All language subtitles for Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E09 (Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E09) (ENGLISH)

That's the only sport
where Dominicans can play.

You can't play football,
it's too expensive.

Baseball is an inexpensive game.

You can play baseball with
tree branches, rocks, anything.

When you are a little kid, the
first thing they buy you, when

you are a little kid they buy
you a little car or anything.

Now when you are born
Dominican, you get a glove and a bat.

As soon as you are
born you have to play, or

your parents think you
are crazy or something.

It's like a religion over there,
you know, you have to play.

I have a book at home and it
says in the book that there's

never been a revolution or a
war during the baseball season.

That baseball unites the people.

If I don't make it in baseball,
I want to get into electronics.

But my first choice is baseball.

Because that's my boyhood dream.

That's it right there.

I have two passions in my life.

One is baseball and
the other is opera.

Fortunately enough, they
fall in different seasons.

Opera is in the winter and
baseball is in the summer.

And people ask me,
how can you like both?

They are different.

And I say, oh no, they
are exactly the same thing.

Opera is an epiphanic art.

You know, people go to the
opera and put up with the recitatives.

And the tedium
waiting for the aria.

Now you go to a baseball game and observe
what happens in a baseball game many times.

There is no action whatsoever.

There is continued tedium.

The pitcher has
a ball and rubs it.

It's ready to pitch and
then the batter steps

out and has to wait
until it comes back.

And then suddenly
he hits the ball.

And that is the epiphany.

It's a show forth.

Everything comes at that time.

It's a moment of great action.

And I find the
similarity right there.

Besides the prima donnas
that you have in the game.

But it's very similar.

So for me, I say this.

I would, when I retired,
I would get a part-time

job in a baseball
stadium in the summer.

And then in an opera
house in the winter.

And that would be heaven for me.

The president said that that
was the life that he wanted.

and then he got a part-time job.

During the 1970s and 80s, the
war in Vietnam came to an end.

And an American president
was driven from office in disgrace.

A new wave of fundamentalism ignited
ancient animosities around the world.

Mao Tse Tung and Casey
Stengel and Satchel Paige died, and

great ballplayers whose names
no one yet knows were born.

By 1970 the national
pastime was in trouble.

Attendance had not increased for more than
two decades, and desperate owners tried

everything to pump
new life into the old game.

Nothing worked.

Now the owner's grip on the destinies
of the players was finally broken,

and as their prospects improved, As
time went through, fans returned to the

game, but old loyalties
were sometimes forgotten.

Now, what happened off
the field, greed, scandal,

strikes, seemed to
overshadow the action on it.

And now, as television demanded that
most games be played at night, a whole

generation of young fans would come of age
without ever seeing a World Series game.

Still, the family of
baseball continued to grow.

Larry McPhail's
grandson Andy ran a team.

Yogi Berra's son
Dale played for a while.

And one evening in California,
back-to-back home runs were hit by Ken

Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. In Hoboken,
New Jersey, the factory Maxwell House had

built on the Elysian Fields
where baseball began.

It closed down.

And that same year, the Baltimore Orioles
opened a brand new, old-style ballpark on

the site of the saloon once
owned by the father of Babe Ruth.

Everything had changed,
and nothing much had changed.

It's one of those forms of gentle
poetry that runs through our

lives and makes the more
important issues of living bearable.

You have to have moments
that give you pleasure

with your children or your
hobbies or your games.

Life can't all be big
issues and heart surgery.

You need something to give up.

Something has to
bring joy into the day.

I've always thought that the six months
during the baseball season, there was

something in the day that wasn't
there the other six months in winter.

It was not that you had to listen to the
game, but that you could if you needed it.

...missed his last time up.

Swing and a miss and
he took a mighty cut.

Quite a touching sight, everyone
standing at Fenway Park as Ted Williams hit

probably for the last time in a
Boston uniform in this ballpark.

Olarsik back to the wall.

There's the drive
to deep right center.

This may be gone.

Grabbed way back there.

...fire as Jastrzemski lands
a face in into center field.

Delivery to Fisk.

He swings.

Long drive, left field.

If it stays there, it's gone.

Home run!

Three games apiece.

I think what baseball
is, is a game that allows

people who watch it to
think about nothing else.

This is one of the greatest
World Series games of all time.

It allows us to feel
connected to a place.

So part of what American history
is, is texture, it's fabric, it's Brooklyn,

it's Boston.

But sadly, part of what
American history is, and part

of what baseball is, is moving
away from those places.

So Brooklyn leaves and
goes to California, and

the free agents take
away our favorite players.

And America is always
mobile, always moving on.

On April 20, 1912, two months before
the cornerstone was laid for Ebbets Field,

Fenway Park opened
its doors for the first time.

The Red Sox beat the
New York Highlands.

The Panthers, that
afternoon, 7-6 in 11 innings,

beginning one of the most
intense rivalries in baseball.

And then they went on
to win the pennant and the

series, setting a precedent
that did not last for long.

Chris Speaker once
owned its center field.

Smokey Joe Wood and Babe Ruth and Roger
Clemens have all bewildered batters there.

Ted Williams, who sharpened his eyes,
by shooting the pigeons that flew over the

outfield, hit so many
home runs into the right field

bullpen, that players
came to call it Williamsburg.

Over the years, the struggles of the
Boston Red Sox would provide some of the

most dramatic and heartbreaking
action a game would ever see.

And on October 21,
1975, Fenway Park would

witness the greatest game
in World Series history.

A game that rekindled the
whole country's love of baseball.

What's your best pitch?

My best pitch is a strike.

A sinking fastball, which you grip like
this, so you get only two seams into it.

And then if you turn your hand
a little bit like this, it comes out.

The wind pushes here, forces it down
and away from a right-handed hitter.

Thereby, he thinks
it's a good pitch.

The last minute, it sinks.

He hits the top half of the ball,
and he hits a ground ball to Burleson.

Burleson picks it up, throws
it to you, Stremski, one away.

And you do that three
times, or 27 times in a ball

game, make perfect
sinkers, you'll get 27 outs.

Unless the hitters are smart, and then
what they do is, they know it's a sinker,

they get up and they drive the ball to
right center field between Lynn and Evans,

and that's called a double.

And then the pitcher has to run
behind third base and back it up.

And hopefully they get the
guy out at third, or it's a triple.

And then you've got a runner
at third and less than two outs.

So they bring the infield
in and you don't want them

to hit a sinker now, you've
got to strike them out.

So then you go to a cross-seam
fastball, which I don't have.

In 1970, the Cincinnati Reds faced
the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

The Reds were young,
aggressive, and powerful.

Led by Pete Rose, Tony
Perez, and Johnny Bench.

But the Orioles had the best
third baseman in baseball.

Brooks Robinson was born in Little Rock,
Arkansas, was discovered playing ball in a

church league, and was
beloved by Baltimore fans.

He was 33 years old in 1970.

Veteran of 15 major
league seasons.

Winner of 10 Gold Glove Awards.

He was called the
human vacuum cleaner.

One by one, he destroyed the
hopes of Cincinnati's wanted hitters.

Lee May.

Tony Perez.

Johnny Bench.

Johnny Bench again.

Goal hitter.

The Orioles took
the series in five.

Further helped by
six runs batted in...

by Brooks Robinson.

Brooks

Robinson, Cincinnati's Pete Rose
said, belongs in a higher league.

Mmm.

Mmm.

What was incredible about Clemente was
not only how skilled he was at each part of

the game, but this kind of
ferocity that he played on

each play of the game, even
years when they were pitiful.

And they had no chance to get
into the pennant or anything like that.

He would throw it in.

He would pick guys
off who got a single, who

took too much of a
turn going around first.

There was just something
intense about this guy that was not

necessarily what was going
on in baseball at that moment.

Roberto Clemente learned his
baseball in the cane fields of Puerto Rico.

And for all of his major league
career, he played spectacularly

for a little publicized
team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He was a savage line drive
hitter with a phenomenal throwing

arm, proud of his Latin
heritage, often plagued by injuries.

Roberto Clemente epitomized
a certain kind of cool.

He had a certain motion with his
neck because he had a bad back.

He said his back always hurt.

He had a certain
motion with his neck.

And all of us imitated this
motion that he had with his neck.

So you see all these kids in school
who are doing this because all these black

boys in school are doing this because
they picked this up from Clemente.

You go to bat and you
did this head motion.

You swung the bat like Clemente.

And then for the Puerto Rican
community, he was, you know, their guy.

A guy, and was very proud of it,
really did a lot for his community.

A guy who really gave a lot back
and got terrible press in Pittsburgh.

He was always considered
this guy who was a

hypochondriac and this
and that and the other thing.

And I think mostly because the white press
really took a long time for them to get

with the fact that their
best player was black.

The Pirates management and the
local press insisted on calling him Bobby.

Armente insisted on Roberto.

And he was furious that although he
had hit better than 300 for 13 seasons,

won 4 batting titles
and 12 straight gold

gloves, he was not given
the praise he deserved.

In the 1971 series against Brooks Robinson
and the Baltimore Orioles, he took the

opportunity to show the
world all that he could do.

He was very proud of him.

Enormously proud of him.

Enormously proud of him.

He always felt that he had
been overlooked because

he wasn't playing in
New York or California.

And I think that's true.

