Ken Burns was apparently horribly wrong, in a mean-spirited way, about his characterization in his baseball documentary, of Ty Cobb (recent book published suggests Cobb as tyrant legend is nonsense). Maybe Ken should do some research, and lay-off the easy route of repeating the shallow pop culture. He is a fine film-maker, but some accuracy would seem to be in order.

His Jack Johnson documentary was similarly inaccurate, but in the opposite direction, towards hagiography.

I forgot until 10 that this was on last nite and caught 40 minutes of it before bed. The part I saw covered 1946 and 1947. It was the typical Burns production in that it consisted of old photos and footage with voiceover interspersed with talking heads. Burns still has some old film stock. A New Leaf might know more about the aesthetics of this than us, but when the Obamas were on, it had the same visual look as when Shelby Foote was discussing Shiloh 30 years ago.

I'm not sure if these were Norman Mailer's white Negroes, but Jackie attracted some fans who were outsiders. These included Tom Brokaw's high plains drifting father (he had a job, but it was in construction and they had to move a lot around the Dakotas) and a deaf eastern European immigrant from Brooklyn (who didn't care for baseball otherwise) whose son was a Burns interviewee.

A couple of related thoughts.

1.)Integration brought speed back to baseball, although I think that aspect is overstated. Someone brought smallball up during the portion I watched.

2.)I am not that well versed on Negro League history compared to the experts, but I like how it brought high quality baseball to the hinterlands and how the small rosters produced versatile players.

Shut up, Ken Burns.

His Jack Johnson documentary was similarly inaccurate, but in the opposite direction, towards hagiography.

I watched that about a year ago and IIRC, there was a little counterbalance. I got the impression that Stanley Crouch (one of the Burns talking heads) wasn't that much of a fan of Johnson, but I may be misremembering things.

You guys didn't really want to read that BTF-referential post. Nothing to see here.

Still paying? The GOP commitment to segregationism and racial politics has given them 50+ years of electoral success. It probably ain't over yet.

Still paying off, more like.

Best bits from Part I -- Jackie's crazy drag-bunting (like a running, two-handed putt on a pitch low and in), and footage from his UCLA performance as a running back, which makes his bizarre, high-arm-swivel running style make a lot more sense. I also liked Obama's comment about the personal stresses of being the first one through a color barrier, though YMMV.

Ken Burns was apparently horribly wrong, in a mean-spirited way, about his characterization in his baseball documentary, of Ty Cobb (recent book published suggests Cobb as tyrant legend is nonsense). Maybe Ken should do some research, and lay-off the easy route of repeating the shallow pop culture. He is a fine film-maker, but some accuracy would seem to be in order.

I thought Leerhsen's book so transparently drove an agenda to rehabilitate Cobb that it lost credibility. In general, I thought it was well-written and it did succeed in part in portraying Cobb as someone more complex than just an angry SOB. But to me it did not thoroughly discredit the traditional image of Cobb as seething tyrant.

I thought Part I was enjoyable if predictable. The debunking of the legend about Reese's hug was interesting, especially Rachel's reaction.

Is Farrakhan one of Burns talking heads this go round?

I just read Leerhsen's book and my take on it is here. I actually don't think Leerhsen debunks much of the picture of Cobb as rage-a-holic – I don't think he could; the public record is too full of Cobb's fights and their legal consequences. Leerhsen is very adamant that Cobb was no racist, at least adjusting for Georgia and the early 20th century. He may protest too much.

I didn't watch the Burns film last night. I expected "predictable" and seem to have been right from what people were saying, and I wasn't in the mood for predictable …

What's to "protect"? SCOTUS has spoken and it takes a constitutional amendment to UNprotect them....

This is sophistry and you know it. What the SCOTUS has said, it can unsay in a future case. Sanders directly said overturning Citizens United is a litmus test for any justice he would appoint and Clinton said it in a more indirect fashion ("I'll appoint Supreme Court justices who recognize that Citizens United is bad for America.")

Wrong thread, Dan?

Ken Burns was apparently horribly wrong, in a mean-spirited way, about his characterization in his baseball documentary, of Ty Cobb (recent book published suggests Cobb as tyrant legend is nonsense).

It seems hard to blame Burns too much for that, given that he based that take in part on Al Stump's many works about Cobb, and Stump wasn't exposed as a fraud and a fabulist until 2010, well after Burns's documentary completed and was aired.

He is a fine film-maker, but some accuracy would seem to be in order.

somebody said (can't remember who) "After watching Burns' baseball documentary, I started to wonder who really won the Civil War"\

it's amazing to me how sloppy he is and rarely gets called on it

somebody said (can't remember who) "After watching Burns' baseball documentary, I started to wonder who really won the Civil War"

There still seems to be some doubt about that. The Union won the fighting part decisively, but the South kept pushing back against Reconstruction, established Jim Crow, and is still fighting against the Civil Rights Act. There was a lot less change and progress than you would expect from winning the war.

