To the Editor:

I applaud George Weigel [“Politically-Correct Baseball,” November 1994] for brilliantly skewering the political correctness that undermines Ken Burns’s television documentary Baseball, although it is amusing to note that Burns’s musical score contributes some remarkably crude ethnic stereotyping of its own: John McGraw makes his appearance to the subtle strains of “Danny Boy”; Connie Mack is accompanied by “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”; the arrival of a Negro Leaguer is inevitably signaled by a Mississippi Delta slide guitar; and Roberto Clemente gets”Oye Como. “I am surprised that Hank Greenberg wasn’t introduced by “Hava Nagila.”

But what finally causes this long-awaited epic by America’s preeminent documentarian to self-destruct is the inevitable corollary to Baseball’s “central flaw” of political correctness: its astonishing lack of factual correctness.

In his “Reply to My Critics,” Vladimir Nabokov wrote: “If told I am a bad poet, I smile; but if told I am a poor scholar, I reach for my heaviest dictionary.” When critics (most notably Keith Olbermann of ESPN) condemned the wretched scholarship in Baseball, Ken Burns replied: “As filmmakers, we were forced to take a certain amount of poetic license” (USA Today, September 26, 1994). Rather than reach for his heaviest Baseball Encyclopedia (a massive tome that would rival Nabokov’s weapon of choice, the second unabridged edition of Webster’s), historian Burns expressed disappointment at Olbermann’s “petty mind” and complained that a list of his most egregious blunders consisted of “nitpicks,” adding: “We had the same thing in Civil War.”

Let me cite just a few of the “nitpicks.” On pages 72 and 73 of the companion volume to the TV series, Burns reproduces a gorgeous panoramic team photo of the 1905 New York Giants. Unfortunately, the player Burns identifies as baseball immortal Christy Mathewson is actually Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity; Mathewson is not present in the photograph. This error is roughly equivalent to confusing General Grant with General Sherman, but let’s not nitpick.

On pages 456 and 457, we find a colorful action photo with a breathless Burns caption:

Heroics: in the first game of the 1988 World Series, Oakland pitcher Dennis Eckersley watches his slider disappear into the bleachers of Dodger Stadium as the injured Kirk Gibson begins his painful trot around the bases.

Eckersley is actually watching his slider dribble down the first-base foul lines as Gibson runs out a weak foul ball, but only a petty-minded nitpicker would dare call this to Burns’s attention.

In the July 1994 issue of Smithsonian, Burns reveals a hallucinatory aspect of his poetic muse: “I can look at an old photograph and actually hear it” (emphasis in the original). From now on he had better ask those old photographs to describe to him what they actually depict. . . .

Even when confronted with moving pictures, the filmmaker remains baffled: Curt Flood makes a great catch—oops, that’s Lou Brock. I can actually hear the Twilight Zone theme during Joe DiMaggio’s 1941 hitting streak when Burns inexplicably inserts a reaction shot of the 1950’s presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson.

Burns cannot identify the players seen in rare and beautiful footage of the 1910 World Series, and his woeful ignorance—or poetic indifference to factual correctness—causes him to make three inexcusable mistakes—within fifteen seconds! When the narration refers to pitcher Albert Bender, “a Chippewa Indian and therefore known as Chief,” the film cuts to first-baseman Harry Davis tossing the ball. “The so-called ‘$100,000 Infield’ of Stuffy Mclnnis, Eddie Collins, Black Jack Barry, and Frank Baker” of 1911 is illustrated by Barry, Collins, Baker, and Harry Davis in 1910. And as the narration describes “Frank Baker, who led the league with twelve home runs,” we see a right-handed batter . . . hitting what Burns leads us to believe is a home run. Baker, a left-handed batter, did not hit a home run in this series. Does Burns have any idea what he is doing here? Does he care? . . .

“The true howler,” wrote Nabokov, “is a joint product of ignorance and self-assurance.” Mr. Burns is truly blessed in both these areas, and his howlers are abundant and authentic. Thus his Baseball, which should have been a thrilling home run, turns out to be an endless limping trot down the foul line.

Neal McCabe
Los Angeles, California

_____________

To the Editor:

I greatly enjoyed George Weigel’s article, . . . which I found scholarly and well-written, with an obvious love and appreciation of the game of baseball and what the game has meant to him and to most Americans.

I, too, while finding Ken Burns’s eighteen hours on the subject of baseball a remarkable project, felt strongly that it was marred by continual expressions of “white guilt” and attempts to make others feel the same guilt. Mr. Weigel’s article is the first I have read which discusses this shortcoming so frankly. . . .

There is good reason why baseball is the “all-American game”: it was invented and developed here. Playing it requires no unusual physique . . . and at least eighteen people can participate, plus an umpire, coaches, and substitutes. And it is fun to watch, with the result not known until the third strike at the end of the ninth inning. . . .

I grew up in the small upstate town of Troy, New York. Midway between Troy and Albany was the home of the Albany Senators, a team that was many years in the Eastern League, single-A baseball, and finally in the International League, triple-A baseball, a level not too far from the major leagues. My father, a devoted fan, took off from his twelve-or-more-hours-a-day business for an infrequent game, and I can still smell the strong mustard on the hot dogs, and remember the seventh-inning stretch. . . .

Robert J. Rosenthal
Washington, D.C.

_____________

George Weigel writes:

I thank Neal McCabe and Robert J. Rosenthal for their kind words, which will be of some comfort this spring as I contemplate the horror of scab baseball with “replacement players.”

Readers may wish to know that Mr. McCabe is the co-author, with his sister, Constance, of perhaps the most elegant of baseball photo-histories, Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles W. Conlon, which is published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.