We did slight him.

And in 1971 he played in a
way as if to prove us all wrong.

Everything he did was, take this,
take this, look at this, watch this.

And it was eagle-like.

Clemente batted .414 in the series,
hit two doubles, a triple, and two home

runs, and led the Pirates to the
championship in seven games.

A year later, on September
30, 1972, he passed

yet another milestone
in his long career.

Everybody set it.

That winter, an earthquake
hit Nicaragua, and Clemente

volunteered to carry relief
supplies to the victims.

On New Year's Eve, his plane
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

His body was never found.

The legality of Major League
Baseball's controversial

reserve clause is now in the
hands of the Supreme Court.

The case involves the trade of Curt
Flood from St. Louis to Philadelphia.

That case for Flood
is being argued...

It was so difficult for the fans to
understand my problems with baseball.

I was telling my story to deaf ears
because I was telling my story to a person

who would give their firstborn
child to be doing what I was doing.

And he just could not
understand how there

could be anything possibly
wrong with baseball.

For nearly three years, Curt Flood
had been in the courts fighting a one-man

battle with Major League
Baseball over the reserve clause.

Despite the advice of the
players' union, he had left

the game in 1969 rather
than be traded against his will.

What I told him was that I agreed with
him in principle, but that the courts had

treated players as property and would
likely do so again, and that his attempt,

well, a principled one, was,
I thought, doomed to failure.

And I worried about his knowing the
kinds of chances he was taking, that he was

going to end his career in a
case that probably was a loser.

The lawyers for the Major Leagues
would not talk for the cameras.

But in the courtroom,
they argued that the reserve

clause is essential to the
future of organized baseball.

That without the reserve clause... all the
rich teams would get all the star players.

But Arthur Goldberg maintains that the
reserve clause, tying a player to one team

for the rest of his life, is in
violation of the 13th Amendment.

That's the amendment against
slavery and indentured servitude.

Flood's first trial had been in federal
district court in Manhattan in 1970.

I think Curt Flood on the stand was
treated miserably by the federal judge.

He almost taunted him.

A judge who showed great respect
for almost all witnesses who were white.

From the bench, the
judge asked Curt Flood, this

is not as easy as
playing center field, is it?

You know, with a sarcastic tone in the
middle of a difficult cross-examination.

No active player dared
testify on his behalf.

Only owner Bill Veck and a handful of
retired stars came to Flood's defense.

Jackie Robinson walked into the
courtroom and there was a hush.

He had such a presence
that you could hear a pin drop.

His hair was white and
he was walking with a cane.

But he still had that swagger that
Jackie Robinson was so noted for.

But he testified in my behalf.

And with a soliloquy that put
some chills up and down my spine.

Flood lost in district court and then
lost again in the Court of Appeals.

And on June 18, 1972,
by a vote of five to three,

the United States Supreme
Court ruled against him.

Baseball was still exempt from antitrust
laws and the reserve clause still stood.

I am particularly pleased that the court
has recognized the need for a reserve

system and has further
recognized that baseball has not

disregarded the extremely
important position the player occupies.

Over the long history of baseball, the
reserve system has constantly evolved

to improve the
position of the player.

I am confident that this
process will continue.

We lost because my guys, my
colleagues, didn't stand up with me.

And I can't make
any excuse for them.

Had we shown any amount of solidarity,
if the superstars had stood up and said,

we're with Kirk Flatt, if the superstars
had walked into the courtroom in New York

and made their presence
known, I think that the

owners would have gotten
the message very clearly.

And given me a
chance to win that.

Kirk Flatt never played
Major League Baseball again.

It is especially fitting that today, in
the midst of baseball's most exciting

event, the World Series, we
pause to honor Jackie Robinson.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very
much, Commissioner.

I would just like to say
that I was really just a spoke

in the wheel of the success
that we had some 25 years ago.

I would like to also say that I would be
a real, real pleasure if Mr. Rickey could

have been here with us today, but to the
members of the family, my entire love and

gratitude for the things that
he's done over the years.

And I also want to say how pleased I am
that my family can be here this afternoon.

I'm proud and pleased to be here this
afternoon, but must admit I'm going to be

tremendously more pleased and more proud
when I look at that third base coaching

line one day and see a black
face managing in baseball.

Thank you very much.

25 years after his historic
debut, Jackie Robinson agreed

to throw out the first ball
of the 1972 World Series.

He was just 53, but diabetes had dimmed
his sight, heart disease had slowed his

step, and he was disillusioned by
the lack of progress in race relations.

Jackie Robinson
died 10 days later.

In his autobiography published
after his death, Robinson

recalled playing in his
first World Series game.

There I was, the black grandson of a
slave, the son of a black sharecropper,

part of a historic occasion, a
symbolic hero to my people.

But I must tell you
that it was Mr. Rickey's

drama and that I was
only a principal actor.

As I write this 20 years later and sing
the anthem, I cannot salute the flag.

I know that I am a black
man in a white world.

In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in
1919, I know that I never had it made.

I don't know of anybody besides
Robinson who could have done what he did.

Many of the black players,
Reggie Jackson, for example,

said later, he's the only one
of us who could have done it.

Robinson, Mr. Rickey told him
he'd have to turn the other cheek.

And as Mr. Rickey
said, it wasn't long before

he didn't have any
other cheek to turn.

It had just simply
been beat off.

I think that they said that Robinson
died from diabetes and other things.

I think he died from
the load he carried.

He was literally
re-framed into a Tannerer.

knew nothing but him showing up.

Las Vegas has played
for so many years a world

outside of my overwhelm
that I don't know of.

Or a littleди who got stuck
in a cat房 Death and life.

Jack, as a figure in history,
was a rock in the water,

creating concentric circles
and ripples of new possibility.

He was medicine.

He was immunized by God from
catching the diseases that he fought.

The Lord's arms of protection enabled
him to go through dangers seen and unseen,

and he had the capacity
to wear glory with grace.

Jack's body was a temple of
God, an instrument of peace.

We would watch him disappear into
nothingness and stand back as spectators

and watch the
suffering from afar.

The mercy of God intercepted this process
Tuesday and permitted him to steal away

home where referees
are out of place and only

the supreme judge
of the universe speaks.

At the funeral, Jesse
Jackson did the eulogy and

he said, Jackie Robinson
stole home and he's safe.

And that, even now,
is very important to me.

Roger Kahn and his family
came to visit me a week after Jack

died and they had a blow-up
of Jack sliding into home base.

And when you're looking for simple
ways to deal with the grief, the deep,

deep grief and mourning
that you're feeling,

you can catch on
to a thing like that.

And somehow it is part of
baseball, too, that you make the...

Giamatti said it best,
you make the trip

around the bases and
somehow you land at home.

And home has so many meanings and
so many meanings for people like us who...

for whom family and home were
the central bases of our operation.

I mean, we were family
people, people who always had

a home and we always could
come home and you got...

It was a retreat from a world that
can lay a lot of heavy things on you.

So I carried that blow-up
from room to room for weeks

just because, looking
at it, I knew he was safe.

Nobody could hurt him again.

He wouldn't hear
the name calling.

He would only hear the cheers.

And somehow I could
fantasize my own little story about

where he was and how he was
doing and let him rest in peace.

He was buried a few
miles from Ebbets Field.

In 1973, a period of Watergate turmoil
in Washington, in October, the Reds were

playing the Mets in the National League
Championship Series, and Potter Stewart

was hearing, I won't quite say listening
to, oral arguments in the Supreme Court.

And he had a law clerk feeding him
information on what was going on elsewhere.

And at one point, the clerk
handed him a slip of paper and

on it it said, Crane Poole
flies to right, Agnew resigns.

Poole says on a police radio, I'm not
sure who I was, I just wanted to know,

if you were a person that was
good at archery, what did you do?

This is the third time
I've heard this word.

And I'll tell you what I know.

He and I have never been
friends, He's always been my friend.

Once upon a time,

In the early 1970s, Major
League owners would

do anything to pull
fans into the ballpark.

Mascots, exploding scoreboards,
disco demolitions, players in shorts,

and endless promotions.

Baseballs, T-shirts, caps,
bats, hot pants, and live both-on.

One of the most flamboyant
owners was Charles O.

Finley of the Oakland Athletics.

He was an old-fashioned autocratic
entrepreneur with revolutionary ideas.

To boost the sagging fortunes of his team,
he hired an astrologer, devised garish

double-knit uniforms, even
experimented with a bright orange ball.

To attract younger fans,
Finley paid his players

bonuses to grow out their
hair and beards and mustaches.

They were certainly the most

distinctive-looking
team in the early 1970s.

And for three years in a row, 1972, 73, and
74, they were the best team in baseball.

They had three key players.

Joe Rudy.

Burt Campaneras.

And Reggie Jackson.

And three superb pitchers.

Vida Blue.

Raleigh Fingers.

And Jim Hunter.

A North Carolina farmer whom Finley dubbed
Catfish because he thought a country-fied

nickname would add
to his box office appeal.

Jim Hunter didn't need it.

I loved the way he pitched.

Nobody worked the corners
the way Catfish Hunter did.

He would start inside and
outside and up and down.

If the umpire was
giving him the call, then

he would widen the
plate and widen the plate.

