Customer Reviews

When It Was a Game 2 [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is no Hollywood baseball movie. This is the real deal. Exquisite colors and poetic comments from those who played baseball the way it should be played- as a game.

All 3 WIWAG are excellent. This is more than just a well put together documentary. Its very moving because of the footage, narration and music. You don't feel like you are watching a DVD about baseball. It feels like you are watching a snapshot of Americana from the 50's and 60's. After watching this, you wish that things today were as they were back in those days. Not just baseball or sports, but life in general as it was protrayed in the DVDs.

The initial joy of seeing baseball players like Lou Gehrig and retired greats like Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb and Cy Young in living color is worn off when you get to volume 2 of "When It Was a Game," but this is still a captivating look into the past. The time frame for these collected home movies from players and fans on 8mm and 16mm film is a bit broader this time around, going back to 1925 and forward to 1961, which means the oldest shots are actually in black & white and seem rather out of place, because once again the thrill here is seeing players and ballparks in glorious color. There is Hank Aaron wearing the great looking uniform of the Boston Braves, old Crosley Field in its green splendor, and Babe Ruth making his final appearance in a Yankee uniform at the Stadium. There is a bit more effort this time to have the disembodied voices talking about subjects that sort of match up to the images on the screen, such as Joe Garagiola talking about graffiti on an outfield billboard, Enos Slaughter explaining why he always ran on and off the field, and the story of catcher Moe Berg being a government spy while barnstorming with Connie Mack in Japan. There is a nice section on what lfie was like the Pacific Coast League when major league baseball did not exist west of St. Louis.

But whether you actually listen to what is being said or tune it out will not affect your enjoyment of these nostalgic images. At the end of these hour-long HBO documentaries, when they simply show shots of various ballplayers and superimpose their names, that is the essence of what makes "When It Was a Game" so special. There is Jackie Robinson in color, Hank Greenberg in color, Mel Ott in color, and so on and so forth. Even when it is someone we are used to see in color, such as Yogi Berra or Willie Mays, we are still talking a young Yogi and a young "Say Hey" Kid. A lot of the action is off field-baseball players in Spring Training wearing bathing suits and cleats, Yogi and some other Yankees sticking out their tongues for the camera, the Chicago Cubs in a parade before the start of a World Series game-but that does not detract from our enjoyment of these simple film clips spliced together.

This is such a pleasant movie for any fan or baseball who wants to view how the game was played before expansion, PED, and other steriods ruined the game with cheaters such as Bonds, McGuire, Alex Rodriguez, and Clemens to name a few.

This is a great tape but it could have been better. While I could recognize many of the players that were featured in a clip, the lack of a caption or audio identifying the player reduced the impact. This tape is constructed from 8 and 16 mm footage shot by players, their families or fans. For this reason, there are few shots of game action, most have the players mugging for the camera, grandstanding or simply at leisure. It helps humanize the players, for in earlier days baseball players were semi-gods, baseball and its' practitioners were revered for decades. For example, a co-worker once told me that when he was young he would have sold his soul for a Mickey Mantle baseball card.
Until the late 1950's and 1960's, pro football, basketball and hockey were niche sports; most fans of football and basketball followed the college games. It is also difficult for the modern sports fan to comprehend how popular and revered Babe Ruth was, as well as how much he changed the game of baseball. He single-handedly turned a base-by-base game into one where the emphasis was on the lightning strike of a home run. That point is emphatically made; there is also the suggestion that Babe's Yankee number should be retired throughout all of baseball, which is not unreasonable.
As a lifelong baseball fan, these images kept me enthralled as I tried to put names to faces and actions. However, for me, being less enthralled would have been better if I would have been told the name of the player.