All language subtitles for Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E08 (Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E08) (ENGLISH)

On February 23, 1960, a brass band played
Auld Lang Syne, and 200 die-hard fans

watched as a two-ton wrecking
ball, painted to resemble a baseball,

began to demolish
Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

The home of the Dodgers
from 1913 to 1957.

Roy Campanella was given an urn
filled with dirt from behind home plate.

His home for ten years before
a car accident ended his career.

For 44 years, since Charles
Herkig died, Hercules Ebbets

had built his park on a
garbage dump called Pigtown.

Ebbets Field had united the
hopes of the borough of Brooklyn.

And had been home to Wilbert
Robinson and Dazzy Vance.

Red Barber and Hilda Chester
and the Dodger symphony.

Leo DeRocher and Pee
Wee Reese and Duke Snyder.

Larry McPhail and Branch
Rickey and Jackie Robinson.

All three of them.

It was baseball.

And that the Brooklyn Dodgers
would up and leave to Los Angeles yet.

Which seemed like, why
don't you go to Borneo?

You know, the only
time I had seen L.A.

was Mickey Mouse
Club would show.

And Disneyland is
under construction.

And it looked like the Amazon.

They're in the Amazon.

Where'd they go?

And it was, why here?

So far away.

And it was the mountaintop they're
preparing for a ballpark in a mountaintop?

No, in the city next
to the dry cleaner.

So you could talk about
it when you pick up your

suit that had a mustard
stain from the game before.

Where's the corner bar?

Where's the arguments?

You know, where's the trolley?

Where's the subway?

How do you get there?

Where'd they go?

Palm trees?

What's Cary Grant and
Doris Day doing at a game?

You know, where's
Al Schmenglowitz?

Who should sit there?

Where's the band?

What's gonna happen to that
band that was in right field?

That crazy band?

You know, what's gonna happen?

Let's go!

During

the 1960s the Cold War almost
became nuclear war over missiles in Cuba.

Israel defeated its Arab
neighbors in a six-day war.

And the Beatles
invaded the United States.

Americans made it to
Woodstock and to the moon.

Americans lost a
president and a prophet.

Americans fought in Vietnam and then went
into the streets to stop that fighting.

New civil rights were won, but the
country seemed to be coming apart.

American cities were set ablaze.

Campuses erupted.

Generations clashed.

Winston Churchill and Ernest
Hemingway and Rogers Hornsby died.

Cal Ripken Jr. and Dwight Gooden
and Roger Clemens were born.

In the 1960s, the New York
Yankees' dominance would finally end.

But not before cherished
old records fell to the ground.

New and complicated heroes.

The Los Angeles Dodgers
would break all attendance records

in their new home and would
win two world championships.

While four weeks of inspired hitting by
a determined outfielder would drive the

Boston Red Sox to within a game
of realizing their 48-year-old dream.

Two pitchers would
dominate the decade.

An imposing right-hander
so aggressive that

batters were terrified
to stand in against him.

And a shy, soft-spoken left-hander
who began his career with precious little

control and then turned himself into
perhaps the finest pitcher of all time.

The players would begin to
challenge the authority of the owners.

And one of the worst
teams in baseball history

would be transformed
for a moment into the best.

For the first time, baseball
would move inside.

And almost all of the old
ballparks would be demolished.

For the first time,
football would seriously

challenge baseball
as the national pastime.

And some began to wonder
if the game mattered at all.

In the 60s, I was in college and in
graduate school, and baseball didn't have

the vitality for me that the
civil rights movement did.

I got very active
in going south.

And somehow the events of the world became
so important that I didn't feel I had the

time to indulge in the
luxury of my childhood.

It was also because I hadn't yet found
the Red Sox and I had lost the Dodgers.

So that gap in my love of baseball fit a
certain time in history when I was so busy

in marches that there wasn't
time to sit in baseball games.

I'm not a girl I know.

I met her walking
down a uptown street.

She's so fine.

You know I wish she was mine.

I get shook up
every time we meet.

I'm talking about you.

Yeah, I do mean you.

I'm just trying to get
a message to you.

In 1960, the New York Yankees
were in the World Series again.

Their 10th
appearance in 12 years.

They were heavily favored
to beat the Pittsburgh

Pirates, playing in their
first series since 1927.

So I can get a message to you.

When the Yankees won
in the series, they won big.

In the first six games, New York
outscored Pittsburgh by 29 runs.

But the Pirates hung on.

I'm talking about you.

Led by pitcher Elroy Face.

I do mean you.

Outfielder Roberto Clemente.

I know I have a you.

And second baseman
Bill Mazeroski.

Come on, let me get
a message through.

In the seventh and final game,
with the score tied 9-9 in the bottom of

the ninth, and Ralph Terry on the mound
for New York, Bill Mazeroski came to bat.

Here's a ball one.

Too high now to Mazeroski.

Well, a little while ago
when we mentioned that this

one, in typical fashion,
was going right to the wire.

Little did we know.

Here's a swing and a high
fly ball going deep to left.

This may do it.

Back to the wall goes Vera.

It is.

It was the first time the World Series
had ever ended with a home run.

Bill Mazeroski's
home run in 1960.

Seven games,
Pirates in Pittsburgh.

We beat them 12-0, 10-0, 16-3.

We're into the last inning.

We tie it up.

Mickey made an
amazing base-running play.

A little head fake and
Gil McDougal scored.

I'm sorry that I'm like
this, but it's baseball.

And Bill Mazeroski steps up and Ralph
Terry hangs the slider and Bill Mazeroski

hits it 420 feet and the
Pirates win the World Series.

I still hurt about it.

I still feel bad about it.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Mazeroski has hit a 1-0 pitch.

It was terrible.

I'd been with the Yankees
10 years at that time

and I cried all the way
home on the airplane.

I just couldn't quit, you know.

It's the worst I've
ever felt in my life.

It was the only time that
we ever played in the World

Series where I felt like
the best team got beat.

The Pittsburgh Pirates, the
1960 World Champions, defeat

the New York Yankees, the
Pirates 10 and the Yankees 9.

There is one thing that all my friends
know must never be discussed in my

presence and that's Bill Mazeroski's
home run that won the 1960 World Series.

We're a grossly overmatched Pittsburgh
Pirates team against my beloved Yankees.

And there's a wonderful resolution
that many people don't realize.

It's one of the great ironies of baseball
history, but these things happen.

Two years later, in the seventh game of
the World Series in 1962, with the Yankees

ahead by one run in the bottom of the last
inning with two men on base, Ralph Terry

was on the mound again
facing Willie McCovey.

Willie McCovey hits a line
drive that seemed sure to go for

a hit, and Terry would have
lost yet another World Series.

Richardson jumps up, stabs the
line drive, and they win that one.

So there is resolution,
there is rejuvenation,

there is reward and
victory after tragedy.

Casey Stengel, the
disappointed Yankee

manager, was 70 years
old that October of 1960.

He was one of the winningest
managers in baseball history.

But five days after
his series defeat to the

Pirates, the Yankee
front office fired him.

He was too old to
manage, they said.

Casey Stengel said he'd never
make the mistake of being 70 again.

By the 1960s, Americans
were deserting the big cities

for the Sun Belt and West
Coast in record numbers.

Impressed with the profits the Dodgers
and Giants were making in California,

Major League Baseball decided
to expand, adding four new teams.

With the birth of the Los Angeles
Angels in 1961, the American League, too,

finally stretched all
the way to the Pacific.

The new team would soon move to
Anaheim and become the California Angels.

Meanwhile, Cal Griffith moved his battered
Senators out of Washington, west to

Bloomington, Minnesota,
where they became the Twins.

A new version of the
Senators moved into D .C.

Stadium, but fared little
better than their predecessors.

Eleven years later,
they would move to

Arlington, Texas, and
become the Texas Rangers.