The plate was 17 inches wide, and the
batters used to say that by the end of the

game, he was throwing
to a 22-inch-wide plate.

I remember Catfish Hunter losing a
World Series game after he'd won a lot.

There's a long
drive to the right.

Paul L.

Washington can't get that one.

It is gone.

And the reporters rushed
over, thinking they'd

find him pressed
for all on the balloon.

He was violent.

And he was just the
same as he'd been before.

And he finally said, well,
he said, the sun don't

shine on the same
dog's ass every afternoon.

But even Finley's championship
A's couldn't draw a million fans a year.

All across the American
League, attendance figures

lagged behind the
harder-hitting National League.

In 1973, to remedy that
imbalance, Finley and other

owners pressured the American
League to try an experiment.

The designated hitter.

Which allowed a better-hitting
player to bat for the

pitcher without removing
that pitcher from the game.

Everybody adopted
the designated hitter.

Everybody.

But the oldest organization
in professional baseball.

The National League.

From then on, the national pastime
would be played under two sets of rules.

I remember 1972 before
Bowie Kuhn and Charles

Finley took the bat out
of my hand for good.

And didn't allow me to hit.

Lulich had me 0-2 and
I moved up on the box.

You know, to take
away his curveball.

And I knew freehand
saw me do it.

So Lulich tried to bust me inside
with a fastball or so I was guessing.

And he did.

And I hit a line shot to right.

To right field.

And Al Kaline, who was the
ancient mariner of their ball club.

He had pigeon shit on his shoulders
because he was already a statue.

He came in.

The ball went under his glove.

And I rounded first.

Rounded second.

I came around third.

And it would have been an
inside the park home run for sure.

But I had never
been there before.

And I'm looking for Popowski.

And people know the Red Sox.

Popowski is only 3'6".

And I couldn't pick
him up in the crowd.

But he was way down
the line waving me home.

And I came around third
and I couldn't pick him up.

And I slowed up.

And finally he held me up.

Or I would have had an
inside the park home run.

That was my last at bat
in a Red Sox uniform.

There was a time, according to Jim Lefevre,
when he was playing with the Dodgers.

And they had the great pitching
staff, particularly Koufax and Drysdale.

And they were sitting
around early in the

season going down the
whole National League.

And they were trying to figure
out how to pitch to these guys.

And they'd say, Banks
will pitch to Banks this way.

And Mays pitched
to him that way.

Eddie Matthews, low and away.

They finally came and
someone said, Henry Aaron.

Dead silence in the
Dodgers clubhouse.

And finally a voice
piped up and said, make

sure there's no one
on when he hits it out.

On the 11th, Logan on base.

Hank Aaron steps in against the third
Cardinal pitcher of the game, Billy Muffet.

Here it comes.

And there it goes.

Cameron Hank hits a home run.

And this one is special.

The Braves hit it.

Finch the pennant.

They came close before.

But this is it.

They're still doing it.

For twenty years, Henry Louis Aaron
had been the quietest of superstars.

Self assured.

Utterly reliable.

Intensely private.

Born in Mobile, Alabama.

Seasoned in the Negro Leagues.

He played brilliantly
for the Braves.

First in Milwaukee
and then in Atlanta.

But as the 1973 season drew to a close,
he was suddenly the focus of even more

attention than Roger Maris
had endured 12 years earlier.

He was just 15 home runs short of
Babe Ruth's lifetime record of 714.

300 writers, who had largely ignored him
till now, began traveling with the team,

determined to be on hand
when he broke the record.

But at season's end, his total was
still one short of tying Ruth's mark.

The pressure from the media and
the fans continued all winter long.

I was a prisoner in my
own apartment, he said.

I lived like an outcast
in my own country.

At one point, he was receiving 3,000
letters a day, most of them unsigned.

Dear Hank Aaron, with
all that fortune and all

that fame, you're a
stinkin' nigger just the same.

Dear nigger, you black animal.

I hope you never
live long enough.

You'll have to hit more home
runs than the great Babe Ruth.

Things happened to me
all through the three years

that I kind of erased out
of my mind, you know.

I got threatening letters about
kidnapping and things like this.

Vicious and racist letters.

I went to play in baseball
parks like Chicago,

Cincinnati, all these
ballparks I played in.

I had to slip out of the back of the
ballpark with escorts and things like this.

It was terrible, terrible.

It was bad times for me.

I don't want them to forget
Ruth, Hank Aaron said.

I just want them to remember me.

On opening day 1974,
the Braves played the Reds.

Four days later, on Monday
night, April 8th, at home in Atlanta,

Aaron faced Al Downing
of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

His mother and father were
watching from the stands.

Henry

Aaron in the second
inning walks and scores.

He's sitting on 7-14.

Here's the pitch by Downing.

Swing and... Like

I had the world was
lifted off of my shoulders.

It was done, over with,
and I felt like no matter

what people thought
about it, it was my record.

In the decades to come, the
memory of the scene might blur.

But the memory of the sound will
remain with everyone who was there.

Not the sound of the
cheers or the sound of Henry

Aaron saying, I'm
thankful to God it's all over.

But the sound of Henry Aaron's
bat when he hit the baseball tonight.

At home plate, surrounded by an ovation
that came down around him as if it were a

waterfall of appreciation,
he was met by his teammates

who attempted to lift
him out of their shoulders.

But he slipped off
into the arms of his

father, Herbert Sr.,
and his mother, Estella.

I never knew, Aaron would say
later, that my mother could hug so tight.

New York Times.

Henry Aaron was the last Negro
leaguer still playing in the majors.

When he finally left the game,
he had hit 755 home runs.

It had a terrible sag in
popularity for a while.

No one was particularly
interested in it.

But it is, I think, the deepest
part of the American psyche

and that's why it's always
been, you know, our great game.

Pastime is a funny word for it.

It's not a pastime.

It has to do with the
spirit of the people.

Sports writers called
manager Sparky

Anderson's Cincinnati
Reds the Big Red Machine.

And in 1975, they more
than lived up to their billing.

Rolling past their nearest Western
Division competitors by 20 games.

Then beating Pittsburgh in three
playoff games to win the pennant.

It was an extraordinary team.

And its spirit was best captured by
the third baseman, Pete Rose, who said,

I'd walk through hell in a
gasoline suit just to play baseball.

Like Ty Cobb of an
earlier time, Rose played

with a ferocity unmatched
by anyone in the game.

He stretched doubles into triples, singles
into doubles, roundouts into singles.

Baseball is a hard
game, he said.

Love it hard and it
will love you back hard.

Try to play it easy and the
first thing you know, there you

are on the outside looking in,
wondering what went wrong.

It was that kind of obsession
that made him great.

He wasn't a man of great
physical gifts and talents.

He did it by
concentrate, by will.

He willed himself
to be a great man.

But it was this concentration
and focus that made him

vulnerable to temptations
and, in the end, disgrace.

Cincinnati would face Boston
in the World Series that year.

The Red Sox, led by manager Daryl Johnson,
had been almost as formidable as the Reds,

seizing first place in
the Eastern Division in

early June and never
relinquishing it thereafter.

Then, taking just three games to
crush the Oakland A's in the playoffs.

Give me your heart.

Give me your heart.

I'm not feeling to prove myself.

They were led by the
veteran Carl Yastrzemski.

A remarkable outfield of Fred
Lynn, Jim Rice and Dwight Evans.

And two pitching stars
unlike any other in baseball.

Bill Lee, a junk ball
pitcher called the Spaceman

because of his unusual views
on baseball and the cosmos.

And Louis Thiarp, the Cuban-born
son of a former Negro League star.

Who had the most
distinctive wind-up in baseball.

At the heart of their team was a dignified
battle-scarred catcher from Charlestown,

New Hampshire, Carlton Fisk.

I think of him as a Roman.

I think of him wearing a toga.

He walks in a classical manner.

He is always upright.

There's something
Doric about him.

We've learned his
wonderful mannerisms.

And when he stands in to bat, there's
that last moment when he looks at the bat,

he looks at the wood
in the bat as if examining

it for termites or
something like that.

And these mannerisms
are going on year after year.

And he really has been noble.

He's lasted so well and
played so well for so long.

Cincinnati had not won a
World Series for 35 years.

Boston had not won one
for more than half a century.

And he's still a champion.

The first time I went to
Fenway Park, I had the

feeling that I was
inside a pinball machine.

And the ball that was hit acted like
it was bouncing over the cushions.

And it reminded me a
great deal of Ebbets Field.

Fenway's difficult to get to.

There's no lavish parking.

They've run out of real estate.

It is what it is and where it
is and no more and no less.

And the fans are
close enough to relate.

And the team means
everything to them.

The team represents everything that
those people want to have represented.

And so when the Red Sox win,
all of New England feels better.

In the first game at Fenway, Louis Theon
surprised everyone by shutting down the

Big Red machine,
pitching the first complete

game in a World
Series in four years.

And in the seventh inning, not
having been at bat once all year,

he started the rally that
would propel his team to victory.

Look at that pitch.

That pitch changed
time zones coming up.

It was so slow.

Despite the masterful
pitching of Louis Theon and

Bill Lee, the Reds won
three of the next four games.

Cincinnati now led the
series three games to two.

The sixth game to be
played in Fenway Park

was delayed three days
by a cold autumn rain.

Boston had to
win it to stay alive.

