When It Was A Game – Baseball Documentary

When It Was A Game – Baseball Documentary

e [Music] the following is a special presentation of HBO Sports [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] baseball connects American males with each other not only through bleacher friendships and neighbor loyalties but most importantly through generations you learn your first lesson of the rainbow Arc all living makes but that baseball exaggerates for when you’re in the sixth grade The Rook has fuzz on his face and throws to the wrong base before you leave Junior High he is a season regular the body filled out his chowl ripples with tobacco when you graduate from high school he’s a grizzled veteran even if you are not certain what grizzled means in a few years the green Chute becomes the withered stalk and you learn the hill all beings travel by there was a time in baseball when there were only eight teams in each Major League they played an orderly balanced schedule visiting each City four times a trip out west meant St Louis or Chicago there was a comfortable Rhythm to the [Music] season when they referred to the Giants it was the New York Giants the Dodgers were a Brooklyn institution seemingly forever there was an American League team in St Louis and a national league one in Boston that time is gone now but it’s been said one reason baseball is so gripping to the American imagination is that certain eras inevitably evoke certain images perhaps none more so than the years from the end of the depression through World War II and into the 1950s it was a time when baseball was the focal point of sports in our society a time when baseball was still just a game a familiar game which in a changing World somehow reassured us with its return every year on the Warm Winds of spring poet Donald Hall my heart starts to sing like a bird I feel my wings stretch out and warm air coming spring is the hope of the earth and the baseball is the same hope the beginning of it it uh it’s wonderful it’s a ritual it’s it’s practically magic like an old mystery religion spring always has special meaning for the baseball romantic but for the baseball player of the 1930s 40s and 50s spring was anything but an idilic time of year in the months before the coming season a player had to prove to management that he hadn’t slowed a step over the winner in a game that didn’t pamp for its players St Louis Cardinal Ena Slaughter they gave me my cap my belt top and bottom Red Socks you bought your own sweat socks you bought your own jocket straps you bought your own sweatshirts and you had to see that they got laundry you even down had to pay for your own sandwich between double headers [Music] [Applause] every year I went to spring training they had some young Outfield hit 340 350 they were going to take my job well you know they want to get to the big leagues also somebody’s going to take my job I’m still hitting 300 driving in close to 100 runs every year and I knew I had to Bear down to hold my job and I went spring training every year thinking that I had to make my job pitcher Elden AER we had no Assurance of anything they could release us anytime they wanted to and we didn’t have much to say about it we just signed a a four page contract and everybody signed it didn’t make any difference who you were then you signed it and they could trade you they could do anything to you until you were in the major League’s 10 years you were just like a an automobile they get rid of you anytime they want and get a new [Music] one play ball G it’s a wonderful day playall let’s get the game underway with the over here where’s that Peanut Vendor and the guy with all the beer one your favorite players a bat strike you squirm and fuss with your hat and then you see and then you watch it going there go let’s get the game underway what are we waiting for it’s a wonderful day let’s the game [Applause] [Music] accuracy and speed the practiced eye and Hefty arm the mind to take in and readjust to the unexpected the possession of more than one talent and the willingness to work in harness without special orders these are the American virtues that shine in baseball it is graphic and choreographic baseball is a kind of collective Chess With Arms and legs in full play Under sunlight when the major leagues were made up of just 16 teams the game was in many ways heartless and mean spots on a roster had to be earned every year and there was hardly a player to be found who didn’t take his job seriously Chicago Cub Billy Herman the only thing we had in our mind was to win any way we could we play to win and uh if that wasn’t good enough why you go back home and get a lunch pil and go to work now if they didn’t play hard you didn’t have he wouldn’t have a friend on the club and he wouldn’t be there though if you were on first base and and the batter hit a ground ball had to take that Runner out if you didn’t take that Runner out while youd come on the bench and you’d almost have to fight some of your teammates biggest mistake I ever made in in the major leagues was my first time at bat I got a base hit the