The national game would no longer
be played in the nation's capital.

The National League added two new teams,
the New York Metropolitans and the Colt

45s, who began a three-year stint in
a temporary park in Houston, Texas,

braving heat, humidity,
and ravenous mosquitoes

until their all-weather
stadium could be built.

For baseball and the country,
times were changing fast.

Here's a pitch that's
swing and a miss.

The glare is that I
don't particularly like

you, and I am going to
beat you any way I can.

It is concentration of
trying to block out the

ball, 50,000 people either
for you or against you.

It is trying to remember all of the things
that make you a good hitter and trying to

make them go into action
immediately, right now.

I need it right now in order to
do this against this great pitcher.

He's a major leaguer, too, you
know, so you have to give him credit.

Incredible things go
on inside your head.

By 1961, Kurt Flood had become one of the
most valuable players on August Bush's St.

Louis Cardinals.

Although baseball had led the way in
integration 14 years before, Flood and his

black teammates had to endure
the segregated facilities and persistent

racism that still plagued black
ballplayers and black Americans alike.

May I tell you how
subtle the prejudice was?

I saw Mr. Bush on the
field in St. Petersburg.

And he asked me, you
know, by this time we had a

relationship where I could
converse with the owner.

And he asked me how things
were going and I told him.

I said, Mr. Bush, it's really
unfortunate that we have to stay

over in, I didn't say color
town, but that's what I meant.

And honestly, a look of surprise went
across Mr. Bush's face that amazed me.

And he said, do you mean
to tell me that you're not

staying here at the hotel
with the rest of the fellas?

And I said, Mr. Bush, don't
you know that we're staying

about five miles outside
of town in a Negro section?

And he didn't know, but it shows how you
can segregate yourself into the backseat

of a limousine and not
really know what's going on.

Flood and two other teammates,
Bill White and Bob Jones, Gibson,

now insisted that the
Cardinals desegregate

their spring training
facilities in Florida.

The Cardinals agreed and then bought
a hotel to house all of their players.

Curt Flood went on to become a solid
300 hitter and the best defensive center

fielder in the game, winning seven
consecutive Gold Glove awards.

I was told by a general manager that a
white player had received a higher raise

than me because white people require
more money to live than black people.

That is why I wasn't
going to get a raise.

The greatness of Ty Cobb was
something that had to be seen.

And to see him was to
remember him forever.

George Sisler.

On April 27, 1961, a week before Freedom
Riders demonstrated against segregation in

Birmingham, Alabama, Tyrus Raymond Cobb
threw out the first ball at the opening

home game of the brand
new Los Angeles Angels.

He took a dim view of expansion
and the other changes in the game.

But the Angels' general
manager was an old teammate.

It was his last visit to a ballpark
and he stayed only two innings.

He was 74 years old
and dying of cancer.

He had traveled more or less ceaselessly
since leaving the game, drinking,

gambling, quarreling with waiters and taxi
drivers and sales clerks, deploring the

integration of the game,
charging fans for his

autograph, driving off first
one wife and then another.

He stayed on the road as long as he could,
carrying with him everywhere a luger and a

paper bag filled with a million dollars in
securities and each day swallowing a quart

of bourbon mixed with
milk to dull the pain.

Where's anybody
who cares about me?

He asked one visitor.

The world's lousy, no good.

He died on July 17, 1961.

His lifetime batting
average was 367.

The highest in history.

400 people attended his
funeral at Royston, Georgia, the

little town where he had
learned his baseball as a boy.

Most of them little leaguers to whom he
was only a name from baseball legend.

But of all the men who had actually
played with him, only three showed up.

If I'd had my life to live over again,
he had told a caller toward the end,

I'd have done things
a little different.

I would have had more friends.

Was

that far from the plate?

Little lady, will you let
me umpire this game?

You've been on
my back all night.

Mickey, you saw that
pitcher was a ball, wasn't he?

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

He looked like it.

You're out of the game, Mantle.

What?

Roger, how'd that
pitch look to you?

It could have missed the corner.

You're out, Maris.

Yogi!

That's a perfect strike.

The ump was right.

I don't like sarcasm, Barra.

You're out of the game, too.

You can't do that!

Lady.

Where's the manager?

I think he's hiding.

Oh, that's stupid.

In the summer, the
best things happen in life.

In the summer of 1961, the record of 60
home runs in a single season, set by Babe

Ruth in 1927, and once thought
unbreakable, was under siege.

With the quality of pitching thinned by
expansion, and the season lengthened to

162 games, Ruth's mark suddenly
seemed within the grasp of not one, but two

Yankee outfielders, Mickey
Mantle and Roger Marris.

Mickey Mantle was now in his 11th
year with the Yankees, but still the best

switch hitter in the game, despite the
pain from injuries that never left him.

Roger Marris was his roommate, a
reticent, moody newcomer from North

Dakota, uneasy with
the press, but he could hit.

In 1960, he was voted the American
League's most valuable player.

In 1961, Mantle
started strongest.

By the time Marris had hit
four home runs, Mantle had ten.

But in mid-summer, Marris surged
ahead, slamming 24 home runs in 38 games.

But now, the pressure
on Marris intensified.

Would he break Ruth's record,
reporters asked again and again.

How the hell do I
know, he answered.

I don't want to be Babe Ruth.

He wasn't Babe Ruth, and
Yankee fans never let him forget it.

Even the front office tried to change
the lineup to face the Yankees.

They favored the
more popular Mantle.

Under the relentless strain, Marris'
hair began to fall out in clumps.

Always taciturn,
he now kept silent,

refusing most interviews,
keeping to himself.

Marris kept hitting, and in
mid-September, Mantle's injuries

finally forced him out of
the race with 54 home runs.

Locker room before the 154th game of the
season, with the Yankees only one win away

from the pennant, and Marris two home runs
short of Babe Ruth's record, he broke down.

His manager, Ralph Houck,
consoled him in his office.

If I can help win the game with a bunt,
he asked, would you mind if I bunted?

It wouldn't make me
look bad, would it?

Houck replied, no.

It would make you a
bigger man than ever.

Marris pulled himself together and
slammed number 59 in the third inning.

The Yankees
clinched the pennant.

On September 26th, Marris
hit his 60th, tying Babe Ruth.

Then, for three games, nothing.

At Yankee Stadium in the regular season's
final game against Boston, fans desert the

left field to occupy most
of the right field seats,

hoping to catch Roger Marris'
home run ball number 61.

In the fourth inning, Marris, seeking to
break Babe Ruth's original mark of 60

homers in the season,
concentrates on a Tracy Stallard pitch.

Here's the windup.

His teammates would
not let him back into the

dugout until he
acknowledged the applause.

But even this triumph soured.

Because the new, longer season had
provided Marris eight more games in which

to hit than Ruth had been given,
baseball commissioner Ford Frick suggested

that an asterisk appear next to
Marris' name in the record books.

The institution of the
asterisk, the most important

typographical symbol in
American sport, terribly unfair.

To take away Ruth's record, his single
season record, was to take away something

that was held so close
to the hearts of the

baseball establishment,
they couldn't see doing it.

Nonetheless,
Roger Marris did it.

He did hit 61 home runs.

And the fact that it took 162 games,
well, he also did it having to play at

night, having to bat against the
screwball, having to travel to the West

Coast for games,
and to do it all with a

parade, a mob of reporters
following him around.

I think it's unfair.

Roger Marris played
for seven more seasons.

Never hit as well again.

Suffered his own
debilitating injuries.

And was never forgiven for
out-hitting the game's greatest hero.

It would have been a hell of a lot more
fun if I had never hit those 61 home runs,

he told a friend toward
the end of his life.

All it brought me was headaches.

Marris' record has now
lasted nearly as long as Ruth's.