Game six still is the greatest baseball
game ever played in the World Series.

There's no doubt about it.

All the way through,
it kept astounding.

He said, it can't happen.

It can't be any more like this.

It was October 21st, 1975.

Again, Louis Theon
pitched for Boston.

Gary Nolan was on
the mound for Cincinnati.

In the bottom of the
first with two men on for

Boston, Nolan faced
center fielder Fred Lynn.

It was three to nothing, Boston.

Theon was superb
through four innings.

But in the top of the fifth,
Cincinnati fought back.

And there's a
line drive left field.

Yastrzemski going back
will play it off the wall.

The Reds tied it up.

In the top of the seventh, the
Big Red machine surged ahead.

Straight away center field.

Lynn is going back, back, back.

In the eighth, Cesar Geronimo
seemed to put the game out of reach.

And Cincinnati
getting a little bit closer.

Their last World
Championship was in 1940.

Good one.

Bottom of the eighth.

Cincinnati was only six outs
away from winning the World Series.

More bone again.

And the Red Sox refused to give up
as the Reds did not give up in game two.

They staged some
dramatic rallies.

And I'm not surprised at
what they're doing here.

With two outs and two men on, a
Boston pinch hitter named Bernie Carbo,

who had once played
for the Reds, came to bat.

Bernie Carbo, a pinch hitter.

And Carbo, I remember,
looked so overmatched.

As he was up at the plate for the
first two pitches, he looked just terrible.

Carbo, a little bit
late on the swing.

2-2 pitch.

Just did get a piece
of it to stay alive.

You talk about
fighting off a good pitch.

Looked like he hit that
out of the catcher's glove.

He did.

The pitch.

Carbo hits a high drive.

Deep center.

Way back.

I remember the
darkness of the stands.

And the movement in
the darkness of the stands.

This enormous noise came.

And the game was tied.

That was a blast up in
the centerfield bleachers.

It came with two outs.

And the Red Sox
have tied it 6-6.

The game was tied.

And it stayed that way through
the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh.

Griffey and
Geronimo are shallow.

Kyle

Foster made the
catch in foul territory.

Well hit right field.

Pete

Rose came up to bat in
the tenth or eleventh inning.

And players never do
this, do you understand?

Players never think
about games like this.

And he turned to Carlton Fisk and he
said, this is some kind of game, ain't it?

Carlton Fisk was the leadoff batter
in the bottom of the twelfth inning.

Game tied 6-6.

Darcy pitching.

Fisk takes high and inside.

Ball one.

Freddie Lynn on deck.

There have been numerous
heroics tonight, both sides.

The 1-0 delivery to Fisk.

He swings.

Long drive.

Left field.

If it stays there, it's gone.

Home run.

The series is tied.

Three games apiece.

Well,

Fisk did a 1-0 pitch.

What good...

When Carlton Fisk stood up, I just
had this feeling inside, just as I had felt

once before with the Brooklyn Dodgers,
that something good was going to happen.

Usually I feel terrible things are going to
happen, but never could I have imagined

that sight of his not only
hitting the ball, but willing it fair.

I think what it represented was just all
of us wish we could control our destinies

in a way that we can't usually.

And the way the whole ballpark was moving
with Fisk to will that ball instead of

being foul-fair was as if you really could
make spiritual, magical things happen.

And it happened.

And it was great.

We will have a seventh
game in the 1975 World Series.

The organist at Fenway Park
broke into the Hallelujah Chorus.

And at 12.34 a.m., church bells
rang out all across New England.

That game was
like a Russian novel.

It had character development.

It had history behind it.

It had plot moving forward.

It had twists near the end.

And then the spectacular,
spectacular conclusion.

And the seventh game, which people
underrate, which was decided in the ninth

inning, was the exquisite
literary denouement for it.

Game seven.

Seventy-five million people
were watching on television, more

than had seen any other
sporting events in American history.

They interviewed Sparky Anderson,
and he says, no matter what the outcome of

this game is, my starting pitcher
is going to the Hall of Fame.

And I said, no matter
what the outcome of

this game is, I'm going
to the Elliott Lounge.

Bill Lee held the Reds
scoreless for five innings,

while his teammates ran
up a three to nothing lead.

But then, Cincinnati came alive.

With

two outs in the bottom of the ninth,
and the Reds leading four to three,

Carl Yastrzemski was
the last Boston Battle.

Boston would have to wait.

The 1975 season gave
baseball a galvanic moment that I

believe changed much of the
nation's attitude toward baseball.

It seemed that we all stayed up all
night long to see the conclusion of that.

And it's from that moment that I date
the resurgence of interest in baseball.

It came to establish all sorts
of new records in attendance

and viewership and every other
measure that one could have.

We are progressing
in this country.

Baseball had a lot to do, really, with
the change in the attitudes of people

in the United States.

We've got some people that's still going
the wrong way, but one thing about it is,

we've got more good
ones than bad ones.

And...

and sports had a
lot to do with that.

Sports had a lot
to do with that.

It changed my life.

It changed a lot
of people's life.

In 1975, three years after Jackie Robinson
had died, Frank Robinson, the only man

ever to win the most
valuable player award in both

leagues, became manager
of the Cleveland Indians.

Though there had been dozens of
men, like Rube Foster and Buck O'Neal,

running Negro League clubs
who were more than qualified,

Robinson was the first
black manager in the majors.

If I had one wish that could be answered
right today, that is the one wish I would

have, that Jackie Robinson could be
here to see this happen, this moment.

It would be six more
years before the National

League finally signed
its first black manager.

In 1981, the San Francisco
Giants hired Frank Robinson.

Black people feel as though everything
they're going to try to have to do in

baseball is replicating
Jackie Robinson all over again.

Black people were aware
when they had baseball teams

that they ran the teams,
and this is important.

So black people have a certain
sense of management in baseball.

A certain historical and
cultural memory of management

in baseball that they do
not have with other sports.

Because at one time, black
people did run teams, and

they feel as though they're
capable of running teams.

Clearly, to the owners, the
enemy is not the players, whom

the owners regard merely
as ingrates, misled ingrates.

The enemy is Marvin
Miller, General of the Union.

The showdown is with him.

It's not over a few more
thousand dollars, not the few

thousand demanded for
some obscure pension inflation.

It is over the principle of who
will run their baseball business.

They, the Lords,
or this man, Miller?

Dick Young.

Back in 1973, Marvin Miller
and the Players Association

had maneuvered the owners
into agreeing to impartial bonds.

A binding arbitration
of salary disputes.

Now, in 1975, after ten
years of battling with the

owners, Miller was ready to
take on the reserve clause.

From the beginning, I had felt that the
contract which the owners had drawn up

with the players simply gave the owners
the right to extend the contract for one

additional year when the player and
owner could not agree on a new contract.

The owners had interpreted
this to mean an extension

right that went for
the life of the player.

And I could not read
that into that contract.

So what we needed,
obviously, were two things.

First, we needed a grievance and
arbitration procedure under which

differences in interpretation
would go before

somebody impartial and
not the owner's commissioner.

Secondly, we needed a test case.

Messerschmitt and
McNally provided that.

In 1975, two first-rate pitchers, Dave
McNally of the Montreal Expos and

Andy Messerschmitt of the Los Angeles
Dodgers, agreed to play one year without

contracts, declared
themselves free agents, then filed

for a hearing before a new
three-man arbitration panel.

Marvin Miller voted
for the players.

John Garron, representing Major
League Baseball, voted against them.

The third man was a professional
arbitrator named Peter Seitz.

He was convinced the players
were right and begged the

owners to come up with a
new and equitable contract.

They refused.

On December 23, 1975,
Seitz voted with the players.

The owners were too
stubborn and stupid, he said.

They were like the French
barons of the 12th century.

They had accumulated so much
power, they wouldn't share it with anybody.

The owners, claiming this would bankrupt
baseball, fired Seitz the next day and

went to court to have
the decision overturned.

This time, they failed.

The arbitration was binding.

The reserve clause was dead.

When the arbitrator finally agreed with
the union that an owner could only control

a player for one year, the time had
come to negotiate a whole new system.

And the owners panicked.

They could not picture
living under a system in

which every player would
be a free agent every year.

Miller shrewdly offered the owners what
seemed on the surface a compromise.

Players would not be eligible for free
agency until they had played six years.

The owners gratefully agreed.

At least they could still control
their most valuable assets for a time.

But baseball would
never be the same again.

The law of supply and
demand now favored the players.

After the Seitz decision, after the
reserve clause was dead, the ball players

were thus free to do whatever they
wished, to sign with any club they wanted.

But Marvin Miller, running the players'
union, was much smarter than that.

He knew that if you had
all the players available,

that there was enough
supply to meet demand.

Whereas if you controlled
the supply, where there was a

trickle of free agents every
year, they would do much better.

And even though the arbitrator's decision
gave the players the right to be free

agents every year, we felt that it was in
the interest of the game and the players

that that supply of free
agents not be so great every

year, and that there be
an eligibility requirement.

The explosion of baseball
salaries is the result

of two things coming
to baseball rather late.

Two very important things.

Two very American things.

Freedom and prosperity.

Freedom.

Baseball players are virtually the last
American worker group that got the right

to negotiate with their employers for
their salaries by breaking up the reserve

clause and getting
arbitration and free agency.

