“Baseball: The Tenth Inning: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick” (PBS/Paramount).
Acclaimed documentary maker Ken Burns hasn’t been into making sequels to his revered work, at least until now.
“Baseball: The Tenth Inning,” which recently played on PBS and is now available on DVD, is the filmmaker’s follow-up to his 1994 Emmy-Award winning series “Baseball,” which chronicled the game’s entire history.
Part of that history was the decades of futility endured by The Boston Red Sox and their fans, notably the heart-aching World Series losses of 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986. But when the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, snapping an 86 year drought, Red Sox fan Burns was inspired to craft a sequel to his original story. That’s very good news for lovers of the game.
It’s especially good news for lovers of The New York Yankees and the Red Sox, whose ancient rivalry assumes a central position in the storyline of “Baseball: The Tenth Inning,” which focuses on the years 1992 to 2009.
The Red Sox triumph of 2004 is artfully crafted and filled with tension, joy and ultimately release, typified by the sound of the Standells’ classic “Dirty Water,” slipping into the soundtrack as soon as Johnny Damon hits a key grand slam for the Red Sox against the Yankees in the deciding American League playoff game that sent the Sox into the Series and their eventual ultimate world championship.
But Yankees’ fans are hardly shortchanged in this film either, as Burns lingers on the great Yankee teams of the 1990s, the tremendous play of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams and others, and the leadership provided by the guy who turned out to be perfect for managing the team. Joe Torre. The manager’s comments reflecting on the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are exquisite in explaining the link between the game and the nation.
Steroids are another huge part of this double-DVD set, which details the dark side of the era, complete with its heroes and villains. Suffice to say, Ken Griffey Jr., shown making a spectacular catch, is on the front cover of the DVD package. Barry Bonds, the tainted superstar who holds the current record for all time home runs, is not.
Through it all, Burns still manages to tell the story as it has happened, explaining how the entire game – as well as the journalists who covered it and the fans who loved the long ball – all seemed to ignore players suddenly going from hitting 30 and 40 home runs a season to hitting, 50, 60 and more tape-measure moon shots a year.
The documentary does an excellent job of reporting on most of the highlights of the years it covers, but there are also a few glaring omissions, notably the White Sox 2005 World Championship after 88 years without winning one. Somehow the White Sox are not as romantic as the Red Sox and Yankees and while that may be true to those on the East Coast, it’s not explained by such a complete snub to many who live in other parts of the country.
Still “The Tenth Inning” is one more strong entry in Burns’ chronicle of a nation and one more reason why he remains of his era’s most distinguished historians.
The DVD includes approximately two hours of bonus footage including plenty of player interviews, interviews with Burns and Lynn Novick, and a deeper look into an issue that is covered elsewhere in the set, baseball in the Dominican Republic.