The Tenth Inning

Didn't someone already type that?

 

Those are undeniably important points in baseball history. I'll watch docs on those way before I'll sit for "epic!!!!!" recaps of yet another 162-game season in which there are great hitters, great pitchers, a bunch of interesting rookies, and a couple of pennant races. Then a team from a somewhat-sizable market wins the World Series. Yay. That stuff happens every single year, which is why it's so mind-numbing to read baseball coverage. But the strike and the 'roids? Interesting and out of the ordinary.

Good for you. Your experience isn't exactly that of the average viewer target for a doc like this.

 

I missed the whole thing and forgot to even DVR it. Anyone know if it will be showing up on iTunes anytime soon? would make for airplane entertainment on my iphone.

 

I think my experience, except for the covering events part, WAS that of the average fan. The fans know all this stuff. It's not like Greg Maddux was a secret, or that Barry Bonds didn't attract a great deal of controversial publicity in his heyday. There's nothing wrong with recent history as a genre. But the historian had better bring some new information to the table.

 

He did.

he had Costas and Verducci acting like they suspected steroids the whole time.

 

Well, I think pretty much everybody SUSPECTED steroids, but chose to say nothing about it.

 

Check my new signature!

 

not a small market, but they are No. 2 in that city and quite a ways from No. 1.

 

I think Marcos Breton got more face time on Part I than any player did. It's funny, because if you're not a journalist or a former journalist, you probably have no idea who the guy is.

 

I thought the same thing. It reminded me of Doris Kearns Goodwin's extensive face time in the original.

Still, I enjoyed his recounting of how he had to rip his column down when the Giants blew the 2002 World Series.

 

Didn't Verducci write the first story that blew the door open? With Caminiti?

 

Yes. And then he gushed repeatedly over Roger Clemens' sterling work ethic and even participated in workouts with him, yet never looked inward when Clemens got busted and, in fact, managed to retain the pious "won't someone think of the game" attitude.