Wealth.

Baseball is enormously popular.

55, 56 million people pay to
get into ballparks every year.

Not one of them buys
a ticket to see an owner.

I happen to be a
semi-Marxist in this field.

I believe in the
labor theory of value.

The players are the labor.

They create the economic value.

They ought to get the
lion's share of the rewards.

Aren't you supposed to get as
much as you can in our society?

If you earn big dough for management,
you earn tremendous dough for management,

isn't that what
capitalism is all about?

Aren't you supposed to get that?

So why do we blame the
guy for being a capitalist?

You want to be a commie?

It was the Emancipation
Proclamation of baseball.

When the reserve clause was overturned,
this allowed the owners from signing

perpetual one-year contracts
to ballplayers, thereby

keeping them in the
organization for eternity.

So basically, it allowed
us to go from plantation to

plantation based on the highest
bid of the plantation owner.

And the owners got very upset about
that because it inflated salaries, and then

ticket prices went up, and
television revenue went

up, and they found out they
were making more money.

And they found out, wow,
we had a $1.5 million franchise.

Now we have a
$150 million franchise.

So they made money,
the players made money.

The only people that got hurt were the
American public, the fans, the integrity

of baseball, and
eventually the planet Earth.

In 1973, a shipbuilder from
Cleveland named George M.

Steinbrenner III bought the
once-mighty New York Yankees from CBS.

He vowed not to interfere with his team,
and then could not keep his hands off it.

He was the first owner to embrace free
agency, stunning the baseball world by

paying big money for big
players, like Catfish Hunter.

By 1976, he had bought
himself a pennant winner, former

Yankee second baseman.

He was best remembered for
his belligerence on and off the field.

Casey Stengel's
protege, Billy Martin.

Billy Martin proved what a
powerful strategic tool paranoia is.

He believed that everyone was against
him, and so he spent every waking moment

figuring out how imaginary enemies
could be defeated in their nefarious plots.

And sometimes he not only defended,
created strategies to defend against

things that would never be done against
him, but realized that those attacks were

in themselves novel, and
he would then try those

attacks that he had already
dreamed up a defense for.

That's why he was so wonderful at suicide
bunts and double steals, and any way that

you could humiliate or
psychologically defeat the other

team, he was sure that's
how the world reacted to him.

He was sure the world hated him.

And so he turned that
really raw, frightening

paranoia into wonderful
strategic intelligence.

The Yankees lost the
1976 series to Cincinnati.

But won the championship
from Los Angeles the next year.

Powered by a
quartet of sluggers.

Chris Chambliss.

Greg Nettles.

Thurman Munson.

And the flamboyant former
Oakland star who cheerfully

called himself the
straw that stirs the drink.

Reggie Jackson's late season performance
as Mr. October, that's really deserved.

No one brought a greater intensity
to significant games than Reggie.

I kept thinking he was not
going to be able to do it again.

But he almost never failed.

1877 World Series.

He hit three home runs
on three consecutive

swings of his bat off
three different pitchers.

Something no other
player has ever done.

Baseball has not seen such a
brass self-promoter since Dizzy Dean.

I didn't come to New York
to be a star, Jackson said.

I brought my star with me.

You would walk past Reggie before a
game and there would be a crowd of writers

around him and he would
be talking religious terms.

His voice would
be like a preacher.

And then you'd come
back five minutes later

and he would be talking
to a different person.

And he would be saying, I get to
have the same figures that Lee May has,

but I get all this money because
I put the asses in the seats.

The same man, two minutes later.

Will you pray the day
before the playoffs?

Well, I'll pray every day.

I try to talk to God through
Jesus Christ every day.

And I will pray during
the National Anthem,

which is my period of
meditation for praying.

If you stick around the game,
you listen to an old veteran

like me, I'll show you
how to talk on the air, boy.

Talk in the air?

Yeah.

Talk, you know, to TV.

TV.

No, really.

TV, cameras and
going on, shit like that.

Huh?

I'm telling you, man.

I'll show you how to
make a living with this stuff.

I'll show you how to have the
people eating right out of here.

Two outs and two on.

The Red Sox lead at 2-0 in the
seventh inning here at Fenway.

Deep to left.

Yastrzewski will not get it.

It's over!

In 1978, Steinbrenner's Yankees came from
14 games behind and then beat the Red Sox

in a dramatic and for
Boston fans excruciating

one-game playoff to
win the division title.

It was the greatest comeback
in American League history.

And a happy Bucky Dead.

New York then took the
World Series from the Dodgers.

But Steinbrenner
was not satisfied.

He continued to
tinker with the Dodgers.

And his team.

The following year,
they dropped to fourth.

For the next 15 years, despite his
frantic efforts to turn things around,

the Yankees, the
winningest team in baseball

history, could not
win the World Series.

Steinbrenner did something
no one thought possible.

And that is wreck the
Yankees franchise.

It's astonishing.

They have a wonderful tradition.

Terrific farm system.

The largest market.

A cash flow that you would think finance
excellence, even if you weren't real smart.

He took all those advantages
and wrecked the franchise.

He feuded with his best players.

Was quick to cast them off when
they didn't perform to his expectations.

And interfered constantly
with his managers.

During his first
17 years as chief

executive, he replaced
his managers 17 times.

Billy Martin alone was hired
and fired five different times.

George Steinbrenner became
the most hated man in baseball

since Walter O'Malley moved
the Dodgers to Los Angeles.

Like many people, he fooled himself
that he could arrange for success.

He could guarantee it.

And when that didn't happen, he
really lost track of the whole thing.

He didn't really want like his
ball players play the games.

He didn't want to put them out on the
field and wait and see what happens.

He wanted to impose his will.

And in doing that, he got
between us and the players.

I always had the feeling at the Yankee
stadium that he was standing out in front

of me and I looked at George Steinbrenner
and I wanted to see the Yankees instead.

Music Music Music

Music Music

Throughout the 1970s,
the Pittsburgh Pirates

were a perennial
National League power.

They had been the first club in Major
League history to field an all-black and

Hispanic team, and they saw their
team as a tight, close-knit family.

In 1979, with a disco beat of We Are
Family, they won the pennant, and in the

World Series, again faced their old rivals
from 1971, Earl Weaver's Baltimore Orioles.

I think that the personalities of the two
teams were so clear, and there were so

many enjoyable and wonderful people on
both sides, that I think we all got caught

up in that, and the two teams
sort of got caught up in each other.

In the first four games,
Baltimore ran up what

seemed an insurmountable
lead of three games to one.

But the Pirates
refused to surrender.

Their leader was the 38-year-old veteran
Willie Stargell, a devastating power

hitter and the league's
most valuable player.

He had done all he could to fill the void
left by the death of Roberto Clemente.

His teammates called him Pops.

And the center of it
all was Willie Stargell,

and they all said that
Pops keeps us together.

Pops makes it all work.

Willie Stargell really
was a good man.

All the hopes that we direct toward
other ballplayers came true in his case.

I remember the 1971 World Series,
where those two teams, same two teams that

played seven games, and Stargell was a
great player that year, and the leader had

led the league in runs batted in and
did almost nothing in the World Series.

He popped up, struck
out, same in the playoffs.

And he never complained.

He never said anything.

He walked back.

He never threw his bat down.

And I went up to him
after the series and

near the end and I said,
how can you do this?

You must be dying.

And his little son, Wilbur Junior, Wilbur
Stargell Junior, was playing in the locker.

And Willie made a gesture
toward him and he said,

the time comes when a
man really has to be a man.

It just came out
of him like that.

And that's the
kind of man he was.

This time in the 1979 series, Stargell
did not disappoint, hitting an even 400,

setting a series record with seven
extra base hits, including three home runs.

His last one in the seventh
game put the Pirates up for good.

It was only the fourth
time in series history

that a team had come
from so far behind to win.

There's so much about
the game that is appealing.

But I think in the end,
the thing that appealed

to me most was the fact
that it rewarded merit.

That there is a
justice to the game.

That if you score, it
goes up on the board.

And if I score more than
you, you lose and I win.

That and the idea that we
do it together, community.

If only life were that easy.

That whenever we learn to cooperate
with one another and did the right thing,

we won.

That's what baseball is.

What made baseball so special
for me as a young child and what

I wanted to give to my children
was a sense of continuity.

A sense that the players that you
cared about would be back the next year.

And they were part of
your family and you knew

their strengths and you
knew their weaknesses.

You even knew how
they stood at the plate.

I mean, I used to know how
Carlton Fisk was going to go

through all these crazy
maneuvers before he hit the ball.

And I used to know the spot on the
left field wall that he would always hit.

Or I knew the way
Burleson would get a double.

And when the free agency came
along, and not only that, but the quest for

money, the greed, the desire to go where
the highest amount of money is rather than

the place that loves you,
and teams not valuing

loyalty either, that
continuity is gone.

In 1980, Carlton Fisk, unable to
come to terms with the Boston Red Sox,

left the team he had followed all his life
and signed with the Chicago White Sox.

Pete Rose, Cincinnati's hometown
hero, became a million-dollar free agent,

left the Reds, and then
helped drive the Philadelphia

Phillies to their first
world championship.

That same year, Nolan Ryan, who had struck
out more batters in a single season than

anyone in baseball history,
became a free agent, too.

