5th Inning – Shadow Ball This inning covers approximately 1930 to 1940. Original airdate: Wednesday, September 21, 1994. However, the companion book uses this title. During an interview given to MLB Network during the series' re-airing in 2009, Burns stated that he originally wanted to title the 4th Inning "That Big Son-of-a-Bitch", a name given to Ruth by many in the game during that era. The title comes from what sports writers called Ruth. 4th Inning – A National Heirloom This inning covers approximately 1920 to 1930, and focuses on baseball's recovery from the Black Sox Scandal, giving much of the credit to the increase in power hitting throughout the game, led by its savior Babe Ruth. Original airdate: Tuesday, September 20, 1994. The line refers to how easy it was for gamblers to tamper with the faith that people put in the game's fairness. It heavily focuses on the Black Sox Scandal, taking its title from a line in the novel The Great Gatsby. 3rd Inning – The Faith of Fifty Million People This inning covers approximately 1910 to 1920, and follows baseball as it goes through its greatest era of popularity yet.
Original airdate: Monday, September 19, 1994. Many of the quotes used in this inning and of the other early innings are taken from Lawrence S. Ty Cobb is discussed in-depth (the title of this inning comes from one of his many quotes). 2nd Inning – Something Like A War This inning covers approximately 1900 to 1910, and includes the formation of the American League and its integration with the National League, culminating in the establishment of the World Series, as well as the emergence of the game's first great stars, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner, who help to clean up baseball's previously bad reputation as a rowdy, brawling game. Original airdate: Sunday, September 18, 1994. The Nine Innings 1st Inning – Our Game This inning serves as an introduction to the game and the series, and covers baseball's origins and the game as it evolved prior to the 20th century. The series had an audience of 45 million viewers, making it the most watched program in Public Television history. Major themes explored throughout the documentary include race, business, labor relations, and baseball's relationship with society. These often include player highlights, important or eventful games, or the creation of various brands that are now well known throughout baseball such as Louisville Slugger. Within these halves of the episode, there are smaller segments also highlighted with a simple title card that often highlight various important parts of baseball's history. Roughly halfway through each "inning", a title card appears, reading "Bottom of" the inning, dividing the episode in two parts in a manner also recalling the game in the seventh "inning", the "Bottom" is immediately preceded by the " seventh-inning stretch". In some "inning" episodes, a period version of the baseball anthem " Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is used. The prologue ends with the playing of " The Star-Spangled Banner" just as a real baseball game would begin, being performed usually by a brass band, with a couple of exceptions: The 1920s, where the rendition is played by a piano of the era, and the 1960s, where the rendition is the version played by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.
Each "inning" reviews an era, mentioning notable moments in the world and in America itself, and begins with a brief prologue that acts as an insight to the game during that era. The documentary is divided into nine parts, each referred to as an " inning", following the division of a baseball game. John Chancellor, former anchor of the NBC Nightly News from 1970 to 1982, narrated the series. Episodes are interspersed with the music of the times taken from previous Burns series, original played music, or recordings ranging from Louis Armstrong to Elvis Presley. Actors provide voice over reciting written work (letters, speeches, etc.) over pictures and video. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.īaseball, like Burns' previous documentaries such as The Civil War, uses archived pictures and film footage mixed with interviews for visual presentation. First broadcast on PBS, this was Burns' ninth documentary and won the 1995 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series. ( April 2014) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)īaseball is a 1994 American television documentary miniseries created by Ken Burns about the game of baseball. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. This article possibly contains original research.