Another of Babe Ruth's
records was broken that year.

Yankee Whitey Ford pitched his 32nd
consecutive scoreless World Series inning.

Surpassing a mark set by Ruth in 1916 when
he was a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox.

It was, Whitey Ford said,
a tough year for the Babe.

But Commissioner Ford Frick was
alarmed by all the big hitting that year.

The Yankees had slugged an all-time record
240 home runs, and now he overreacted.

He convinced the club
owners to widen the strike zone

to ensure that home runs
did not come too cheaply.

The result would be a
golden age for pitchers.

Oh, a genius.

Perhaps the only pitcher I have ever seen,
and certainly broadcast, where after one

batter, I would think he
might pitch a no-hitter tonight.

The only one.

He was the only one who would go out to
warm up, and he would get applause similar

to a symphony conductor
who had just walked on stage.

I mean, it was such
respect as well as admiration.

I don't think we'll see
his likes for a long time.

His name was Sandy Koufax.

Born and raised in a
Jewish neighborhood in

Brooklyn, he hadn't planned
on being a ball player.

In fact, he didn't really
like the game that much.

He liked basketball instead,
and wanted to be an architect.

But the speed with which
he threw a baseball attracted

the attention of scouts
for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

They signed him at the age of 19
and sent him directly to the majors.

His career did not get
off to a promising start.

For six frustrating years, he threw the
ball with demon speed but little control,

losing more games than he won.

Then, in 1961, Norm Sherry,
a veteran catcher, quietly

told him he didn't need to
throw so hard to get men out.

There were a lot of people
in baseball who believed

that Sandy Koufax would
never be a major league pitcher.

He had no control.

His first few years in the major
leagues, he was getting nowhere at all.

He was walking more people
than he was striking out.

And then suddenly, he found it.

And when he found it, there was a period
that ran from 1961 through 1966 in which

he was as good as any
pitcher in baseball history.

Now, nothing seemed to stop him.

For five years, he dominated the
National League, winning five ERA titles,

pitching four no-hitters, winning the
Cy Young Award three times, despite

persistent, excruciating pain
from an elbow permanently

damaged before he had
learned to pace himself.

Koufax had to apply management.

He would throw massive
heat to his arm before every

game, then plunge it in
ice water after it was over.

But he did not argue with umpires, did not
throw at batters, engaged in no theatrics.

He'll strike you out, an opposing
batter said, but he won't embarrass you.

He

pitched a no-hitter every
year from 1962 to 1965.

In 1965 alone, he struck out 382 batters,
33 more than his nearest competitor,

Woub Waddell, had in 1904.

Harvey Keene, one strike away.

Sandy into his windup.

Here's the pitch.

When Sandy was at his peak,
batters used the word unfair.

I heard them say that.

It's an unfair contest after
they've been up for bat against him.

And I remember more than once a
batter being up there and looking at that

terrific fastball, which always seemed
to come up as it crossed the plate,

and then shooting a look out to
Sandy and saying, what was that?

It was as if he'd thrown an Easter
egg past him or something like that.

It was something different.

The game had been altered.

And then he had
that devastating curve.

So the combination of those two,
the batters felt absolutely helpless.

And he was beautiful to
watch because he bent

his back in a way that
other pitchers didn't.

They had this
enormous long hands.

And long arms.

And there was a bow and arrow feeling
about the way that he used his body.

He had a way of
tipping off his pitches.

If he was pitching a
fastball from the windup, he'd

have his elbows out
like this before the pitch.

And if he was going to pitch a curveball,
his elbows would be tucked in against him.

So every batter knew exactly
what he was going to be doing.

Of course, the pitches were so
good, it didn't make any difference.

They couldn't hit
either one of them.

Casey Stengel believed him
the best pitcher in baseball history.

Forget the other fellow, he
said, meaning Walter Johnson.

You can forget Waddell.

The Jewish kid is
probably the best of them.

The only time I ever
was embarrassed about

baseball had little
to do with being a girl.

It had to do with the fact
that when I went to Harvard,

for a while I had a boyfriend
who was somewhat snobby.

And he came from a family
that was a real intellectual family.

And I'd gone to
dinner at his house.

And all night I was mesmerized by their
talking about literature and history and

how learned they all were.

The next night, this young
man came to my house and

my father talked the
whole night about baseball.

And my boyfriend didn't
care at all about baseball.

And I remember for the
first time looking at my

father and thinking, this
is narrow what we do here.

This isn't as broad
as my boyfriend's life.

And the next morning,
waking up feeling so guilty.

And in the end, I got
rid of the boyfriend.

Because I was so sad.

When you started your baseball career,
did you ever dream you would be wearing

the uniform of four
different New York teams?

I realized after ten years of age
that they had major league clubs.

I certainly wanted to get to New
York, but I never thought I would be so

successful that I'd go to three major
league clubs and have a fair career,

or the clubs did, and
then get to the fourth.

I hope this one goes
faster than the other three.

The brand new National League New
Yorkers, named the Metropolitans after a

long-forgotten 19th-century club, had the
oldest manager in baseball, Casey Stengel.

It's a great honour for me, Stengel
said at his first press conference,

to be joining the
Knickerbockers.

The Mets' stadium was
old too, the Polo Grounds.

Deserted by the Giants and just a
year away from the Wreckers' ball.

Casey Stengel held court
in John McGraw's old office.

Come and see my amazin'
Mets, he told one reporter.

I've been in this game
a hundred years, but I

see new ways to lose I
never knew existed before.

Every pitcher here that's down here has an
opportunity to be one of the ten pitchers.

And in other words, we
have to find the first five or six

starting pitchers that are going
to be on the New York Mets.

So look at that opportunity.

His players were a motley
mix of veterans cast off by

established teams and raw
newcomers without much potential.

Stengel got a catcher from
the Cleveland Indians named

Harry Cheaty in exchange
for a player to be named later.

Cheaty proved so incompetent that he
was returned to Cleveland 30 days later,

the first man in baseball history
ever to be traded for the Mets.

Stengel eventually settled upon Choo-Choo
Coleman, who was not much better.

A broadcaster once
asked him, tell us about

your wife, what's her
name and what's she like?

Her name is Mrs. Coleman, the
catcher said, and she likes me.

If you join the Mets, you'll
get revenue then, because

we had a farm system last
year and very little produce.

The Mets fans found in first baseman
Marvin Throneberry, the best-loved star of

the Mets, a symbol of their
team's spectacular ineptitude.

Marvelous Marv was
marvelous at nothing.

He dropped the ball,
bungled on the bases.

Once, he managed to hit a triple, but
was called out for failing to touch first.

When Stengel stormed out to argue,
the umpire said, I hate to tell you this,

Casey, but he missed
second base, too.

Having Marv Throneberry play for
your team, wrote the sportswriter Jimmy

Breslin, is like having Willie
Sutton work for your bank.

My favorite Mets story is about their
shortstop, Elio Chacon, who was eager but

not very talented, and kept running
into the outfield and knocking down Richie

Ashburn as he was
about to catch a fly ball.

And he didn't speak any English,
and so somebody, Joe Christopher,

went to him and
tried to explain this.

And then he went to Richie Ashburn and he
said, if you're going to catch a fly ball,

and you see Chacon coming out,
what you want to say is, yo la tengo,

yo la tengo, I've got it.

And then I've told
him and he'll pull up.

So Richie practiced,
he said, yo la tengo.

And the game came along
and the situation was a fly ball.

He looked up for the fly ball.

Chacon rushed out for him.

Richie said, yo la tengo, yo
la tengo, and put his hands up,

but he was knocked flat by
Frank Thomas, his left fielder.

That was the Mets.

The worse the Mets played,
the better the New York fans,

deprived of their Giants and
Dodgers, seemed to like them.

The purists objected to the banners
they began to bring to the game.