And returned home to the state of Texas,
first with the Astros, and then with the

Rangers, where he continued to
throw no-hitters and strike men out.

There was a period when ballplayers
were heroes, maybe for a hundred years.

And then there was a period
when there was a lot of...

knocking down of heroes,
of diminishing them.

I hope we're reaching a period where we
don't look up to the ballplayer or down at

the ballplayer, but try to look at
him levelly and see his gifts and his

determination and his
craftsmanship as heroic.

But at the personal level, don't
demand more of him than we

do of people in our own
family, ourselves, or our friends.

On September 11, 1985, 44-year-old
Pete Rose, now back with Cincinnati and

managing as well as
playing, got still another single

and overcame Ty Cobb's
lifetime record of 4,191 hits.

For a public tired of
reading about the business of

baseball, Pete Rose's triumph
came not a moment too soon.

But that very afternoon, Rose's teammate,
Dave Parker, had testified in federal

district court about
rampant drug use in baseball.

And he was immune.

Steve Howe.

Haskell Perez.

Ron LaFleur.

Keith Hernandez.

Tim Raines of the Montreal
Expos used to slide head first.

In an effort to help restore
the image of the game, Major

League Baseball hired the
president of Yale University, A.

Bartlett Giamatti, a respected
Renaissance scholar, and rabid Red Sox fan,

to run the National League.

Giamatti liked to say that baseball
was designed to break your heart.

I fortunately have the objective
perspective of a Yankee fan, and therefore

I have come to understand Boston
pain in a way, but it's different.

There are kinds of pain.

There's Chicago Cubs pain,
which is never getting there at all.

Boston Red Sox
pain is very special.

Boston Red Sox pain means getting to the
very last inch, again and again and again,

and then missing
it by that little hair.

It's 1946 when Slaughter
scores from first on a single.

It's 1948 when there should
have been a Subway Series here

in Boston, but they lost a
one-game playoff to Cleveland.

It's the year of the impossible dream,
1967, when they get into the seventh game

of the World Series, and nobody could beat
Bob Gibson, not Lon Borg on two days rest.

It's 1975 when, after winning the greatest
game in the history of baseball in the

history of baseball, it's Warren
Calton Fisk's home run in the 12th.

They blow it in the seventh
game of the World Series.

It's 1978 when Bucky Dent,
of all people, hits a home run

and wins the game for my
guys in a single-game playoff.

And it's 1986, quintessentially, of
course, when the ball goes through Mr.

Buckner's legs, though
one shouldn't blame him

because that was the
end of a lot of disasters.

It just goes on and on and on, the
last inch and never consummation.

The Red Sox are an opera.

The Red Sox are...

How?

Why?

The Red Sox have you looking up
toward the heavens for an explanation.

And, of course, the Red
Sox do this in New England,

which is a hotbed of
American literary culture.

So they get written
about two deaths.

And there's a constant tendency to
make baseball into a metaphor for this and

that, why baseball reminds me of life,
death, Federal Reserve Board, whatever.

And all those writers up there,
they may have started neurotic,

but they certainly were made more so by
the Red Sox, particularly because the Red

Sox locate their downfall in the original
sin of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

First of all, they have to dig up the body
of Babe Ruth, they have to transport it

back to Fenway, and they have to publicly
apologize for sending him to New York.

He was a happy pig
farmer in Sudbury.

They send him to New
York, and he becomes an

alcoholic, and the guy's
at a very premature age.

And even though he was a
great home run hitter, he was

the great consummate
pitcher and hitter for Boston.

And it just keeps going and going and
going, and it all goes back to Babe Ruth.

In 1986, the Red Sox were in the World
Series again, facing the New York Mets.

It was the first time a team from Boston
had played a team from New York in the

series since 1912, when
Fred Snodgrass's fielding

error had given the
championship to the Red Sox.

The Red Sox took the first two games
in New York, lost the next two in Boston,

then won the fifth.

They needed just one more win to clinch
their first world championship since 1918.

In game six at Shea
Stadium, the two teams fought

through the ninth, with
the score tied three to three.

NBC had the World
Series in 1986.

It was my job to be in the Red
Sox clubhouse after the sixth game.

I went down at the
end of the eighth inning.

The score was tied, but
I knew I had to be there

quickly in case the game
should suddenly end.

So I watched the last couple of innings
from the corner of the Red Sox dugout.

Aguilera brings it
in to Henderson.

Swing and a long
one into left field.

I

watched Dave Henderson
hit his home run, and the

Red Sox tack on another
run in the top of the tenth.

Look at this bench.

And with the score five to three,
I went back into their clubhouse.

They had put the
cellophane over each of the

lockers in anticipation
of the champagne spray.

They had built the little podium from
which to do the post-game interviews.

The cameras and the cable and
the microphones were all in place.

The World Championship trophy was
on a stand, covered by a piece of cloth.

Frail Mrs. Yawkey had been led in there,
and she was standing next to the trophy,

along with Commissioner Uberoth.

And they were watching
with me on a little monitor as

the Mets came up to bat
in the bottom of the tenth.

Boston reliever Calvin Chiraldi
needed just three outs to win the game.

Veteran first baseman Bill Buckner,
hobbled by leg injuries all year,

was often replaced in late
innings with a younger player.

This time, manager John
McNamara kept him in the game.

I remember I was standing there thinking
to myself, this is going to be the first

ever interview in the wake
of a Red Sox championship.

There was no radio in 1918.

There was no
television, obviously.

This is the first recorded moment after the
Red Sox have won a world championship.

So I'm thinking, how
should that be summed up?

What do you say to Mrs. Yawkey?

What do you say to McNamara?

What do you say to Boggs and
Rice and Seaver and whomever else?

And Roger Clemens
hoping for that last out.

Line into left field.

Base hit for Carter.

The Mets are still alive.

Keep

Mitchell off second base.

Curve ball, and that's
going to be hit to center.

Base hit.

And now suddenly with
two out in the tenth inning,

the tying runs are aboard
and Ray Knight will be going

to be hitting to center field.

Base hit.

Here comes four

Red Sox and he wants Bob
Stanley to pitch to Mookie Wilson.

And I remember I said to the people in
the truck, who I could hear through my

earpiece, what happens
if they tie the game?

And they said, you get the hell out
of there as fast as you possibly can.

Engine mount some more.

Ring

run is at second base with tilt.

Little roller up along first.

Behind the bag.

It goes.

It was surreal.

At this point the
cellophane comes off.

They start backing
the cameras out.

I take the earpiece out of my
ear and I'm watching over my

shoulder as Wilson hits the
ground ball through Buckner's legs.

You have never seen so
much equipment and so

many people disappear
from one place so fast.

Before the Red Sox could come out of
the visitors dugout and down the tunnel and

into the room, all
traces of the preparation

for a championship
had been removed.

Picture is worth
a thousand words.

You have seen
about a million words.

But more than that, you
have seen an absolutely

bizarre finish to game six
of the 1986 World Series.

The Mets are not only
alive, they are well and

they will play the Red Sox
in game seven tomorrow.

Two days later, the Mets won
the championship eight to five.

I wouldn't even watch
the seventh game.

I knew it was over and it
didn't even matter to me.

Even if they'd won,
somehow they had lost in 86.

And my kids, however, who were then seven
and eight years old, were big fans and

they were incomprehensible
that I wasn't watching the game.

So they, of course,
were watching it.

And I let them call in to me only
when the Red Sox were winning.

Then, of course, by
the sixth inning when the

Mets caught up, they
were tied and losing.

And so I didn't hear any
more of it until the end.

When they came in
to tell me that the Red

Sox had lost, I
surprisingly started crying.

I didn't expect to because I thought I
was preventing myself from caring about it.

And these little kids said
to me, Mom, it's all right.

They'll win next year.

And I remember thinking,
oh my God, these kids

don't know yet that they
haven't won since 1918.

And I can't tell them that.

And I had this terrible feeling of wisdom
that I did not want to impart to the kids.

The moments of great personal failure,
humiliation in baseball, Merkel's boner,

Snodgrass's muff, Branca's
pitch to Bobby Thompson.

We all lose in our lives.

We are fortunate
enough not to have to lose

in front of national
television audiences.

But I think there's a moment
when the guy's a goat.

But inevitably, within a few
years, there's a rehabilitation.

And you feel sorry for him.

Bill Buckner right now, people in
Boston say, good old Bill, he did his best.

You know, they would
have killed him that day.

Well, it's nice that we're
forgiving in that fashion.

By 1987, only three blacks had
ever managed big league teams.

And only one African-American had
ever held a top-level front office job.

Of the 568 full-time scouts employed
by the major leagues, only 15 were black.

And four teams in California, the
Giants, Athletics, Angels, and Dodgers,

accounted for two-thirds
of all minority hiring.

In April, the 40th anniversary of
Jackie Robinson's major league debut,

Al Campanas, Robinson's
old teammate, appeared

on ABC's Nightline
to mark the occasion.

This is ABC News Nightline.

Reporting from
Washington, Ted Koppel.

Just tell me, why
do you think it is?

Is there still that much
prejudice in baseball today?

No, I don't believe
it's prejudice.

I truly believe that they may not
have some of the necessities to be,

let's say, a field manager or
perhaps a general manager.