next time up I got hit right in the head Ena Slaughter if you can’t get brushed back or get knocked back once in a while you got no business in this game every time the Cardinal Dodgers played the two or three guys didn’t get knocked down to not a card dos a game they knocked me down I knew every pitch in the league that knocked me down and hit one me in the middle of the back I didn’t forget him fa covered first I’d try to cut the legs off didn’t bother me at all slaughter no doubt inherited some of his Swagger from his Cardinal predecessors the original Gas House Gang a collection of fast talking free-spirited players like Leo de roer who never ducked a fight and always played hard in the 30s the Gas House Gang Cardinals were not only baseball’s best team but also the most colorful witnessed pepper Martin in 1937 showing off his legendary juggling act entertaining came naturally to the Gas House Gang keeping clean however was another matter New York Yankee Tommy Henrik I saw Frankie fish in New Orleans in 36 when they were the real Gas House Gang with pepper Martin and they came around there most of them needed a shave and every one of them had a dirty uniform on I said what a bunch of bums now these are really the Gas House Gang Immaculate uniforms meant little to men with Rowdy reputations winning however meant everything never was the Cardinals rockus hellbent style of play more evident than in their 1934 world series appearance against the Detroit Tigers Cardinal infielder Burgess Whitehead doc Weaver was our trainer when I was a member of the St Louis Cardinal he uh uh brought a camera into the Dugout during the 34 World Series and made a lot of pictures of different plays and of the different players Detroit it was such a wild Baseball City then we had to have a security guard you might call them uh to stand and and uh uh at the door of the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit so we could get in the people were just crowded around the hotel the Gas House Gang was the greatest baseball club I ever saw they thought they could beat any ball club and and they just about could too course we had some characters on that club uh like Peppa Martin one of the hustl ball players I ever saw diard Dean and uh Leo dooer one of the greatest uh shot stops I ever played Longs side when they got on that ball field they played by baseball I mean they played it to the hilt too and when they slid they slid hard and uh uh there was no good Fellowship between them and their opposition they were just good tough ball [Music] players that was a tough series it was a hard fault series and uh the players hustled so hard uh it was because of the depression and they wanted that winner share [Music] [Applause] [Music] the series went seven games and the deciding game the seventh game uh did De beats elen ala 11 to nothing [Music] it enabled me to help my family my father had kind of tough luck during the Depression and uh that’s woman got uh $6800 but I don’t know that 6800 was mighty good I suppose there must be some item that an American Boy Might treasure more fiercely than a Louisville Slugger with his own signature on it but I can’t think of one for all of us who grew up on sand lots and playgrounds gripping Louisville Sluggers bearing the autographs of Major League Stars the thought of owning one with our name on the barrel is almost too much to [Music] comprehend all baseball players enter the field of play with the same tools a bat a ball and a glove the bat helps keep the batter alive but when the ball is hit it’s the glove that becomes most important that might explain why players become so attached to the single piece of equipment they can spend an entire career with infielder Bill wber the glove that I used was a little bit larger than my hand I had my gloves all made out of a belly of the cow because it was soft didn’t need a lot of breaking in but they they were they weren’t a large glove I never dropped any balls but you could maneuver them perhaps the most interesting fact about gloves in the 30s and 40s was what happened to them between Innings rather than take their gloves into the Dugout after the third out was made the fielders of the day simply left their gloves on the field and retrieved them on their way out to their positions it was a practice that held true until the mid-50s author Robert creamer you see a play where a short stop would end the inning by making a catch of a line drive you know he he catch the ball flip the ball to an Umpire and throw the glove up near like that and it’s s to spin and a land on the field out there and it was such a pretty thing to see with guys trotting off the field and bending down and picking up their glove and and taking it again it’s antique antique to were the uniforms perhaps the most identifiable feature of baseball’s Golden [Music] Age loose fitting and made of heavy wool a father might have been proud to show off the colorful uniforms of the day but they weren’t exactly designed with comfort in mind Brooklyn Dodger Duke Snider I mean you go into St Louis Cincinnati in the summertime