Stengel didn't mind.

If a banner got in your way, he
said, you didn't mind missing a play,

because it was something
bad happening anyway.

Why, they're the most amazing
fans that I've ever seen in baseball.

I've been in World Series games.

I've played before 96,000, but the
Mets, I'll have to say, they stick by you.

Yeah, they stick by you in the
hotels, they're on the streets,

they're carrying placards,
they're going through the place.

You can find them over here
in right field four innings later.

If you get a base hit, they'll
be over on the left field line.

They make up wonderful placards.

The placards are terrific.

I even have to stop
and look at them.

I think I made 15 mistakes this year
reading the placards instead of watching

the pitcher or watching the
hitter to take my men out.

The Mets ended their first season
with a record of 40 wins and 120 losses,

the worst record
in the 20th century.

They would stay in the cellar
for five more seasons, but

they consistently drew more
fans than the New York Yankees.

An amazing thing
happened, which was that

New York took this
losing team to its bosom.

Everybody thinks New York only cares about
champions, but we cared about the Mets.

I remember going to some games in June
that year and they were getting walloped.

They were getting
horribly beaten.

But the crowds came out to the
public grounds in great numbers.

And people brought
horns and blew these horns.

And after a while, I realized that this
was probably anti-matter to the Yankees.

We were across the
river and had won so long.

Winning is not a whole
lot of fun if it goes on.

But the Mets were human.

And that horn, I began
to realize, was blowing for

me because there's more
Met than Yankee in all of us.

What we experience day to day in our
lives is much more losing than winning,

which is why we love the Mets.

After 22 years of Major League
ball playing, in which he's set four

All-Star games than
any other player.

Far from the spotlight of New York,
Stan Musial, soft-spoken and utterly

dependable, had powered the
St. Louis Cardinals for 22 years.

He appears to be that ballplayer out of a
Norman Rockwell painting that has those

virtues that we like to believe
the game can summon up.

Stanislaus Musial was born
in Donora, Pennsylvania,

the son of a Polish wire
worker who spoke no English.

One of Branch Rickey's scouts
spotted him playing for the

semi-pro Donora Zincks and
signed him at the age of 19.

His reputation for reliability began in
his very first Major League appearance at

the end of the 1941
season, when he got six hits

in a doubleheader
against the Boston Broncos.

He was one of the greatest
players in the history of baseball.

Casey Stengel, then the
Boston manager, warned his

players, you'll be looking
at him for a long, long while.

10, 15, maybe 20 years.

He led the league in hitting
seven times, once batting .376.

Beginning in 1948, he turned
himself into a great home-run

hitter, hitting 475 of them over
the course of his long career.

Fans now called
him Stan the Man.

A veteran pitcher once
explained how he pitched to Musial.

I throw him my best stuff, he said,
then run over to back up third base.

Here's a guy.

Who gets three for
four, four for four, five

for five, day after
day after day after day.

I said, Stan, how
do you do that?

And he says, well, Kurt, you get a
strike and you knock the heck out of it.

And baseball was as
simple as that to Stan Musial.

It was no more difficult,
no more intricate than that.

Baseball's rich in wonderful
statistics, but it's hard to

find one more beautiful than
Stan Musial's hitting record.

Stan Musial got 3,630 hits.

1,815 at home,
1,815 on the road.

He didn't care where
he was, he just hit.

He left the field for the last
time on September 29th, 1963.

When Stan Musial
took his first big league

at-bat, America was
not yet in World War II.

They were six years
removed from Jackie Robinson.

There were no baseball
games to speak of on television.

He traveled to games in trains.

When Stan Musial took his last at-bat
as the National League's all-time leader in

hits, second on that list only to Ty Cobb,
his last base hit went past the lunge of a

rookie second baseman
named Pete Rose, who would

eventually pass him and
would eventually be out.

It was 1963.

It was a month before President
Kennedy would be killed.

It was into an entirely new era.

In the spring of 1963,
a skinny, eager young

second baseman broke
in with the Cincinnati Reds.

He had wanted to be a professional
ball player since early boyhood.

I was just so damn happy to be
with the team, he remembered.

I figured anybody who doesn't like life
in the major leagues has got to be crazy.

That spring, the Reds played the New York
Yankees in an exhibition game in Florida.

I hit a home run in
spring training in Tampa.

There was no doubt that
it was gone, you know.

I hit it about 450 or 460 feet.

Pete ran and jumped
up on the fence, you

know how they do
it, like tried to catch it.

It was 100 feet over
his head and still rising.

And when I come back into the dugout,
I sat down by Whitey and Honey said,

Hey, Mick, did you see old Charlie
Hustle out there trying to catch that ball?

And they called him
Charlie Hustle from then on.

Pete Rose said
he liked the name.

He's the best thing to happen to
the game since, well, the game.

The thing that slowly
dawns on us after we watch

a number of games is
the absence of a clock.

It's one of the several things that
are quite unique about this game.

There's nothing
ticking away out there.

We don't look at the clock and say
this game is soon going to be over.

The game might be over sooner,
not for hours or not ever in effect.

If you keep hitting, you'll live forever
because the last dot will never come.

I'm 70 years old now.

And soon I'll remember what
Casey said when he was 75.

He said most people
my age are dead.

And you've got to look it up.

Casey Stengel was
starting to show his age.

He sometimes dozed
off during games.

Began to mutter about
his younger players.

The youth of America,
he said, you tell them.

Here is the opportunity.

And the youth of America
says, where is the money?

In July of 1965, the Mets
organized an old-timers

day to coincide with
Stengel's 75th birthday.

There were no MET old-timers.

The National League veterans who
turned out had all been Dodgers or Giants.

During the celebrations, Stengel
fell off a bar stool and broke his hip.

It took a long time to heal.

And he and management finally
agreed that it was time for him to quit.

In recognition of these services,
this number will be retired.

Never worn by
another Mets player.

And placed in a glass case here at Shea
Stadium in appreciation of your services.

Thank you very much.

I hope they don't make a
mummy under that glass case.

Make a mummy out of me
and keep me there that long.

I'd like to see them give that number
37 to some young player, he said.

So it can go on and do
some good for the Mets.

But the Mets
finished 10th again.

And the biggest crowd at Shea
Stadium that year came to see the Beatles.

Oh, I ain't gonna let nobody Turn me
around Turn me around Turn me around Ain't

gonna let nobody Turn me around I'm gonna
keep on walking Keep on talking Marching

up to freedom day I'm
not as brave as some of

these little 9 and 10
year old kids in the South.

I don't like these big teats
that I see on these dogs.

And I don't like to see
the fierce expressions

of the policemen in
Birmingham, Alabama.

And I don't like to read
about pregnant women being

poked in the stomach by
policemen in their nightsticks.

And I don't like to see young
negro kids of 7, 8, 9 years old

being thrown across the
street by the force of a fire hose.

But I believe that I must
go down and say to the

people down there, thank
you for what you're doing.

Not only for me and my
children, but I believe for America.

So I'm going down to do
whatever I possibly can.

Jackie Robinson had
retired after the 1956 season

before the Dodgers left
Brooklyn for Los Angeles.

Marching up to freedom But he
had never stopped being a race man.

Never stopped
pushing for equality.

Like Rube Foster before him, he urged
blacks to become producers, manufacturers,

creators of businesses,
providers of jobs.

And he helped found
black-run enterprises.

He campaigned for Republican
candidates because they preached self-help.

Resigned from the National
Association for the Advancement of

Colored People because he
thought it insufficiently militant.

And later refused to attend an
old-timers game because there

were still no African Americans
in big league management.

Marching up to freedom I think if you're
as proud as I am about our skin coloring,

as proud as I am about our race,
we're not going to worry about anything

except that we're going ahead.

We're going ahead
and we're going to win it.