Do you really believe that?

Well, I don't say that all of
them, but they certainly are short.

How many quarterbacks
do you have?

How many pitchers do
you have that are black?

Yeah, but I mean, I gotta tell you, that
sounds like the same kind of garbage

we were hearing 40 years ago
about players, when they were saying,

ah, not really cut out.

You remember the days, you know,
they hit a black football player in the

knees, and you know, that
really sounds like garbage.

I've never said that
blacks are not intelligent.

I think many of them are
highly intelligent, but they

may not have the desire
to be in the front office.

I know that they have wanted to
manage, and some of them have managed,

but they're outstanding athletes,
very God-gifted, and they're very

wonderful people, and that's
all I can tell you about them.

Al Campanis, to me, said what we knew
all along, but nobody wanted to admit,

that there were people like himself,
and he was the director of player

personnel for the Dodgers, who acted
on the assumption, on the premise,

that blacks didn't have, as he said,
the necessities to manage or to work in

the front office with any
high degree of credibility.

And the pain for me, as a long-time
baseball fan, was that it came from the

Dodgers, my team, all my life,
since I was five, six years old.

Certainly the Dodgers
wouldn't say that, or feel

that way, or act that
way, or think that way.

Campanis was
fired within 24 hours.

Commissioner Peter Ubaroth hired Harry
Edwards, a black sociologist and former

athlete, as his assistant for minority
affairs, who promptly hired Campanis back.

We are going to have to deal with the
Campanises in baseball, Edwards explained,

and it's good that I have a person
in-house who knows how they think.

A year later, when Bart Giamatti left his
post as President of the National League

to become Commissioner
of Baseball, he was replaced

by sportscaster and former
first baseman, Bill White.

Some teams did hire more African
Americans, but baseball, which had once

been ahead of the nation on
civil rights, had fallen behind again.

During the period of collusion,
there were people who disbelieved it,

even though it was as obvious
as the nose on anyone's face.

And I'd had people in
that period say to me

and write that owners
can't agree on anything.

How could they have collusion?

And everybody forgot that prior to 1947,
all of the owners colluded to make sure

that not a single non-white player
could play in the major leagues.

That was a collusion which
had existed for decades.

And the only way they could keep players
out, no matter whether they were Satchel

Paige or what have you,
superstars in their own right, the

only way they could keep them
out was a collusive conspiracy.

In 1985, Carlton Fisk,
still one of the premier

catchers in the game,
became a free agent.

He strangely received only one offer
and eventually re-signed with Chicago.

In 1987, Andre Dawson, the Montreal
Expo's star slugger, tried free agency too.

No one wanted him.

Jack Morris, the
winningest pitcher in baseball

during the 80s, filed for
free agency that same year.

He received no offers and was
forced to re-sign with the Tigers.

The owners got together in 1985 and
decided to form a conspiracy under which

they would break the free
agent market by agreeing

that no team would ever
make an offer to a free agent.

It was in violation of their
contractual commitment.

All 26 owners had signed a contract which
said, no club shall act in concert with

any other club with
respect to free agents.

And they formed a conspiracy and it
included all 26 owners, general managers,

club officials, three league
presidents, several commissioners.

All had to be involved and were involved
in violating their contractual commitment.

And it worked.

Over a period of three years,
1985, 6 and 7, and possibly into 1988,

they managed to have
an airtight conspiracy.

The union took the case to arbitrators
and after thousands of hours of testimony,

Major League Baseball
was found guilty of collusion.

The conspiracy was
broken and the owners had

to pay the players $280
million in lost wages.

Most people have not fully understood
what that collusive effort meant.

That it was an agreement
not to improve your team.

It was an agreement that no matter
how important these free agents are,

superstars available to improve your
team, to fill in holes on a team that could

otherwise be a pennant contender,
it was an agreement you will not,

under any circumstances, make an offer
to a free agent no matter how good he is.

And that is really a conspiracy
to fix the pennant race.

And I think that in terms of scandalous
proportions, that collusive conspiracy

really was far worse than what is
generally conceded to be the worst

scandal, the Black Sox
scandal, involving eight players.

This involved all 26
owners and all their officials

and not for one series but
for three consecutive years.

Even possibly four years.

In the 1988 World Series, the
Los Angeles Dodgers were the

decided underdogs against
a resurgent Oakland Athletics.

The Dodgers' best hitter, the man who
had carried them all season, Kirk Gibson,

was injured and
not expected to play.

It will be up to Davis
to extend the inning.

In the first game, in the bottom of the
ninth, with two outs and one man on,

and Oakland leading four to three,
their ace reliever Dennis Eckersley on the

mound, Dodger manager
Tommy Lasorda called to the

clubhouse to see if Gibson
could possibly pinch hit.

I'm in the corner of
the Dodger dugout

anticipating that I'll be
doing a losing interview.

I'm standing just in front
of the runway, and I can...

see Ben Hines, the Dodger
batting coach, being dispatched

by Lasorda into the
clubhouse to check on Gibson.

Then I can hear Gibson taking practice
swings with a ball being placed by a bat

boy on the tee, and
Gibson hitting into a net.

And I can hear the grunts of pain
coming from Gibson with every swing.

Thwack!

Ugh!

Thwack!

Ugh!

And I'm thinking to myself, gee, if
this guy is gonna drag himself out here

and hit, we've really
got the stuff of legend.

And Hines comes walking back, and like
in a B movie, he passes Lasorda and says,

he says he thinks he's
got one good swing in him.

And I'm thinking,
who's writing this script?

And look!

And he's staying
on an outside corner.

He's not gonna
give him a ball to pull.

With Davis, he just missed,
but here's two quick strikes,

both fastballs that kinda
tail away the outside corner.

Hasse is not even flirting
with the inside part of that play.

Sachs waiting on deck
for the game right...

The feeling not just of
exhilaration, but of utter

surprise that engulfed that
dugout when he made contact.

The looks players exchanged.

Watch Lasorda!

And then the spontaneous outpouring of
emotion and this release of tension as he

made his way around
the bases was one of the

greatest things I've
ever seen in baseball.

And now the only question
was, could he make it?

It was Gibson's only
at-bat in the series.

But the inspired Dodgers went on
to beat the stunned A's in five games.

And the sky is the limit
for baseball salaries.

The highest-paid player of the week
is now Roger Clemens of Boston.

Five years, $7.5 million.

Dwight Gooden has something
to celebrate as well after

receiving plenty of money
from the New York Mets.

In fact, the right-hander became the
highest-paid player in the big leagues

after he signed a three-year,
$6.7 million contract.

Brian Sandberg is calling
Chicago the city with big pockets.

The Cubs' great second baseman
has signed the biggest contract ever.

In baseball, he could make
about $7 million a year.

In 1869, Harry Wright, manager
and outfielder for the Cincinnati Red

Stockings, made seven times
the average working man's wage.

In 1976, 107 years
later, a ballplayer still

made just eight times
a working man's salary.

By 1994, the average
major league salary would

be nearly 50 times that
of ordinary Americans.

The big difference,
now that players get so

much, is that it has
distanced them from us.

It was a blue-collar sport, and people
in the stands could look at these people

playing ball and think
of them as workers,

because they were getting
paid workers' salaries.

And this perpetuated the illusion that with
a little luck that could be me out there.

The sense of we between fans and
players was very strong in those days,

and players stayed on a lot longer
with the team, so they were familiar as

someone, like someone who worked
in the same office with you almost.

And all that is gone.

It's quite different now.

music

1940s shoeless Joe Jackson play ball 6,000
1952 Mickey Mantle rookie 42,000 Ty Cobb's

rookie 9,000 Ted Williams
rookie 6,000 Lou Gehrig's rookie

3,000 Hannes Wagner proof the
only one in the world 75,000 music

I collected baseball cards, so I could
take all my Mickey Mantle and other

Yankees, Moose Scowron,
and I could put them on

my bike, and I could
play right down the hill.

It made me sound
like I was going faster.

The mayor goes, $5,200, $5,200
burning up down the highway.

Kids today, they go, how much
is your baseball card worth?

And I'm going, a plug
nickel, son, a plug nickel.

I'm saying, son,
be your own person.

Do not collect baseball cards.

It will be the ruination of you.

Maybe you'll learn economics a
little bit, or you'll learn what value is,

but you're being an
entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs

take something of no value
and makes money on it.

And I do not believe
in that in the kids.

I teach them right off
the bat, learn the game.

Do not look at Yuppie.

Do not look at the chicken.

Do not look at that.

Look at the ground ball.

Field it cleanly
with both hands.

Be as smooth as silk.

You know, make the
nice throw to second.

Have the nice
breaking curve ball.

Subtract on the changing.

See the ball and hit it.

Don't associate with the
other things of the game.

It will eventually bring you
down, eat you up, and spit you up.

We have these unreasonable
expectations of all baseball heroes.

We want them to be good at
life as well as good at baseball.

If you think
about it, it's unfair.

It's hard enough to expect
them to play baseball well.

I'm convinced there is the same division
in baseball that there is in life itself

of true heroes, of heroes,
of people of strong principle,

of ordinary, everyday
people, of rogues, of weaklings.

Pete Rose turned out
to be extremely fallible.

