeler. But Burns also takes pains to cover the expulsion of Moses Fleetwood Walker and all other Negroes from the major leagues and John Montgomery Ward's attempt to establish a players union. When "Baseball" finally gets to Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood, the gravity of the moment will have clearly been established. "Our Game" is probably the most informative volume in the series because it covers that part of our National Pastime we least recall since it is ancient history (and captured in still photographs rather than the newsreel footage that made Babe Ruth's swing and home run trot iconic images).
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