and it’s a hot humid day and you get those wool uniforms you start perspiring and get those things wet and they pick up some weight they all of a sudden you’re carrying five 6 7 8 lbs extra along with you as baggy as they were they weren’t all that comfortable but we didn’t know any better so we were comfortable without a doubt baseball’s most recognizable uniform has always belonged to the New York Yankees unending years of sorial Splendor in Pinstripes other teams however frequently changed their look for instance in spring training before the 1942 season the New York Giants gathered around their player manager melot wearing uniforms during the war that were a patriotic red white and [Music] blue the pre-World War II Pittsburgh Pirates were black and red while during the same era the Philadelphia Phillies uniforms were predominantly blue whether they have remained the same over the years or changed a great deal uniforms like the players who wear them give us the means to Savor the game’s past author Donald honig a team can bring back an era a player can re recreate the sense of a year baseball freezes these moments and and and holds them until you want to think about them and then they’re released again in all their youthful energy and and vitality as they were AA has never age in memory they’re always Young teams however do disappear or more accurately change locations or names and the Nostalgia that their uniforms evoke is part of what we have left to remember them [Music] by for a few hours for a summer we think we know them these young men in three color Caps playing the game of Boyhood to brief in our eyes do they play for us or are they performing the ancient demands of their decorated bodies they we their names on their backs but they were costumes designed the century past of gentleman meeting of a Sunday on the [Music] grass for a period of Four Seasons from 1942 through 1945 World War II affected baseball in pretty much the same manner it affected Everyday Life the game went on but it couldn’t possibly be the same not with constant reminders at ballparks around America that we were indeed at War there were even those who considered suspending baseball but as Elden aery members the most influential and important American was not among them President Roosevelt wanted professional baseball to continue and the reason for it was to keep up the morale of the people during the war he said is baseball was such a a an American Pastime he said for us to quit baseball wouldn’t be right to impress upon all owners and all players that they should continue and not quit just because war war start and I think that uh that was a expression of how the people felt and no dat about baseball New York Yankee Tommy Henrik a lot of the best ball players went into the service so it’s a dog gone cinch each team the the brand the ball they’re playing is going to be a little inferior to which they had before the Stars left in fact with most of baseball’s best players at War the previously inept St Louis Browns won their first and only American League pennant in 1944 attendance during the War years suffered too and in an effort to encourage more fans to attend games team owners came up with several outlandish contests involving players the winners receiving no more than a $100 war bond [Music] after the war the promotions continued some with celebrities from outside baseball Like Jesse Owens who raced and barely beat George case of the Cleveland Indians in [Music] 1946 in the early 50s stars like Abott and Costello would make occasional appearances at ballparks here they’re at a Boston Braves game answering the question of who’s on first in the 30s and 40s it was not unusual to see players or coaches participate in comedy sketches for the news reels in this case the foil is Benny benal of the Washington Senators comedy and baseball have had a long and entertaining partnership former pitcher Al sha who was known as the clown prince of baseball appeared at 25 world series including the 1940 series at Tiger Stadium when shaed retired in the early 50s it was Max patkin who inherited the title of clown Prince amazingly patkin performed not only before the game but during it as a legitimate first base coach Max patkin when I do my routine I try to do it between pitches usually have between 10 and 15 seconds do you be surprised what 10 seconds means to a Max pkin on the coaching line so it gives me a chance to go through that goofy thing of motion within my neck my arms my legs just to make out I’m giving a sign to the batter I would give me just enough time all I needed was 8 to 10 seconds Bing binging and you know and then when I looked at those days I’m telling you I was the dumbest looking thing you ever saw in that coaching line [Music] strike one strike two strike one strike two strike free and you’re out play you are play you are we just begun why do you st you home you’re holding up the game never argue with the UMP play it smart don’t be a chump or we know without a doubt man that up will put you out you you we came [Music] [Applause] [Music] to before