America's Game

Like many American children, I first experienced the game of baseball in the backyard, playing catch with my brothers, and later honed my skills in neighborhood games where we used various objects as bases, and had no particular parameters to delineate the field otherwise. Within a short time, I graduated to the dusty little league fields, which at that time seemed like fields of dreams. The base paths were lined with a white chalk, and the bases themselves were actual bases, and not a soda can, or a spare mitt. The outfield seemed to stretch on forever to young eyes, with a distant chain-link fence providing a seemingly insurmountable barrier to achieving that coveted home run. I relished the game and the nuances that I learned from my coaches and from watching the major leaguers who played on an unfathomably grander scale than our tiny sandlots. I'm sure at one time or another as I trotted out to center field, or took the mound, or squared up beside the plate with bat in hand, I dreamed of reaching that type of stage, like most kids do. But those dreams soon faded, along with my interest in watching the games being played by professionals each night.

The years went by, and my interest was once again piqued, after the sting of the '94 strike had worn off and baseball had begun its resurgence. I think I was in college, and I came across the 9 volume set of Ken Burns' epic documentary Baseball. I had always loved film, and documentary in particular had been something that I looked at with a sense that this is something that I might want to do. Ken Burns was a name that was familiar to me at the time, having watched some of his other shorter works, I decided to give this more daunting series a try. From the first moments, as I was introduced to a history I hadn't heard before, from early players and how the game came about, to how it symbolized our nation, more than just as a sport, I found myself hooked. I think it took me all of a week to get through all 18 or so hours. I was entranced by the old photos, illustrations and films. The music and the interviews and the narration were all so richly woven together, just like a good book, I couldn't wait to get to the next episode.

It had rekindled my interest in the game of my childhood, and I have not forsaken it since. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to tell Ken Burns just that when I saw him speak at Ithaca College several years ago. Afterwards, I shook his hand and thanked him for the work that he's done to bring history alive. I suppose I've been a fan ever since. So when I heard that he was working on a new installment to the series, updating the glorious and tumultuous times of the last decade and a half, I could hardly wait to see just how he would handle the strike, steroids and the end of the Red Sox 86 year curse. It almost seems that as much has happened in the last 15 years as happened in the first 150 year history of the game.

Ken Burns is of course just one name in a long history of documentary films. But his name and his style have become synonymous with a particular aesthetic. Even people who have never seen his films know the name from the motion effect they've used in photo slide shows. He has developed a language that we now use to understand much of what we think of as historical documentary. It's more than just interviews and voiceover narration. It's carefully chosen photographs and archival film, treated with the appropriate care, mixed with new footage shot in a way that hearkens back to another era. It's a well crafted narrative, told through the words of the people who lived through these events, as well as those who have looked back to gain a greater understanding of that time. And it's also a reflection of our present in some way. It's a piece of our history that suggests something about who we are today, by looking at the roots laid down in generations past.

It's odd to think of something that happened just 5 or 10 years ago as being a part of the fabric of history. But when I think of how felt the as I watched on TV with the rest of world the night Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' single season home run record, and how differently I feel now with the perspective of more recent revelations of steroid use, I realize that this is the value of looking back. Sometimes it's hard to appreciate a good thing until it's gone. And sometimes, it takes recognizing the past in order to embrace the present. I think that's why Ken Burns' films are so powerful to me. As he has said many times, he's really making the same film over and over again. It's not about baseball or the civil war or jazz. It's about who we are as Americans and where we've come from. You don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate that. If you're still trying to figure out just what it means to be American, and you've got 20 or so hours to kill, Baseball isn't a bad place to start.