I just read Leerhsen's book and my take on it is here. I actually don't think Leerhsen debunks much of the picture of Cobb as rage-a-holic – I don't think he could; the public record is too full of Cobb's fights and their legal consequences. Leerhsen is very adamant that Cobb was no racist, at least adjusting for Georgia and the early 20th century. He may protest too much.

Do you think that book has or will change the CW on Cobb? Interesting point in your review about Cobb's rep as the Great Deadball Era player when Lajoie or Wagner could be be better choices and you could make an argument for Speaker's fielding topping Cobb's advantage with the bat and Cobb's baserunning. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some yRoyal Rooters at Nuf Ced McGreevy's bar who argued for Speaker and using the Count The Rings argument.

He saw, in Burns’s words to me, the moment when “the Republican Party made a pact with the devil for which they are still paying, from Ronald Reagan beginning his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, saying ‘I’m for states’ rights,’ through Willie Horton, through, now, Donald Trump taking a couple days to—wink, wink—disavow David Duke and white supremacy in the Ku Klux Klan.”

Does anything like this gets said in the documentary too? I can easily stomach Burns' partisan diarrhea in The Nation but not if #BLM or Willie Horton commentary finds its way into a program that will one day air every few months on MLB Network.

Willie Horton

WTF? Pretty good hitter, played on a WS champion, etc.

adjusting for Georgia and the early 20th century.

So he was still incredibly racist, just not an admitted KKK member?

Well I keep hearing people excuse Muhammad Ali's overt (and indeed, eliminationist) racist rhetoric because I'm supposed to adjust for his time and place. I guarantee you if Ty Cobb said anything as openly racist as "A black man should be killed if he's messing with a white woman" you'd be hard-pressed to bring up his name without hearing about it.

Here is an epic thread on Cobb at Baseball Fever:

Ty Cobb/Assorted Historical Topics

I thought your review was spot on, BDC.

Thanks, Steve!

GGC, Leerhsen mostly talks about Cobb's persona and contemporary fame as being superlative, but he does seem to want to back it up with playing stats. Cobb's stats are obviously great, but I don't think they're stupidly great on the scale of Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds in later eras, and the easy availability of advanced stats now is likely to temper arguments that Cobb was to deadball what Ruth was to lively ball.

I do think that Leerhsen characterizes Cobb's style of play (cerebral, opportunistic) in terms that make sense. He is perhaps a little too willing to take Cobb at his word that Cobb was not a great athlete but won with his smarts. (Pete Rose is fond of that line too.) But that "I never had the physical gifts" rhetoric makes me think of Donald Sutherland lecturing Billy Crudup in Without Limits, ticking Crudup (as Steve Prefontaine) off for not avowing that he just had a better body than other men. Even Leerhsen notes that Cobb was timed going from base to base faster than anyone else in his day, though Cobb disclaimed natural speed.

Jackie Robinson couldn't disavow natural athletic ability, being a national-class track-and-field athlete; but his style was also like Cobb's, uncompromising and on top of every play he was in.

Unlike Robinson, but like Allen Iverson :) Ty Cobb apparently hated practice, and chronically showed up late for spring training.

I thought Part I was enjoyable if predictable. The debunking of the legend about Reese's hug was interesting, especially Rachel's reaction.

That's what I've always thought, that the "hug" was a myth. But it's not all that certain that it was.

What we do know is that two different people are on the record as saying they saw the incident occur. One was Lester Rodney, a reporter for the Communist newspaper the Daily Worker, which likely provided the best coverage among the non-African-American newspapers in Robinson's first season.

Another was Rex Barney, a Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who recalled the story nearly 40 years later in Peter Golenbock's excellent oral history of the Brooklyn Dodgers, "Bums."

Barney recalled that he saw the event occur while he was warming up to pitch in the first. In 1947, Barney was working out of the bullpen and did not come into the game in Cincinnati until the seventh inning. (He did become a starting pitcher soon after in 1947 and was a full-time starter in 1948.)

The late Rodney is the best witness of the three, but even he admits that he never actually wrote about the story until years later, which has to make him at least somewhat suspect....

But more likely, the "hug" took place in 1948.

The odds are greater that the event occurred in 1948, a year which takes on less of an emphasis in the history of Jackie Robinson. It is not likely that racists just suddenly stopped being racists because the Sporting News named Robinson the Rookie of the Year in 1947, however. He still received abuse from fans in his second season.

In 1948, there was even less day-to-day coverage of Robinson. However, a number of factors make 1948 seem more likely as the date of the incident. In 1948, Robinson had moved to second base after the trade of Eddie Stanky, so Reese putting his arm around the player standing next to him on the diamond would more reasonably go unreported than Reese crossing the diamond to embrace his teammate in a very public gesture of support.

Perhaps most noteworthy, Robinson gave a magazine interview in 1952 in which he described the event as occurring in Boston in 1948. Robinson later repeated the same story in his 1960 book, “Wait Till Next Year: The Life Story of Jackie Robinson."

