The Ghosts of Flatbush

[Lzcutter]

I'm hardly what anyone would call a sports fan (and luckily for me, neither is Mr. C!). But I do love documentaries about history, especially New York (perhaps because I live in the "other" city).

So, if you get a chance, there is a great documentary on HBO right now called The Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush that was produced in 2007. It's not only a history of the Dodgers but also a history of post-war Brooklyn and New York.

It's got wonderful archival footage and great interviews not only with Dodger front office men from back in the day but Louis Gossett, Larry King and Robert Caro (still talking about Robert Moses). Had Moses had more vision and not been stuck in his fever dream of a New York built for cars (?), the Dodgers would never have left Brooklyn.

But then, they wouldn't be the Dodgers of our collective memory no matter what city we live in.

I saw it earlier this evening on HBO and had I not read the credits (film geek, that's me), I would have sworn it was produced by PBS' American Experience and not MLB.

But it was a great two hour historical documentary and I recommend it.

[moira finnie]

Before having HBO turned off I saw and enjoyed that documentary on the Brooklyn Dodgers, one of the exceptional programs that the network does very well devoted to sports. That show made me nostalgic for a period I'd never known!

The one that really got me, however, was the documentary HBO did on the Boston Red Sox and their fans, showing how when the Sox finally broke their losing streak, descendants of of fans visited the graves of their relatives, just to decorate them with something memorable from the year they won the World Series, at last. Maybe someday the fans of the Cubs in Chicago will get to do the same thing.

I still miss Real Sports, one of the better sports news tele-magazines I've seen and one of the few times I've had some respect for Bryant Gumbel's journalistic skill, (his brother Greg is a lot easier to take).

I hear that there is now a doc with Jim Brown and Bill Russell on HBO talking about aspects of the changes they've witnessed in sports. Sounds pretty intriguing, especially since Russell always impressed me as a person as well as a basketball player.

[movieman1957]

Bill Russell recently wrote a book about his long friendship with Red Auerbach. Listening to Russell talk about discrimination they faced when he played is interesting. Russell is well spoken and often very funny.

I had seen a similar documentary, I think "The Boys of Summer" some years ago and I find baseball history more interesting than baseball itself lately. I love those old uniforms especially when you get to see them in color.

[jdb1]

I missed it and I do hope they show it again. Hey, wait a minute, this is cable TV -- of course they'll show it again.

"Ghosts" is right -- it's scary to think that I'm old enough to have actually been in Ebbets Field. I was at the Polo Grounds as well. My father was a big baseball fan, and having no son, he brough me along to Sunday games. I'm not complaining, I remember loving it, even if I can't actually remember much of the action. I suppose we were sitting too far away for me to see very clearly. Funny that my most vivid memory of both stadiums is that most of the men wore suits and hats. In those days you dressed up, even to go to a ball game.

PS - He let me sip his beer, too. So now I'm a lifelong baseball fan, and a lifelong beer fan.