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Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns (1994)
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Inning 1: Our Game: 1840s-1900 - On June 19, 1846, at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, a team of well-dressed gentlemen, the Knickerbockers, play the first game of baseball.By 1856, the game is already being called "the national pastime," or simply, "Our Game." Inning 2: Something Like A War: 1900-1910 - In 1894, a sportswriter named Byron Bancroft "Ban" Johnson takes over a struggling minor league -- the Western League -- and turns it into a financial success.In 1900, he changes its name to the American League and begins talking about challenging the big city monopoly held by the National League.The revolution takes only three years.In 1903, the first World Series is played between the American League Boston Pilgrims and the National League Pittsburgh Pirates. Inning 3: The Faith Of Fifty Million People: 1910-1920 - Before and after World War I, a steady stream of immigrants lands on the shores of America.They want instantly to become American.To pursue the American dream.To play the American game.But even as thousands of new Americans pick up a ball for the first time, even as the country endures a world war, baseball is trying to endure a decade that includes the meanest, vilest, angriest player ever to step onto a field and a scandal that almost destroys the game. Inning 4: A National Heirloom: 1920-1930 - The 1920s begins with America trying to recover from World War I and baseball trying to recover from the scandal of the 1919 World Series.America finds relief in the boom market and the Jazz Age.Baseball finds its own boom market in a player with a Jazz Age personality: a troubled youth from a Baltimore reformatory school who can hit the ball farther then anyone.George Herman "Babe" Ruth is one of the best pitchers in baseball.But he loves to hit even more.In 1919, he hits 29 homers for the Red Sox, more than any player has ever hit in a single season. Inning 5: Shadow Ball: 1930-1940: - Throughout America, and even on the baseball diamonds in New York's Central Park, thousands of homeless people build shantytowns called "Hoovervilles."More than ever, America needs heroes.And even as it struggles to make it though the Depression, baseball provides them.But the heroes do not come only from the Major Leagues.The Negro Leagues bring baseball to towns the Major Leagues ignore
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