the 1950s teams travel to and from games by train bringing them together but with a lifestyle that was far from glamorous Ena Slaughter we’d play a double header in St Louis I’d lose 16 pound double header we’d rush to the railroad station jumped train time we got over into Indiana you know through illino the air condition go off Monday morning we’d get up you know and they’d have a Ricky would have an exhibition someplace out in Ohio Indiana they’d pull our pman cars off to the side we’d get out and play an exhibition game since then we’d get back on a train next morning you wake up going around H shoe curve and Aluna Pennsylvania and pulling to Philadelphia and play that night St Louis Cardinal Whitey Kowski many time we have those 18 24 or trips on a train Well we’d before we’d hit the sack by we’d get back in a in a club car or someplace in the in the men’s room and all of us we’d be talking about the ball game us we were just one big happy family doubtless there are better places to spend summer days summer nights than in ballparks doubtless nevertheless decades after a person has stopped collecting bubble gum cards he can still discover himself collecting ballparks and not just the stadiums but their surrounding neighborhoods their smells their special seasons and moods quaint sure beautiful not really however when the Sun is bright and the air Crisp And your seat seems closer to the diamond than the on Deck hitter All Is [Music] Forgiven in the days before television the only way a person could see a baseball game was to come to the [Music] stadium there was perhaps no greater feeling than spending an afternoon at the Ballpark poet Donald Hall walking through the crowds uh into that uh great small old stadium and there they were in the flesh I can see them now in their baggy old pants uh the uh players uh whom I had heard about whom of whom I’d seen photographs but they were really walking around live people and the absolute enchantment or enthralment of the tension of starting the game play ball author Donald honig when you went out to to the Ball Game were Someplace Special and the these guys was were something special to you and you really focused on them I got because you weren you didn’t see them anywhere else uh well all the rest of the time and all winter you talked about them and argued about them with your friends uh and then that special occasion when you went out your father took care your older brother or you were a young teenager and you went out yourself and you’re still very impressionable and you able to watch these guys up close it made quite an impact the PA system the voice of God you know is coming down who the hell ever announced lineups you know we all played on on the sand lots and suddenly this voice comes you know reading the lineup you know it’s coming down from the heavens this this was uh an incredible thing you know the first TI was 1941 I was just 10 years old and there was a Dodger Cardinal game and we we came up to ramp heading for the for the cheap seats and for M had a glimpse of the field and standing up and and uh outside the dug out looking right at me was Johnny M Big John M of the St Louis Cardinals and it just struck me I said to my brothers Johnny mice you know my brother got all excited it hit you all at once like nearly all of the preexpansion ballparks Boston’s Fenway Park was built in several stages in fact fenway’s most recognizable feature the green monster wasn’t erected until the park was more than 20 years old and in the 30s and 40s green paint took a back seat to advertisements there was even a time when Chicago’s Wrigley Field didn’t have its signature ivy on the walls or its famous Outfield [Music] bleachers in 1937 temporary stands could be seen in right field but full construction of the bleachers didn’t begin until Midway through the 1938 season the same year the ivy was planted [Music] each of the grand old ballparks was unique in its appearance but the meaning they had to those who went there was the same author Ray Robinson the stands looked enormous the outfielders who were cting in The Outfield looked to be you know miles away from you and this cavernous Cathedral that you went to you know is enormous and you’re a little boy and everything looked so large and bigger than life in your mind’s eye Donald Hall American men not all of us but a great many of us think back uh to baseball in connection with our fathers maybe with our grandfathers with uncles with people who played particular games sometimes but also people with whom we went to particular games or people we played catch with there is something historical about baseball for the home team [Music] with make lots of noise at the game Take Me Out to the [Music] B you walk into the portals and you look down beneath you you see that green grass as I hope and wish and cherish in my conservative way the grass fields shining in front of you and you are not just back in time but you are outside of time we have something that separates itself out from our duration for one Island there we are 62 years old we are 12 years old we