Baseball: The Tenth Inning (2010)

In 1994 Ken Burns released a 19 hour documentary about the entire history of baseball. I watched the entire thing this past summer, reviewed HERE. To my surprise he released a "10th inning" continuation to the series, originally airing on PBS the last week of September. The "Top" of the inning is a 2 hour documentary about baseball from 1992 to 1999. And the "Bottom" of the inning is an hour and a half documentary on baseball from 1999 to 2009. I will discuss them in two parts, since they are quite different in my opinion.

So the top of the inning actually features a lot of different stuff. It talks about the Latin influence on the game, the strike of 1994, and how Cal Ripken, Jr. saved the game. OK, saved the game might be a little far, how about restored America's faith in baseball. I thought the top of the tenth did a great job talking about a lot of different teams. If went into the Atlanta Brave's dominance over their division, the Marlins run from the wild card spot to the World Championship. It went into the Diamondback vs. Yankees, and had a great feel of covering the entire league's development.

The bottom of the tenth was another story. The White Sox, Phillies, and Cardinals all won World series this last decade. Rather than talk about 10 different teams winning in a 10 year span we focused on the Yankees and Red Sox. By focus I mean this was all about the Northeast, sorry midwest, have you heard of this game called baseball yet? I found it almost offensive that it had such a narrow scope. Sure there was a lot about the steroid era. A lot of time on the Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa home run race. But the focus was all on the Red Sox coming back from a 3-0 hold in the ALCS to win 8 straight to their first World Series in almost a century. I get it, it was important. I just thought that once again, just like the EASTERN sports Network [ESPN] the whole focus was on east coast sports, forgetting everyone else.

This is still very much worth watching, and something that my kids will probably enjoy 10-15 years from now when the 11th inning comes out.

Vote: 8/10

IMDB Link(s):
Top of the Inning: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1738421/
Bottom of the Inning: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1777725/

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