In 1965, President Lyndon
Johnson signed the most

sweeping civil rights
legislation in history.

And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

But civil rights workers were
murdered in Mississippi, beaten

in Birmingham and Selma and
scores of other southern towns.

The Watts District of Los
Angeles exploded into flames.

And some young blacks now
began to talk of abandoning

integration in favor of
black power and separatism.

The greatest boxer of the
age, named for the white

abolitionist Cassius Clay,
changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

Anthropologica come from the
same source, with the same potential.

Must have a potential equality
in chance and opportunity.

And that is so right, I think.

That posterity will
look back upon what

we're doing today in
our domestic issue here.

They'll look back upon
it, I think, with incredulity.

And they'll wonder what
the issue was all about.

I really think so.

It's solved in baseball.

It'll be solved educationally.

It'll be solved everywhere
in the course of time.

Branch Rickey, the man who had brought
Jackie Robinson to the major leagues,

was 83 years old in
the autumn of 1965.

Weakened, but not slowed
by a series of heart attacks.

On November 13th, he insisted on checking
out of his St. Louis hospital room and

driving 125 miles to Columbia,
Missouri to deliver a speech.

He had to lean on a
cane simply to stand.

Now, he told his audience,
I'm going to tell you

a story from the Bible
about spiritual courage.

A moment later he stopped, murmured, I
don't believe I can continue and collapsed.

He never spoke again.

Branch Rickey died
on December 9, 1965.

Jackie Robinson
came to his funeral.

So did Bobby Bragan, the
Dodger catcher who had once tried

to stop Branch Rickey from
integrating the team in 1947.

He came, he said, because Branch
Rickey made me a better man.

When I was a boy, I
played baseball and I

would go to baseball
games as much as I could.

One of the most important
moments of the game was when

the national anthem was
played and everyone stood up.

I would go to my friends,
we'd have them on our baseball

caps, we'd take them off
and put them over our heart.

It was at this moment that there was a
certain sense that we were all American.

And when I would play the game with
my friends and we would be in the ballpark,

we would follow the ritual
that was at the stadium.

And so we would have the national anthem
and we would sing the national anthem when

we And we would play, you know,
there would be 12 ragamuffin black boys

out here playing in some playground
somewhere, or some little grass field,

and we would do the
national anthem, and we'd

put our hats over our
hearts and everything.

And we, I don't think
there was anything in

America that made me feel
American except baseball.

I felt connected with this
country because of that.

The same crew that demolished Ebbets
Field now took down the polo grounds.

Other old stadiums
would fall fast, victims of

decaying inner-city
neighborhoods and urban renewal.

Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

Forbes Field in Pittsburgh
with its formal gardens.

And Philadelphia's palatial Scheib Park
where Connie Mack had worked for 42 years.

The era of John McGraw and Ty Cobb and
Honus Wagner now seemed very far away.

It was a whole new ballgame.

On April 9, 1965, the Colt 45s changed
their name to the Houston Astros and began

playing in the new Harris
County Dome Stadium.

Because real grass
would not grow indoors, a

synthetic material called
AstroTurf was invented.

Asked if he liked artificial grass, the
pitcher Tug McGraw said, I don't know.

I never smoked this stuff.

A foreign and popular fabricator at
First Coast Park bought a machine gun.

Most people don't examine the
meaning of the word exploitation.

I think if you ask most people they would
say to be exploited is to have a low wage,

In 1946, the major
league owners had

established a minimum
salary of $5,000 a year.

In 1966, in the midst of a decade dedicated
to change, it had risen only $2,000.

Two months before the 1966 season began,
Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale demanded a

raise from their
owner, Walter O'Malley,

insisting that he negotiate
with them as a pair.

Without their combined
talents, they felt,

the Dodgers were sure
to end up in the cellar.

They also insisted that
the Dodgers deal with their

agent, something new
in baseball, not with them.

An infuriated O'Malley refused.

Baseball is an old-fashioned game
with old-fashioned traditions, he said.

And since the reserve clause barred
their trying to play for anyone else,

he resolved to wait them out.

Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale had film
roles lined up to keep themselves busy.

The

pitchers were forced to negotiate
for themselves, separately,

and settled for considerably
less than they had wanted.

Without a union, even
two of the game's greatest

stars were forced to
give in to management.

You think of people who
changed the game of baseball.

Aside from Babe Ruth, of course,
the Bambino and his home runs.

And Jackie Robinson entering.

The third name has to be
Marvin Miller, who led in organizing

the Baseball Players Union,
and thus changed the game.

On March 5th, 1966, the largely ceremonial
and ineffective Major League Baseball

Players Association created the
full-time post of executive director.

And appointed to it a veteran
labor organizer, Marvin Miller.

I grew up in Brooklyn, not very far
from Ebbets Field, and I was a fan of the

Brooklyn Dodgers from the
earliest days I can remember.

That ended first when I
left Brooklyn, and second

when shortly thereafter
the Dodgers left Brooklyn.

Marvin Miller had spent most of his life
in the labor movement, the International

Association of Machinists, the United
Automobile Workers, and for 16 years,

the United Steelworkers.

Marvin Miller was probably the greatest
thing that ever happened to baseball,

as far as the players
are concerned.

The moment that we
found out that the owners

didn't want Marvin
Miller, he was our guy.

Tough, seasoned, and relentless, Miller
rallied the players to the organization.

Then demanded that the club
owners bargain collectively.

Provide improved pensions.

Raise minimum salaries.

When Marvin started, the owners obviously
weren't prepared to fall in love with him.

And as a matter of fact,
the more they saw of Marvin,

the less prepared to fall
in love with him they were.

He obviously did a great job for the
players as far as getting them salaries.

I'm not sure on balance
that he was good for baseball.

Ball players are
no match for him.

He has a steel-trap mind
wrapped in a butter-melting voice.

He runs the players
through a high-pressure

spray the way an auto
goes through a car wash.

And that's how they
come out, brainwashed.

With few exceptions, they
follow him blindly, like zombies.

Dick Young, New York Daily News.

Sports writers following the developing
conflict were, for the most part,

uninterested in the
complicated labor issues.

Making them active agents
against Miller and the union.

For years, the public and even
some players distrusted him.

But the battle over who would
control the game had begun.

The showdown ahead would
be over the century-old reserve

clause, which bound each
player to his club for life.

And which, to many,
smacked of slavery.

Baseball cannot be
termed a slavery anymore.

That description would certainly fit
the baseball of earlier in this century.

How far you want to extend it
into this century is debatable.

But it once was a plantation.

It is not anymore.

The outfield around to the left to
Frank Robinson, the right-hand batter.

On

December 9, 1965, the day Branch Rickey
died, the Cincinnati Reds let outfielder

Frank Robinson go.

He had played magnificently
for them since 1956,

when he hit 38 home
runs to tie the rookie record.

He charged into outfield walls to make
spectacular catches, hurled himself into

opposing infielders to break
up double plays, and in 1961,

won the National League's
Most Valuable Player Award.

In casting him off, the Cincinnati owner
explained that Robinson was too old at 30.

He wasn't.

Robinson moved to Baltimore, where in his
first season he won the American League's

Triple Crown and became that
league's Most Valuable Player.

No other player has ever
won the award in both leagues.

What you want,
honey, you got it.

And what you need,
baby, you got it.

Early

in Robinson's career, when Branch
Rickey had desperately wanted him for the

Pirates, the Reds' general
manager said, I wouldn't

give you Frank Robinson
or your whole team.

I think there's
comfort in continuity.

So many things in our country
have changed drastically,

as they must over the
years and over the decades.

Violent disruptions.

And although baseball has changed,
its essence remains the same.

It's one of the enduring
institutions in our

country, and I think we
take some comfort from that.

With the Koufax, I looked
at him when I was a kid.

