HBOs Baseball Effort a Home Run
By MICHAEL DEMENCHUK -- Multichannel News, 7/9/2000 8:00:00 PM
When It Was a Game III-the third installment in Home Box Office's trilogy on classic baseball-is as compelling as its predecessors, but for different reasons.
The first two installments, which focused on the game's pre-expansion era, were interesting to watch because of the rare, color home-movie footage of ballparks and players best remembered from grainy, black-and-white newsreels.
But there's no shortage of baseball footage from the 1960s, the era covered by this installment. So what makes WIWG III stand out is the quality of its narration-there are fewer essays about baseball read aloud by actors and more narration from the ballplayers who were actually there.
The 1960s was also the decade when baseball ceased to be "just a game," and the documentary chronicles the changes that marked the period: the end of the Yankee dynasty, expansion, the dominance of the pitcher and the competitive imbalance between the National and American leagues.
It also posits the same theory behind that imbalance and the Yankees' decline-a reluctance to sign African-American ballplayers. Writer Maury Wills theorizes that longtime Yankee general manager George Weiss was a "bigot," noting that the club could have signed Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to complement Mickey Mantle in the outfield, but didn't.
St. Louis Cardinals pitching ace Bob Gibson, himself an African American, had a slightly more jaded view: He said National Leaguers saw the so-called junior circuit as a "retirement community" where "ballplayers go to die."
The documentary also uses film footage to show how even Mays, Frank Robinson and the other major sluggers of the era could be intimidated by a Gibson or a Don Drysdale in the era of the pitcher.
And it points out the stark contrasts between baseball then and now: In the '60s, starters were expected to finish virtually every game. Also, the minimum salary was around $7,000 per year for most of the decade-even hall-of-famer Al Kaline worked two jobs throughout his career.
But the starkest difference between now and then, from the fan's perspective, is free agency. Fans like sportscaster Bob Costas and comedian Billy Crystal talk about how it was easier to form a bond with a team in the 1960s because players would stay with one team for their entire careers. Although today's player compensation system is fairer, they note, it does make it harder for fans to give their heart to a player.
Fittingly, one of the documentary's final images is of Curt Flood-the Cardinals outfielder whose lawsuit paved the way for free agency-running the bases.
When It Was a Game III premieres on HBO Monday, July 17 at 10 p.m.
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