are 40 years old and the game exists in some Island outside of time some Eternal present which is a kind of uh Corridor into eternity [Music] the one ballpark that stood out in terms of its size and baseball significance was the old Yankee Stadium open in 1923 it was the most dramatic of three ballparks within the boundaries of New York City just across the river from Yankee Stadium stood the Polo Grounds Robert creamer I was you know hundreds of miles from home and I sat in this sort of empty room maybe 15 guys scattered around listening to the radio and I just felt so far away from baseball I really felt Lonesome and a big Sergeant came in Big Top sergeant and he had a cigar he was sitting a few feet away from me and this cigar smoke floated over to where I was and I thought of the Polar grounds it just came back to me with a wave this marvelous feeling I was at a ballpark all of a sudden goes to that stinking cigar [Music] get your Red Hot and Hot Dog program you cannot tell the ball player without your program crazy bu a ball game ever I can be crazy by aall game ever I can be so you find me in the bleaches when the Umpire yells SL I’m rooting for the home team rooting for win or lose I’m rooting for the home team rooting for win or lose so I’m happy when they win one when they lose I get those blue and every town and city has any place you name there’s nothing Thrills a fans like a beastball [Music] game the third Stadium in New New York was Brooklyn’s ebbits field like nearly all of the ballparks of its day ebbits field had some very interesting physical features largely because it was built within the confines of its surrounding neighborhood but what was really unique about ebbit field was the relationship between the Dodgers their fans and their ballpark Dodger announcer red Barber EV field was uh was typically Brooklyn uh it belonged to Brooklyn the the fans felt it was theirs they were close to the players they felt the players were not only theirs they felt there were their children they could uh jeer at them and call them bumed but nobody else had had better do it no Outsider had better do it and certainly no no giant fan that better come into efield and and do it and the Bor of Brooklyn uh lived and died with that ball Club when the Dodgers lost an afternoon game there were a lot of cold suppers it didn’t get eaten Dodger fans were for the most part Blue Collar still at the 1952 World Series it was not unusual to see someone like Humphrey Bogard at ebbit field rooting for the Dodgers along with everyone else even Lauren ball in New York picking a team to root for took on special meaning Robert creamer you’d say to somebody what are you a Dodger fan giant fan I mean it was identification are you Catholic Protestant Jewish you’re a giant fan Dodger fan fan it was a it was a thing and that’s what you were and it was part of your life it was also part of a ball player’s life infielder bill wber when we were at Boston we represented the town of Boston and we loved Boston when I was playing with cincin Adam we were winning Penance there we all right down to the last man wanted to win for the people in Cincinnati and when we won championships and won the World Series why we were just delighted that we could do something for those good people where’s Babe Ruth the King of Swat who rocked the heavens with his blows Grabowski panck and Malone Mother of Mercy where are those where’s the Swagger where’s the strut where’s the style that makes the hitter where’s the pitcher swanlike motion what in God’s name turned life bitter is there a heaven with rainbow Flags silver trophies hung on walls a horseshoe grand stand mobs of fans webbed gloves and official balls where’s Tony pushim up lazari the quickest man that ever played where’s the gang that raised the roof in the house that Colonel rert made in 1938 the Chicago Cubs won the national league pennet and the City resp responded by saluting its champions in a pre-World series parade this film of the parade and of the subsequent World Series is believed to provide the oldest existing color images of a World Series taken just a few years after 16 mm Color Film was available to the public good afternoon ladies and gentlemen yes you said it this is the first first game of the 1938 World Series this is George hick speaking for the National Broadcasting Company at Wrigley Field Chicago Illinois quite a crowd Milling down around the box there near the Yankees Dugout where sits judge Landis this afternoon you may be interested in some of the Home Run records of these Yankees jump swinging along behind them and behind them comes the entire Squad of the Chicago Cubs dressed in their home uniform f with blue Cubs pitch Kay Bryant I faced good hitters in the National League before we played the Yankees in the World Series so I wasn’t all too much about the Yankees I don’t know we read about them and and knew about Dicky garri and uh Gordon cretti and rth and cell Kirk and deio and hendrik but we knew about them but we figured and all the pitching staff and I think the whole ball CL figure we could beat him