Image by Getty Images via @daylife"The Tenth Inning", Ken Burns' follow-up to his 1994 film "Baseball", ran for four hours over two nights on PBS. In all that time to cover the last two decades of the sport, he didn't touch all the bases.Just like racism was the underlying theme of the original documentary, steroids and its effects on the game served that role here. Barry Bonds, suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs while eclipsing Hank Aaron's career home run record (for which Bonds still hasn't answered that question to anyone's satisfaction), was presented by Burns as a tragic hero.
The strike of '94, Cal Ripken Jr.'s consecutive game streak, the home run chase between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (which turned out to be a mirage), 9/11, the Boston Red Sox finally winning a World Series, and the congressional steroid hearings were all adequately covered. But Burns could have added these:
- An attempt by Major League Baseball to contract teams that couldn't compete financially or on the field, in which the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos were the most likely victims. It failed, but the Expos did leave Canada in 2005 to become the Washington Nationals.
- In 1997, Major League Baseball honored the career of Jackie Robinson, its first African-American player, by retiring his number 42.
- The decline of African-Americans playing in the majors, who opted instead for the big money and instant gratification of football and basketball.
"Baseball: The Tenth Inning", for all its flaws, remains a valuable document on the history of the game. But if Ken Burns ever decides to do an "Eleventh Inning", he might want to look beyond Boston and New York for material.
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Oh, one more thing. We foresee a rematch between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies in this year's World Series.
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