I saw him as a kind of Picasso on
the mound or something like that.

He was this
extraordinary artist.

With the Koufax, there was this
cerebral sort of artistic flair about him.

And I thought, well,
I'm going to go with him.

By the end of the 1966 season, Sandy
Koufax was at the peak of his career.

He had won 27 games that year, pitched 11
shutouts, and led the league in strikeouts.

But just a month after the World Series
ended, he called a press conference to

announce that he was
quitting the game at the

age of 31, while he
could still lift his arm.

The question is why, Sandy.

The question is why.

I don't know if cortisone is good for
you or not, but to take a shot every other

ball game is more than I wanted to do,
and to walk around with a constant upset

stomach because of the pills,
and to be high half the time

during a ball game because
you're taking painkillers out.

That's... I don't want to... I
don't want to have to do that.

What is your thought
about the loss of income?

Well, the loss of income...
Let's put it this way.

If there were a man who did not have
use of one of his arms, and you told him it

would cost a lot of money,
and he could buy back

that use, he'd give him
every dime he had, I believe.

That's my feeling.

And in a sense, maybe
this is what I'm doing.

I don't know.

I've got a lot of years
to live after baseball.

And I just... I would like to live
them with complete use of my body.

I don't regret one minute
of the last 12 years, but

I think I would regret one
year that was too many.

He would become the youngest
man ever elected to the Hall of Fame.

On July 25th, 1966, at
Cooperstown, New York,

Ted Williams was inducted
into the Hall of Fame.

Baseball gives every American
boy a chance to excel, he said.

I hope someday Satchel Paige
and Josh Gibson can be added

here in some way as a symbol
of great Negro League players.

They are not here only because
they did not get a chance.

They are here because
they did not get a chance.

Five years later, Leroy Satchel Paige
was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Almost against my will, I
got back to Fenway Park.

Somehow it felt disloyal to the Brooklyn
Dodgers, but it seemed crazy to let this

love affair go on the rest of my
life and never enjoy another team.

So, reluctantly, in about 67, a perfect
time, I started going back to Fenway Park.

And then that whole season took place,
and it was such a miracle at first that

they had been in ninth place the year
before and they had this impossible dream

of a year that at first I
didn't see the similarities

between the Red Sox
and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I thought, I've found
a winner, finally!

But then the
similarities set in.

In 1966, the Boston Red
Sox wound up, as they so

often had before, at the
bottom of the standings.

Then, in 1967, they got a new manager,
Dick Williams, and a new lease on life.

Right-hander Jim Longboard
won 22 games, all the while serving

in the Army Reserves as the
Vietnam War continued to escalate.

But it was the play of one
man who made the difference.

Karol Jastrzymski, the son of a
Polish potato farmer from Long Island,

and Ted Williams'
replacement in left field almost

single-handedly carried
the Red Sox that year.

He led the league in nearly every batting
category a .326 average, 44 home runs,

121 runs driven in, and was
named Most Valuable Player.

He went from losers to
winners, he remembered.

Suddenly, it was a
joy to go to the ballpark.

atura .com It wasn't just
that he was the triple champ.

It was that in every
clutch situation, when

he came off, you knew
he wanted to be there.

You could watch
him straining to hit that

ball, because you knew
he wanted to be a hero.

And I think for most of us in life who
are so afraid of that kind of moment,

when something's going to maybe happen,
that you think you'd run back to the

dugout, the fact that he wanted to be there
was just the most thrilling thing to see.

And he came through every
single time, so it seemed.

When I think of Yastrzemski,
I think of his hands on the bat.

He used to crunch
the bat like that.

He'd just grip it and grip it, and
he'd look at that intense look.

His face looked as if the skin was pulled
over, and his eyes were staring like that.

Just electric.

You'd think he'd
tear apart sometimes.

He'd just hold the
bat like that and swing.

He was magnificent.

Hot town, summer in the city Back of
my neck getting dirty and gritty Bend down,

isn't it a pity Doesn't seem to
be a shadow in the city All around,

people looking half dead Walking on the
sidewalk harder than a match head But at

night it's a different world Go out and
find a girl Come on, come on and dance all

night Just bite the heat, it'll be all
right And babe, don't you know it's a pity

The days don't feel like the nights In
the summer, in the city In the summer,

in the city It was the tightest race in
American League history with Boston,

Detroit, Minnesota and
Chicago all in contention.

In the Red Sox Final 12
games, Yastrzemski batted 523.

With 23 hits, 5 home
runs and 16 RBI.

There are some people who think that Carl
Yastrzemski's last two weeks of the 1967

impossible dream season were the best two
weeks that any baseball player ever had.

When caught in a four-team pennant race
that went down to the last weekend with

four teams in a virtual tie,
Yastrzemski alone carried

his team, getting home runs
when home runs were necessary.

Can you imagine
a moment like this?

The last day of the season.

The Red Sox...

Yastrzemski's hit
ignited a Boston rally.

They surged ahead of the
Twins, scoring three more runs.

It's a loop short, shortstop.

Petroselli's back, he's got it!

The Red Sox win!

And the podium on the field!

In the last game of the regular season,
he went four for four as Boston clinched

the pennant for the
first time in 21 years.

Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey
said it was the happiest

day in his life and doubled
Yastrzemski's salary.

Boston fans dared hope they might at last
win the World Championship that had been

denied them every season since the
team sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

Plans were made for
a big victory parade.

But in the series, they faced the
St. Louis Cardinals and Bob Gibson,

an explosive
right-hander and one of the

fiercest competitors in
the history of the game.

Bob Gibson was terrifying.

Bob Gibson was the most formidable
and scary pitcher I think of all time.

Everybody who
watched him was terrified.

Everybody who batted
against him felt this way.

And he saw to it
that they felt this way.

He looked at him out on the mound
and he was dark and forbidding.

He never smiled.

He had long red sleeves,
gave them all the way down.

He glared in at the batter.

He was never pleasant.

And the way he threw
was extraordinary.

Last finishing flourish as
he stepped over, his right leg

crossed over his left leg and
he fell off the mound at the left.

It looked as if he was
jumping at the batter.

It looked as if he had shortened the
distance between him and home plate.

He would hit batters
and batters knew this.

And his roommate,
Bill White, strayed away.

And Bill White told me that
the first time he came out to bat

against his old roommate,
Bob Gibson, he knew he'd be hit.

And he said he'd hit him right
up here, right up under the neck.

And that was a message to say,
we're not roommates anymore.

He could throw a baseball through
a brick wall, as a matter of fact.

If I had to choose one
person to pitch one game

in my one lifetime, I
would choose Bob Gibson.

Gibson was one of seven children and was
so sickly as an infant with asthma and a

rheumatic heart that his
mother feared for his life.

But he made himself into an all-around
athlete so skilled that he had played

basketball one season with
the Harlem Globetrotters.

He left the Globetrotters to play baseball
because he could not stand the clowning.

He refused to say hello to members of the
opposing team, would not sign autographs,

and once refused to leave
the mound even after a

line drive hit by Roberto
Clemente broke his leg.

His glare alone was enough to
frighten all but the most intrepid hitters.

I hardly ever threw at a
batter, he once explained.

But when I did, I hit them.

If he needed to knock you
down, he would move you.

And he said, come on, hit this.

And he would give
you something to hit.

Great competitor.

The tougher it got,
the tougher he got.

Now, Gibson would face Carl
Yastrzemski in the 1967 World Series.

Bob Gibson's first
pitch for Yastrzemski.

Yastrzemski continued his tear,
hitting 400, smashing three home runs,

and in one game driving
in four of Boston's five runs.

But Bob Gibson overwhelmed
nearly every other Red Sox hitter.

Gibson, set.

Here's the pitch.

Despite an aching elbow,
he won the first game.

Took three days off,
then won the fourth.

Here's the first.