I saw the lineup and sure I uh I looked at them and uh I knew they were good but uh I won’t say this after the series is over the greatest Club I’ve seen in baseball yeah well like uh rip Collins says says we come we saw and we went home after four straight Yankee right fielder Tommy Henrik played on the 38 team which featured a young Joe dagio as well as fellow Hall of Famers Lefty go and Bill Dicky and an aging Lou garri the 1938 Yankees were the type of team that came out every day to beat you and that’s the way McCarthy wanted his ball players to act he wanted professionalism out of his ball players uh somebody was saying McCarthy you like Joe Gordon don’t you he says I sure do he says why do you like him he says I’ll show you why Hey Joe come over here he says what’s your bat average Gordon says I don’t know what your feeling average he says I don’t know okay Joe and he walked away in M he says that’s what I like all he does is come to beat you okay multiply that by nine that’s a tough outfit to beat my greatest feeling was getting dressed in a Yankee uniform because I knew I was with a bunch of Pros that was my thrill I said this is a ball [Music] Club from 1936 through 1939 the Yankees won four straight championships author Donald honig I think that was the the team that established What U is the Yankees so-called corporate image businesslike of intense uh sobriety No Nonsense they were they were expected to win they went out there to win and it uh garri I think was the first the first one to establish this image being extremely serious in all business on on the baseball field the quality of play that Lou Garrick brought to the Yankees was matched only by the quality of his person garri was the Magnificent Yankee and his departure under tragic circumstances in 1939 might have ruined a lesser team the Ys however never slipped in stature nor standing a great deal of which had to do with the incredible talents of Joe dagio the man who carried the Yankee torch after garri Donald honig this was the ultimate ball player not only uh for talent but for style and grace I this was the uh the epitome of U Celestial craftsmanship in a ball player dagio has to this day a Mystique and uh like most mystiques it’s unexplainable is he shy is he aloof is is he a snob uh what what is he to the fan it never really mattered because there was Joe out on the ball field author Robert creamer when bar was a rookie he hit a pop fly and joged down to first base and I think the ball was dropped and he had a Scurry to to get to where he was going and deasio gave him that cold look and apparently when dagio looked at people coldly they just shriveled he had a sense of command and Ora of being you know Majestic almost he was the [Music] king demaggio’s Yankee had many rivals but perhaps none drove them to excel as much as the Boston Red Sox a team with five future Hall of Famers in its lineup in the early 1940s Tommy Henrik it was something special it was absolutely something for years for years Red Sox Yankees oh boy oh boy it’s the highlight of the year what made it special was the the talent on both sides we knew we had a good ball club we got Dagu on our side they got Williams they got Bobby door we got Joe Gordon they had Joe Cronin who could hit with anybody Jimmy Fox Jee you think you’re not going to fear those birds and we and we went up against them and they were some tremendous battles oh and and uh Bobby dor say uh why didn’t we win didn’t we have a good ball Club I says you scared us to death Bobby sure you had a good good ball why didn’t we win I says I don’t know I think the owner liked you more than our owners liked us I says I used to walk through that your parking lot out there and I says most all of the things in there were Cadillacs I say we had a we had a bear down more for [Music] ours after the war the Red Sox often approached greatness but never attained their ultimate goal of winning the World Series they won the pennant in 46 but Lost the series to the Cardinals in seven games in 48 the Indians beat them in a playoff and in 49 they fell to the Rival Yanks on the last day of the Season poet Donald Hall there is surely something in the Ence of the Red Sox in particular that um has to do with Not Mere defeat but glorious defeat or almost making it or the whole series of crucial moments and I think that defeats are talked about more and moments of losing it than any moments of Victory more than any other single player it was Ted Williams who epitomized the Red Sox Persona he was our Achilles our reluctant uh Warrior our Sullen genius uh and he could be counted on always to be doer and and difficult and superb yes he’s indelibly [Music] Boston one of the uh portions of my memory baseball which is purest and most joyous is rehearsing in my mind the swing of Ted Williams He coiled on himself U like a barber pole turning around he had that compact swing that was totally efficient strong and that looked loose and graceful although it was so Compact and efficient it was a wonderful thing to see I can see it in my head as often as I like [Music] how