Pete Rose had played in 3,562 games,
come to bat 14,035 times, and made 4,256

hits, more than any other
man in all three categories.

He had been a hero
to two generations of

baseball fans,
Cincinnati's favorite citizen.

So popular that a member of the city
council once tried to get him declared a

civic landmark to prevent his
ever playing anywhere else.

He seemed to be a throwback to
some mythical earlier age of hit and run

hardscrabble baseball when
players played for the pure joy of it.

But Pete Rose had a
secret addiction, gambling.

Some years he lost as much as $500,000,
and some witnesses testified that he bet

on baseball games in
which his own team played.

Rose denied it.

I'd be willing to bet
you, he said, if I was a

betting man, that I
have not bet on baseball.

I said yesterday on another
network that I'm happy to

look into the camera now
and say I never bet on baseball.

And I've never been on
Cincinnati Red baseball.

His fans refused to
believe the charges.

Fooled me completely.

I saw everything
that was good in him.

He was wonderful
with common people.

He knew the first names of the
people who rolled out the tarp.

He knew little things
about little people that an

arrogant man shouldn't know
and couldn't know in a way.

On the other hand, he had
at least three major flaws.

He was an addictive gambler.

He was an addictive womanizer.

And he was absolutely a
compulsive perfectionist about work.

And all those things
got him in trouble.

In that sense, he's a tragic character
in that he's a man who has a lot of good

parts to him, but one or two or three
bad areas of his life just ruined him.

In August of 1989, after a long
investigation, the commissioner of

baseball, Bart Giamatti,
held a press conference.

The banishment for
life of Pete Rose from

baseball, is the sad
end of a sorry episode.

One of the game's greatest
players has engaged

in a variety of acts which
have stained the game.

And he must now live with
the consequences of those acts.

It will come as no surprise that like any
institution composed of human beings,

this institution will not always
fulfill its highest aspirations.

I know of no earthly
institution that does.

But this one, because it is so much a part
of our history as a people, and because it

has such a purchase on our national soul,
has an obligation to the people for whom

it's played, the fans, and the
well-wishers and the millions,

to strive for excellence in all things,
and to promote the highest ideals.

Less than two weeks after barring Rose from
baseball, Giamatti died of a heart attack.

I will continue to locate ideals I hold for
myself and my country and the national

game as well as in other
of our national institutions.

The matter of
Mr. Rose is now closed.

Let no one think that
it did not hurt baseball.

That hurt will pass, however,
as the great glory of the game

asserts itself when the
resilient institution goes forward.

If we think about the 80s, we will always
remember 1989, which was a terrible year

because it was the Pete Rose business
hung over the sport all through the summer.

It was a time that
was hard to imagine.

and came to a sad conclusion.

Immediately afterwards Bart Giamatti died
who had in a very short space of time had

really become a significant figure in
baseball and was admired and loved by

everybody in the game
to an extraordinary degree.

And then we all went out to the
World Series in San Francisco when the

earthquake hit, It seemed
to sum up the whole thing.

It was the worst baseball
year that I can remember.

And while the game's nobler parts will
always be enmeshed in the human frailties

of those who, whatever their
role, have stewardship of this game,

let there be no doubt or dissent about
our goals for baseball or our dedication to

it, nor about our vigilance and
vigor and indeed our patience

in protecting the game from
blemish or stain or disgrace.

The old game waits under the
white, deeper than frozen grass.

Down at the
frost line, it waits.

To return when the birds return.

It starts to wake in the south,
where it's never quite stopped,

where winter is a
dose of hibernation.

The game waits.

The game wakes gradually,
fathering vigor to itself

as the days lengthen late in
February and grow warmer.

Old muscles grow limber, young arms throw
strong and wild, clogged vein systems in

veteran oaks and left-fielders
both unstop themselves,

putting forth leaves and
line drives in Florida's March.

Migrating north with the swallows,
baseball and the grass is first green.

Enter Cleveland, Kansas
City, Boston, Donald Hall.

Bill

Veck once said that
baseball must be a great game

because the owners
haven't been able to kill it.

Despite baseball's troubles, the
spirit of the game asserted itself.

Baseball became more
competitive than ever.

In one 10-year period,
10 different teams won the

World Series, something that
had never happened before.

Last place teams one year made
and won the World Series the next.

And as it turns out, even
with free agency, players

stay with their teams just
as long as they always did.

In the 1991 series between Minnesota and
Atlanta, five of seven games were settled

by a single run, and four of
those came with the last at bat.

Three games went into
extra innings, and two

turned on spectacular
plays at the playoffs.

In 1992, baseball
became truly international.

The Toronto-Canada Blue
Jays won the World Series.

Their manager was
Seto Gaston, a black man.

Nothing worries me
like the future of baseball.

I'm worried about any number of
things, but this is one thing I never,

ever worry about.

When I read in the papers that escalating
salaries or gambling are going to be the

end of baseball, I love it
because I've been hearing

this or been reading
about this for 130 years.

I don't think it's...
you can't do too much.

Because we've done a whole lot of things
to hurt it, but it's a type thing that you

just... I don't care
how, but you can't kill it.

You just can't kill baseball because
when you get ready to kill baseball,

something's going to come up,
somebody's going to come up to snatch you.

After the Black Sox
scandal, here comes Ruth.

I heard Ruth hit the ball.

I'd never heard
that sound before.

And I was outside the
fence, but it was a sound of

the bat that I had never
heard before in my life.

That was Ruth hitting the ball.

And the next time I heard that sound,
I'm in Washington, D.C., I rushed out,

and there was Josh
Gibson hitting the ball.

And I heard this sound again.

Now, I didn't hear it anymore.

I'm in Kansas City.

And I heard this sound one more time
that I hadn't heard only twice in my life.

Now, you know who this is?

Bo Jackson swinging that bat.

And now I heard this sound.

It was a thrill for me.

I said, here it is again.

I heard it again.

I've only heard it
three times in my life.

But now I'm living
because I'm going to hear

it again one day, if
I live long enough.

It is played everywhere.

In parks and playgrounds
and prison yards.

In back alleys
and farmer's fields.

By small children and old men.

Raw amateurs and
millionaire professionals.

It is a leisurely game that
demands blinding speed.

The only game in which
the defense has the ball.

It follows the seasons, beginning each year
with the fond expectancy of springtime.

And ending with the
hard facts of autumn.

It is a haunted game in
which every player is measured

against the ghosts of
all who have gone before.

Most of all, it is about
time and timelessness.

Speed and grace.

Failure and loss.

Imperishable hope.

The idea that home
plate has a little roof.

A little roof, it
has a little roof.

It's a little house.

It brings us back to where we're safe and
where we care and where we're cared about.

Where we're loved.

Coming home on a baseball
diamond is pretty darn dramatic.

You feel immense relief to have
gotten out of all those hazards out there.

Between first and third
is hazardous territory.

And then third home is joy.

You're out of trouble.

You're coming back and you're
running toward the home team dugout.

You can see them
and they're all grinning.

And they're glad to see you.

And their arms are out and
you come across that thing.

It's pretty big bleak stuff.

It's passed along from
parents to children.

My father was a football fan
but my mother was a baseball fan.

So I went to ball
games with my mother.

She passed along
her sense of the game.

I'll pass it along to my son.

It is a family heirloom.

It is America's family heirloom
because it goes back so far.

But the thing that's most
important about that is...

that we respect the people of
other generations in baseball...

perhaps more than
we respect other

generations in other
fields in this country.

We've been called
a disposable society.

But we don't
dispose of Babe Ruth.

We don't dispose
of Walter Johnson.

We treat them as though they are equals...
and contemporaries though they're dead.

That's a very special
thing to hand on to children.

Baseball, because of the
sense of its continuity...

over the space of America
and the time of America...

this is a place where
memory gathers.

It's a place that
we can return to.

And it's a place that we can
even imagine existing in the future.

I think we have some hope that
baseball might look like baseball...

a hundred years from now.

The fun of recalling
something that you saw...

five days ago or five
years ago or a lifetime ago...

knowing that that's there to be plucked
back into your life... in an instant.

Oh God, that's rare.

Baseball means what those of us who
hold it in our heart... need it to mean.

It can be a game, a pastime.

Or it can be something by which
we measure the seasons of our lives.

Or it can be something
that serves metaphorically...

for the battles, the
wars, the triumphs...

and the tragedies of any
form of human conflict.

I'm content for it to be a game.

And I think that more
than anything else...

it tells me...

that there is something in
the world that I can count on...

and that's never
going to let me down.

I know so many times at the
ballpark when I'm sitting with my kids...

I look at them and
their excited faces...

and the fact that they
love baseball just like I do...

and remember the days when I was
at Ebbets Field with my own father...

who died before they even
had a chance ever to know him.

And he was the most
wonderful character.

Michael Francis Aloysius Kearns
with his optimistic view of life.

And I know that they
know him through baseball.

And sometimes when I close
my eyes it's almost as if...

he's there and not my kids.

And then it all gets
mixed up together.

If there is a magic in baseball...
I'm sure that's what it is.

The feeling of connection...

bat against ball...

ball back and forth with
your father or your brother.

The idea that you can throw a piece
of yourself out there... into the ether...

a ball into the ether...
and it comes back to you.

This is the promise of everlasting
life... that it's not going to end...

it's going to come back to you.