Charlie Rose with Ken Burns; PBS (September 23, 1994) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I thought that I would like this show better than I did. I know baseball, the great passion of my childhood. I had heard that Ken Burns documentaries are the best. I expected that there would be in the interview a great deal of real baseball talk and that I would learn much about the game.
I did learn things but not perhaps as much as I thought I would.
Burns' baseball story has its center in the pioneering breaking of the color line, Jackie Robinson's entering the big leagues. Burns say that this not only was a landmark for baseball but for society as a whole, the harbinger of the Civil Rights movement. The clips showing the young Jackie Robinson getting ready to go on the field, the pictures of Ebbets Fields on those days do make a strong impression.
My sense is the documentary Burns has made is better than this conversation.
I suppose I say this because I found Burns a bit too sappy and sermonizing in his interview with Rose. I would have preferred more about the ins and outs of the game, than about its cosmic significance.
Still there is much good stuff in the interview, and especially in the clips. We see in 1936 rookies Bob Feller and Joe Dimaggio. We see at another point Joe D. with Lou Gehrig.
A good show but not the greatest.

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