Sucked him out swinging.

Three days later, he was called
in again to pitch the seventh.

Against Boston's best, Jim Lawnboard,
who had also won his two games,

but who was starting
with only two days rest.

We'll see.

Now the big Bob Gibson,
the pitch by Lawnboard.

Well on a long drive,
deep left center wing.

Gibson won it easily,
seven to two, and added

insult to injury by hitting
a home run of his own.

Bob Gibson joins the list of
pitchers who have hit home runs.

In three complete series games, he
gave up just 14 hits, something no one

else had done since
Christy Mathewson in 1905.

Boston canceled
its victory parade.

It was a great World Series.

But that year, more people
had watched professional

football's first Super
Bowl than any series game.

Baseball was now said
to be too leisurely, too

serene, too dull to be
the national pastime.

It was football that was
America's true game.

Time has come today.

1968 was one of the most violent,
turbulent years of the century.

Oh!

In Vietnam, Americans found themselves
waging a war with no end in sight.

While at home, angry
demonstrators fought in the streets.

Flags and cities burned.

Assassins' bullets had again
changed the course of history.

The opening day of the
1968 season was postponed

after Martin Luther
King was assassinated.

Baseball seemed irrelevant.

Time in the course of a
ballgame is critically important.

A baseball game does not rush
by with the blurring of the game.

There is no blur of action
of basketball or hockey.

It doesn't exist in these sort of
spasms the way that it does in football,

where everything is lost in the
crash and clash of helmets and pads.

Instead, we spend most of our
time at a ballgame pondering inaction.

We are sitting there
while the third baseman

is standing seven or
eight feet off the bag.

He's maybe scratching his knee.

The batter steps out of the batter's
box and he lifts the bat behind his head.

He does that.

The pitcher steps off the
mound, blows on his fingers.

That's the action of baseball.

It's the absence of action.

What it does is it pulls us
to the edges of our chairs.

It pulls us to that
point of anticipation.

It pulls us to wondering what's
going to happen and playing

the game in our mind before
it plays on the field itself.

Baseball is a 19th
century pastoral game.

Football is a 20th century
technological struggle.

Baseball is played on
a diamond, in a park.

The baseball park.

Football is played on
a gridiron in a stadium.

Sometimes called Soldier
Field or War Memorial Stadium.

I once had to think of 99 reasons
why baseball was better than football.

I already had an assignment to do a
magazine piece on that topic and I thought

it would take me a long time to
write it, but I finished before lunch.

It really isn't difficult.

I think the first thing is that
baseball has no halftime.

Then it has no
bands at halftime.

It has no cheerleaders
at halftime with bands.

And it definitely has no jet flyovers
during Up With America songs at Super Bowl

at the halftime with
cheerleaders and bands.

Baseball has a
seventh inning stretch.

Football has the
two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit.

We don't know
when it's going to end.

We might have extra innings.

Football is rigidly timed and it will end
even if we have to go to sudden death.

Football combines the two worst
features of modern American life.

It's violence punctuated
by committee meetings.

In addition, football demonstrates
the manic division of labor

that makes life confusing
and I should think unsatisfying.

I mean, who wants to grow up to be a
third and long yardage pulling guard?

And finally, the objectives of
the two games are totally different.

In football, the object is for the
quarterback, otherwise known as the field

general, to be on target with his aerial
assault, riddling the defense by hitting

his receivers with
deadly accuracy in spite of

the blitz, even if he
has to use the shotgun.

With short bullet passes and long bombs
he marches his troops into enemy territory,

balancing this aerial assault with a
sustained ground attack which punches

holes in the forward wall of
the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball, the object is
to go home and to be safe.

I hope I'll be safe at home.

Safe at home.

I'm going home.

I'm going home.

It may be that the most American
thing about baseball is that it...

as we, the fans, take it, it
is a refuge from America.

I think that when we
go to baseball, we are

going away from the
America of our daily lives.

We go to something that
we now consider pastoral.

Although in the past, everybody
considered baseball the city game.

It now seems to
many of us pastoral.

It seems to us historic
and connected with the past.

So that you could tell what
America is like by looking at baseball.

It's saying the daily life of
America is the opposite of this.

Earl

Weaver was what a
manager I looked like.

Short, angry, florid,
impatient and tempered.

A character, like a
great many managers.

In the middle of the
1968 season, the

Baltimore Orioles got
themselves a new manager.

Earl Weaver.

A former minor league second
baseman, never learned how to hit.

It was the beginning
of one of the most

successful managerial
tenures in the modern age.

Weaver was a
brilliant psychologist.

He loved to bait umpires
to inspire his team.

And he was thrown out of 91
games, a major league record.

How the history of
baseball has affected him.

How the history of
baseball has affected him.

And he was thrown out of 91
games, a major league record.

Earl Weaver was a brilliant
accomplished footballer.

I know as a woman that I
knew what this was going to take.

I know which team you are.

Earl Weaver was the
first to get his name right.

He was treated like
a youth in the world.

We're back in the office and eating
like a chicken or something like this...

but a little pint-sized man with
no clothes on, talking baseball...

with his eyes all alight.

Wonderful.

I'll always remember Earl sitting
in the dugout before a game...

with a cigarette cupped in his hand
like a little boy sneaking a smoke...

and his fingers all yellowed
by the smoke, telling a story...

and not realizing that they
were playing the national anthem.

And after the national
anthem, I apologized.

I said, I'm sorry, I'm
sorry, I'm still here.

And he turned to me and
said, relax, kid, don't worry.

We do this every day.

Under Weaver's leadership
for 14 full seasons...

the Orioles would win or
come in second 12 times...

win four pennants and
one world championship.

The Orioles were
good at everything.

In addition to the power
hitting of Frank Robinson...

they had the incomparable
third baseman Brooks Robinson.

Who would win 16
straight gold glove awards...

and set major league records for
games, put outs, assists and double plays.

But it was their pitchers
that set them apart.

And Earl Weaver was a genius at
coaxing fine performances from each one.

His pitching staff included... Cuban-born
Mike Cuellar, a master of the screwball.

Left-hander Dave McNally, who
once won a record 24 games in a row.

And a young, temperamental
right-hander, Jim Palmer.

Jim Palmer always inspired
Earl Weaver to great fury.

Palmer really essentially never
won a game for anyone else.

Palmer's complexes
had complexes.

And Earl somehow intuitively
understood how to motivate Palmer.

And I honestly believe that if Jim
Palmer had not pitched for Earl Weaver...

he would not have won 50
games in the major leagues.

Palmer

would go on to
record 268 victories.

Win three Cy Young awards.

And have eight 20-game seasons.

Earl Weaver's Orioles had
all the makings of a dynasty.

In 1968, pitchers
dominated as never before.

One out of every five games
played that year was a shutout.

Bob Gibson was again the
most fearsome performer.

He pitched 13 shutouts,
won 22 games...

and registered the lowest
ERA in the history of his league.

1.12.

I

remember the 1968 World Series.

I was 16 years old.

Game one, when he
struck out the 17 Tigers...

you could feel his purpose
burn through a television screen...

from St. Louis to your
living room on Long Island.

In a sport that isn't supposed to
manifest that degree of outward emotion...

he was actually fearsome.

Bob Gibson is the only pitcher to win
seven consecutive World Series starts.

Each of them a complete game.

And when the game was
over, Gibson in the clubhouse...

was like no other
pitcher I've ever seen.

The reporters gathered
around and someone

said, were you surprised
by what you did today?

And Gibson said, I'm never
surprised by anything I do.

In 1969, the summer
of Woodstock...

a free-thinking minor league
pitcher named Bill Lee III...

whose father and
grandfather and aunt...

had all played some kind of
professional baseball before him...

was ordered to report
to the Boston Red Sox.

Fenway Park, when I
first saw it, I drove by it.

