Ken Burns “The Tenth Inning” Missing The Big Question
Posted by Steve L. on September 28th, 2010 · Comments (27)
So, I’m sitting here watching Ken Burns “The Tenth Inning,” on PBS, and have to confess, while listening to the narration, all I can think of is, when are they going to ask: Is it the frank or the beans?
Am I alone on this one?
O.K., that issue aside, 50 minutes into it, I’m finding it to be not great, but, not bad. How about you? What did you think of the first showing?
That is one of my all-time favorite clips. Keith David’s “well how’d you get the beans above the frank?!” gets me every time.
It’s ok, I enjoyed the clips. Now they’re talking about Barry’s supposed reasons for taking steroids, which is getting a big rolleyes from me. The Yankees dynasty part did as well… I did like the latin ballplayer part, and the bit about Clemente asking for the blessings of his parents always chokes me up.
Having said that, the reason I watched the series was to see cool clips I hadn’t seen before. If I had my choice, I would probably watch the “When It Was a Game” series before the “Baseball” series
Who do you guys think Boswell was talking about when he said he was sitting with a hall of famer who was taking a jose canseco shake? He mentioned that in that year he hit more home runs than in any other year…
Hawk?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dawsoan01.shtml
Hawk?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dawsoan01.shtml
Just a guess…really, I’d need some help from you guys to figure this out since I havn’t seen some of these guys play (definitely during the 80s and first few years of the 90s)
Corey Italiano wrote:
Reggie maybe?
@ Steve Lombardi:
He said it in the context of Canseco…that led me to believe that he was talking about the 80s. But then again,that could have been done purposefully to throw the viewer off.
@ Steve Lombardi:
He also made it seem like the year player X did the roids, was an outlier year home run wise. Jackson had a couple of seasons with big power numbers.
@ Corey Italiano:
Also, by the time Canseco was around Jackson’s major power days were over. So it can’t be him..
Corey Italiano wrote:
Wasn’t Reggie a teammate of Canseco’s at the end of Reggie’s career? Maybe Jackson has trying Canseco’s shake as a last gasp effort to stall his final days?
@ Steve Lombardi:
Yes, but Boswell mentioned that in the year that he talked to the player about the shake the player hit more home runs than he did in any other year of his career. Couldn’t have been Jackson under those circumstances.
@ Corey Italiano:
This also doesn’t refute the notion that Jackson might have done it too, Just saying Boswell couldn’t have been talking about Reggie.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Reggie and Canseco were teammates on the 1987 A’s, in Jackson’s last year before retirement. I find it implausible that Jackson would’ve tried steroids in 1987 and then decided to retire. If PED’s are as good as advertised, wouldn’t Reggie hang on for one more payday?
Steve, you put this clip in the wrong post…..
Given who A-Rod’s G/F is, let’s hope #13 doesn’t go “franks and beans” next week.
FWIW, Reggie was just a wild guess, that’s all.
FYI, here are some others:
http://tinyurl.com/23balvj
@ Steve Lombardi:
hmm I like the Cal Ripken argument…a lot of things make sense there (like the fact that hes heralded a hero for being an iron man when he could have just been taking PEDs to keep it going)
I dunno about Henderson though, not saying he didn’t do it, just because that year in question was not the only year he had hit that many homers. I doubt Burns would work that hard to put this doc together only to have a bad fact in there.
Also to add to the Ripken thing, if it was ever found out that he cheated…man that would damage the game of baseball, I’d think. Would make a lot of sense for MLB to cover that up.
If the question is HOF’ers Canseco played with while in Oakland, it would either be Jackson or Henderson. Rickey didn’t have a HR spike while in Oakland, but I wouldn’t put it past Boswell to misremember facts. Memory plays tricks on people after a while.
Corey Italiano wrote:
Wouldn’t be the first time; When SportsCenter was “The Big Show” Olbermann often pointed out errors in Burns’ program.
@ Raf:
The big difference being that this is the information age. There’s a lot more information at Burns, and everyone who likes to keep him in checks, disposal.
I have not seen “Baseball” yet….however, talking about one year out of the ordinary…..I have to think of Brady Anderson during that era and in his contract year.
Again, not sure exactly the context of all the above, but he was in the Canseco era…and you were talking about Ripken (oriole) as Anderson was an Oriole as well.
@ PocketAces:
While I agree that Anderson was on something, Boswell was talking about a Hall of Famer. Brady is not, and never will be a HOFer.
I see…..I know that prior to Hawk being elected, Canseco said there wsa already one HOFer that was juiced.
From that era, my guess would be Henderson. Known for stolen bases and the wear and tear that stealing takes on a body, I could see him using it to heal faster.
Corey Italiano wrote:
Oh, the info was available back then as well.
@ Raf:
Not to the average person, and it was certainly not as readily available.
@ Corey Italiano:
But still, if Olbermann was able to find faults with the series and their facts back then and he had a national platform to do it, how many others found faults, inaccuracies and the like that didn’t have the platform to do it?
Matter of fact, I would say the average person wouldn’t have found the inaccuracies.