On Aug. 14, 1948, Barney started a game in Boston, which is the same year and place where Robinson said in 1952 and 1960 that it happened.

In addition, it seems that it was when Reese and Robinson became a double-play combination that the pair truly began to become close friends, which they remained for the rest of their lives....

Very late, but just wanted to say BDC's review of the Cobb book is excellent, as is the blog in general.

I'm thankful for him posting the link.

Burns is so frustrating precisely because his best stuff is so good that the dopey errors become more annoying. and spoiler alert: Doris Kearns Goodwin and Billy Crystal must have gotten left on the cutting-room floor, mercifully.

this 4-hour Jackie feature is worth it most of all for the Rachel/Jackie love story in her own words, and for the Trials of Job post-playing career details of Jackie. a lot of that is quite fresh. I skipped the Hollywood movie on the assumption I'd learn nothing; far better this 4 hours than that 90 minutes, I suspect.

I didn't learn much that was new from the Burns documentary, but for most people who haven't absorbed a lifetime full of being exposed to books, movies and conversation about Robinson, there was a lot of stuff that wouldn't likely have been all that familiar, and it sure as hell was a better use of PBS air time than their endless repeats of Antiques Roadshow or Mawwwwsterpiece Theatre. A relatively knowledgeable BTF crowd may not the target audience for the Burns treatment, but most of the world doesn't devote all that much time to learning about history, baseball or otherwise.

"Does anything like this gets said in the documentary too?"

I found the doc to be pretty even-handed politically. Jackie was in a no-win situation in the 1960s, and the talking heads reflected that. It undoubtedly helped keep Burns in check that JR was a Rockefeller Republican, as that brand obviously has aged better from a civil rights standpoint.

That's what I've always thought, that the "hug" was a myth. But it's not all that certain that it was.

Just this morning I read this, which looks to covers the same ground as your link. Wouldn't have killed Burns to not be so strident that the hug never happened.

Very late, but just wanted to say BDC's review of the Cobb book is excellent, as is the blog in general.

Did you follow the link to the I’ve Got A Secret segment that featured an appearance by Ty Cobb? BDC was correct in stating the panel could not identify Cobb or his secret, but it was a special episode where they crammed three baseball player secrets into the time normally allotted for one guest and the men were blindfolded (the women weren’t on the assumption that they wouldn’t know anything about baseball).

At any rate, the segment made me smile, and they also featured Leon Cadore, one of the two pitchers in the epic Brooklyn-Boston 26-inning tie game from 1920.

Jackie was in a no-win situation in the 1960s, and the talking heads reflected that.

I haven’t watched the documentary yet, so maybe they covered this, but it really wasn’t that anomalous that a black person would be in the Republican Party in the early 60s. Both parties had a wider range of political diversity than today, and the segregated South was still solidly Democratic. Neither party was offering much to blacks, but the Republicans were the “Party of Lincoln” and had the only black U. S. Senator since Reconstruction.

It wasn’t until LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Nixon formulated his “Southern Strategy” to appeal to disaffected Southern whites that the realignment of the parties started moving towards the alignment we have today. Even with all that, I understand that many Southern blacks agonized about joining the Democratic Party.

I haven’t watched the documentary yet, so maybe they covered this, but it really wasn’t that anomalous that a black person would be in the Republican Party in the early 60s. Both parties had a wider range of political diversity than today, and the segregated South was still solidly Democratic. Neither party was offering much to blacks, but the Republicans were the “Party of Lincoln” and had the only black U. S. Senator since Reconstruction.

It wasn’t until LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Nixon formulated his “Southern Strategy” to appeal to disaffected Southern whites that the realignment of the parties started moving towards the alignment we have today. Even with all that, I understand that many Southern blacks agonized about joining the Democratic Party.

I'm not a viewer who is not terribly well versed in American history but the narrative the movie made was that the Rockefeller/Goldwater nomination fight was the turning point for Jackie Robinson and a lot of other blacks. There was a segment about black leaders within the Republican Party being excluded and marginalized at the convention. The impression I got was that there was a significant black presence in the Republican Party, but that 1964 was the beginning of a change.

16-Hank G, certainly it is natural to be disappointed at what went undone but the Civil War caused the single largest property confiscation in world history by several measures. It was unimaginable that slavery would have been en route to extinction in 1860. Along the way martial law helped push through constitutional amendments creating birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection. The extension of the right to vote was a big deal. Lots of things didn't last but that's a story about the 1870s and 1880s not the end of the war itself

"Wouldn't have killed Burns to not be so strident that the hug never happened."

Rachel said it didn't happen, and if you spend time around her, you believe her. ideally, Burns would not let his fondness for her and his gratitude for the extraordinary amount of revelations she offered about her marital history impact his editorial judgment, but I am not surprised if it did.

incidentally, Rachel at one point notes that they were so joined at the hip that whenever he played golf, she rode in the cart with him for all 18 holes.