Came down one night, he
got called up from Pittsfield.

So here I go down
to the ballpark.

My 62 Chevrolet with
185,000 miles on it.

I go, fill it with
oil, check the gas.

And I come by it and
I say, well, there it is.

Look at that, beautiful
green monster in the highway.

I said, I'll take a right and a
right and I'll end up at the park.

I took a right and a right,
end up in Cambridge.

Then I realized the
Northwest Territories Act...

hadn't been in effect
when Boston was built.

Couldn't find the park.

And when I found it, I said,
this is not a park, this is a factory.

And the brick facade and
everything in the little room...

had a little red door
on Yawkey Way.

It was called Jersey
Street back then.

And then you walk through the gates...
and you come through that little tunnel.

And then all of a sudden
you see the green.

The green of the seats,
the green of the wall...

the green of the field
and the little dirt cut out.

And the proximity of
the foul line to the stands.

And just the closeness of
the bullpens to the crowd.

And it's like you go down all of a sudden
on one knee... and you bless yourself.

And you go, thank God
for making me a ballplayer.

It's heaven.

As a game, I think it's
the most interesting game.

The units of measure
are easy to deal with.

The connection
to history is plain.

You say to an avid basketball fan,
what's Kareem's final point total?

And what was Wilt's
when Kareem passed it?

What's Peyton's
final yardage total?

What was Jim Brown's
when Peyton passed it?

Even the avid football or
basketball fan doesn't know.

But the casual baseball fan knows all of
these landmarks of history, of individual

achievements, of twists and
turns in the game's history.

1947 means Jackie Robinson.

1961 means Roger Maris.

1969 means men walked on the moon
and Mets walked with pennant in hand.

Meet the Mets.

Meet the Mets.

Step right up and
greet the Mets.

Bring your kiddies,
bring your wife.

Guaranteed to have the time of
your life because the Mets are real.

Now stop on the phone.

Knock on those home
runs over the wall.

East side, west side.

Everybody's come down to meet
the M-E-T-S Mets of New York Town.

Of New York Town.

In 1968, the New York Mets had wound up in
ninth place, a record that would have been

an embarrassment for
some teams, but represented

only the second time the
Mets had soared so high.

When the 1969 season
opened, the odds against

their winning the
pennant were 100 to 1.

And true to form, they dropped
seven of their first ten games.

But they now had a support
team with a superb manager,

ex-Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges,
a roster of eager young players.

And with pitchers Tom Seaver, Jerry
Koosman, and a fastballer from Texas named

Nolan Ryan, they were soon locked
in a season-long struggle for first place.

Three.

They won 38 of their last 49 games to take
the Eastern Division title by eight games.

Then swept the Atlanta
Braves for the pennant.

But Earl Weaver's Orioles,
the best team in baseball

that year, were waiting
for them in Baltimore.

Few gave New York
much of a chance.

As expected, the Mets lost the first
game 4 to 1, but they came back to take the

second behind the brilliant
pitching of Jerry Koosman.

And then the Orioles came
to Shea Stadium, where the

Mets and 56,000 of their
fans were waiting for them.

New York won the third
game 5 to nothing, thanks

to the pitching of Gary
Gentry and Nolan Ryan.

And some spectacular help
from center fielder Tommy Agee.

In the fourth game, Tom Seaver out-pitched
Mike Cuellar this time with some

spectacular help from
right fielder Ron Swoboda.

To everyone's amazement, the Mets
now led the series three games to one.

They needed just
one more victory.

But the next day, the Orioles
took an early 3 to nothing lead.

Then in the bottom of the sixth inning,
Cleon Jones of the Mets alleged he had

been hit in the foot by
pitcher Dave McNally.

The umpire hadn't seen it.

Hodges called for the ball and
pointed to a minute speck of shoe polish.

Jones went to first.

Next up was Don Clendena.

His home run into the
left field stand scored

Jones and brought the
Mets to within one run.

In the seventh, Al Weiss,
normally an easy out,

somehow managed to hit a
home run to tie up the game.

In the bottom of the eighth,
two Mets doubles and two

costly Baltimore errors put
New York ahead for good.

2-1 pitch.

Fly ball.

Deep left field.

Jones is back.

The miracle Mets had
won the World Series.

Four games to one.

A three-yard lead.

The Mets are leading
the game and a 5-0 lead.

Wesso is able to catch up.

The Mets are going to
have two more games.

Here's the sign.

Grades of error for the
Mets The Mets are moving to

they're looking to lose
the game to the White Sox.

There are some that are
wrapping up the game.

After the game, after I'd left all the
champagne, I always go to losing locker

rooms too, and I went into Earl's office
and he was drinking a beer, it was very

quiet, and somebody had said to him,
didn't you think when you were ahead in

the seventh inning you could
keep that lead and take the

games back to Baltimore and
probably beat the Mets there.

And he looked at him and he said,
that's what you can't do in baseball,

you can't run a few plays
into the line and kill the clock.

He said this is why this is
the greatest game of them

all, you've got to give the
other man his chance at bat.

This is why this is the
greatest game of them all.

At this time in the late 60s, I was 14,
15, 16 years old, and I felt that baseball

lost some of its resonance
for me because these players

did not seem to be in touch
with what was going on.

Everything had
become very politicized.

And this is particularly
true with black players.

They saw if you were to stand up and
become political, that you were going to

be made to suffer.

But as a youngster myself, becoming
politicized, that was the very point.

Yes, you were going
to have to pay a price.

Yes, but this price needed to be
paid if we were going to move ahead.

The very argument that they were going
to give about the status quo, the very

argument that the older blacks gave,
such as my grandfather, said, well they

have good jobs, why should
they go out and do this?

And I said, because it must be done,
and we must be willing to show that we're

willing to pay a price in
order to be treated with dignity.

I guess you really have to understand
who that person, who that Curt Flood was.

I'm a child of the
60s, a man of the 60s.

During that period of time, this
country was coming apart at the seams.

We were in Southeast Asia.

Men who were good men were dying
for America and for the Constitution.

In the southern part of the United States,
we were marching for civil rights and Dr.

King had been assassinated
and we lost the Kennedys.

And to think that merely because I
was a professional baseball player, I could

ignore what was going on outside the
walls of Busch Stadium is truly hypocrisy.

And now I find that all of those rights
that these great Americans were dying for,

I didn't In October of 1969, veteran
centerfielder Kurt Flood of the St.

Louis Cardinals got word that he
was to be traded to Philadelphia.

The Phillies were a second division
team known for their hostility toward black

players, and Flood
did not wish to move his

family or to leave his
business interests behind.

I often wondered, what
would I do if I were ever traded?

Because it happened many, many times,
and it was, end quote, part of the game.

And then suddenly
it happened to me.

I was leaving probably one of the
greatest organizations in the world to,

at that time, was
probably the least liked.

And, by God, this is amazing.

This is America, and
I'm a human being.

I'm not a piece of property.

I'm not a consignment of goods.

Flood did not report to
the Phillies training camp.

I am a man, he told baseball
commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

Dear Mr. Kuhn, after 12 years in the major
leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece

of property to be bought and
sold irrespective of my wishes.

I believe that any system which produces
that result violates my basic rights as a

citizen and is inconsistent with
the laws of the United States.

It is my desire to play baseball in
1970, and I am capable of playing.

I received a contract from the
Philadelphia club, but I believe I have

the right to consider offers from other
clubs before making any decisions.

I therefore request that
you make known to all major

league clubs that you are a
part of the Philadelphia club.

My feelings in this matter, and advise them
of my availability for the 1970 season.

Sincerely, Kurt Flood.

The commissioner refused to
exempt him from the reserve clause.

Flood refused to play, and vowed to take
his case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The century-old struggle between
the owners and the players.

was approaching a climax.