Ken Burns 10th Inning Documentary

[timwakefield 68]

Really interesting and entertaining. I haven't even watched all of it yet, I've kind of skipped around. Great stuff on steroids, great bit on Ichiro, and a somber bit about Bonds breaking Aaron's record. George Will, Bob Costas, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and John Miller are some of the interviewees. There's also a lot of cool and memorable highlights. Anyway, these aren't my uploads but I used these links to download them. VLC player plays the files (not sure how they'll do on other players - the files are .mp4 video files), although the ratio is a bit borked but I just switched it to 16:9 and it looks great. I'm sure PBS will be replaying it a lot too, and it might even be on demand or what have you. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UE2XKA1Nhttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=8DQN5MSMhttp://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y2NFQ7L2Favorite quote so far:

I became a Cub fan at age 7 in 1948. That year Mr. Wrigley, who owned the Cubs, took out ads in the Chicago papers apologizing for the team. It was not an auspicious beginning. The day I was born they lost by the way, I've looked it up. - George Will

Note that Ken Burns is from New England so there's plenty about the Red Sox, but that's easily skippable if you hate the Sox.

[GeneralGeeWhiz 0]

thanks for the upload! i missed it when it aired on PBS. going to watch tonight.

[timwakefield 68]

Now that I've watched it, there were a few oddities that stood out. I wondered why they kept going back to Mike Barnicle. I had to look him up to make sure I had the right guy (I did), but Barnicle was a major journalist in Boston for the Boston Globe for decades, until it came to light that he was just straight making shit up (and when his imagination got tired, he also plagiarized). That was over ten years ago. After the Globe fired him he's somehow been able to continue being a "journalist" and pundit on msnbc and the like. Some of his stories in the film were alright but it did strike me as odd and borderline insulting to have this liar speaking for Red Sox fans. The story he told about his 2 baseball gloves and his over-privileged children was terrible. Hey Mike, maybe it's you who spoiled your children, not society. Then comes this revelation:

Barnicle's professional troubles are never mentioned, but more remarkably, to my knowledge no media report has made the connection between Barnicle's star turn and the role of his wife, Anne Finucane, the Bank of America chief marketing officer credited with the B of A's sponsorship of "Tenth Inning." Finucane's role is no secret; she's been quoted about the bank's Burns partnership and photographed at gala events with the filmmaker. But it's undisclosed within the project, and given Barnicle's (to me questionable) centrality to "Tenth Inning," something there feels off.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_wal...ng_to_ken_burnsBurns says that he's known Barnicle for years and he had long before planned to include him in the film, but even the appearance of impropriety should be avoided, no? Cuz what it feels like is Mike Barnicle the fraud got center stage in this film because his wife's company was their chief financier. Still enjoyable, but that article has some other interesting critiques as well.