dear to my heart was the oldfashioned batter who scattered lime drives from the spring to the fall he did not resemble the up-to-date batter who swings from his heels and misses the ball the upto-date batter I’m not very strong for he shatters the ozone with all of his might and that is the reason I hanker and long for those who doubled to left and tripled to right the oldfashioned batter the eagle-eyed batter the thinking man’s batter who tripled to right the Great Men of baseball are at the very heart of the game they are the ones who set the standards the ones who created the memories they take us to different heights they allow us to dream [Music] you [Music] before 1947 everyone affiliated with baseball in any capacity every player every coach every manager every owner shared at least one common denominator the color of their skin poet Donald Hall the game that I grew up with was a white game and it is appalling of course to think back and realize that as I was growing up it was a white game and I didn’t notice I didn’t uh object I had no notion when we look back to that Injustice we’re looking back to American history not the parts of it that we’re proudest of but it’s part of our social History part of our cultural history that uh terrible split and then the commencement of healing of that wound with Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodger Don Nukem even though I didn’t have a a Joe dagio or TB Williams or Babe Ruth uh as an idol uh I developed an idol his name was Jackie Robinson it was just such a um a phenomenal era we wondered whether or not it would ever happen and Jackie he said I’m going to make it happen he would say that many many times I’m going to make it happen they’re not going to be able to stop me I had no idea where my life would go I had no idea that I’d ever be a part of History soon after Robinson new Heroes like Roy campanello would [Music] emerge gradually as the landscape of the game changed baseball became came integrated now it was truly a national Pastime the 50s saw the arrival of many of the game’s greatest players some who would go on to rewrite baseball’s record book [Music] the inevitable breaking of the color barrier also allowed for some of the older established stars of the Negro Leagues like Satchel Page to finally pitch in the major leagues it wasn’t something that erased the years of Injustice it only served to remind us of what we missed America is a country which encourages and welcomes change Through The Years sometimes on its own or sometimes with a little push baseball was able to accept and incorporate some of those changes into the fabric of the game some improved it others made us long for the game we used to know but the important thing to remember is that baseball was just living up to its moniker as the American Pastime ultimately when the population began to shift out west so too did baseball the Braves moved to Milwaukee the Dodgers and Giants left New York that signaled the beginning of new chapters in the history of the game but sadly it also meant the end of certain others author Lawrence Ritter when you’re abandoned I think you’re living in a dream world if you continue after the abandonment to glorify the one that that left you it’s sort of self-defeating not to mention quite irrational on my team left I don’t have any Romanticism left I don’t have a team anymore I was a giant fan there aren’t any New York Giants [Music] anymore there might not be any New York Giants anymore or St Louis Browns or Washington Senators the days of Watching Ted Williams in left are long over and the wondrous Willie ma no longer wears his uniform Time Marches On transition is inevitable with each passing Day the game of our youth moves even further into history but those Vivid images that are so much a part of our life will always [Music] remain game called across the field of play The Dusk has come the hour is late the fight is done and lost or won the player files out through the gate the tumult dies the cheer is hushed the stands are bare the park is still but through the night there shines the light of Home Beyond The Silent Hill game called where in the Golden Light the bugle rolled the reelly The Shadow creep where night falls deep and Taps has called the end of play the game is done the score is in the final cheer and Jer have passed but in the night beyond the fight the player finds his rest at last game called upon the field of Life The Darkness gathers far and wide the dream is done the score is spun that stands forever in the guide nor Victory nor yet defeat is chalked against the player’s name but down the roll the final scroll shows only how we played the game [Music] in association with Black Canyon Productions this has been a presentation of HBO Sports the network of Champions

Introducing HBO’s cult classic, When It Was A Game. A groundbreaking documentary comprised solely of 16mm colored film of Major League Baseball from 1934-1957.
Narrated by the Voice of Golf and HBO Sports, Peter Kessler. It was this documentary that kickstarted his illustrious broadcasting career.