The third part of the documentary series takes a look at the changing face of baseball in America during the 1960's.
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01:57Good to see you again.
01:59You were right.
02:01I don't come by near enough.
02:04We are old friends.
02:06Have played together since my hair blonded in summer.
02:10Before I shaved.
02:13When I was a stick boy.
02:15You never change.
02:17Your makeup is different.
02:19Shinier.
02:20Neon.
02:23But your voice sounds just the same.
02:26I've missed you.
02:28Have you missed me?
02:35Baseball's emotional hold on America
02:38was as strong as ever at the beginning of the 1960s.
02:43To finish off a decade filled with unlimited optimism and growth,
02:47the game, like America, eased into the new decade
02:51blissfully unaware of the changing times ahead.
02:56But those times were coming.
02:58By decade's end, there would be a seismic shift in baseball,
03:01both on and off the field.
03:03Dramatic changes that would take the game
03:05in new and sometimes conflicting directions.
03:11It was in sharp contrast to the early 60s
03:14when baseball was still a familiar game.
03:17A game with a nice comfortable rhythm.
03:20Played mostly in sunlight.
03:22In quaint traditional stadiums.
03:24In front of fans that had followed the same teams and stars
03:28for generations.
03:30The game of our collective youth.
03:35It was a two-hour drive from my house to the Bronx.
03:38As we came in over the Major Deegan,
03:40there it was.
03:42Actor Billy Crystal.
03:44And you walked in and you heard that sound, the crowd buzzing.
03:48There's a smell of those hot dogs and mustard and beer
03:52that gets in the cement and just stays in those tunnels.
03:56And then you walk out and there was that field.
04:00It was beyond belief how big Yankee Stadium originally was.
04:05461 to Dead Center, with those monuments.
04:08And I always used to think that Babe Ruth was actually buried
04:10in center field like most of us.
04:16When Mantle came up to the plate,
04:19it sounded like the ocean at night.
04:25There's no other sound but the waves hitting the shore
04:27and it was loud and it was an excitement
04:29like something really great could happen at any moment.
04:34And Mickey hit it.
04:36I'll never forget the sound of it.
04:38And I remember my father saying,
04:40Oh my God, it's going out.
04:42And it just kept going up, up, up, up.
04:45And the ground shook.
04:47It was unbelievable.
04:51There was a stun in the crowd that you couldn't believe.
04:54There was a buzz for three innings.
04:56People talking about it.
04:58Broadcaster Bob Costas.
05:01If central casting was to send in a baseball hero,
05:03they couldn't find anybody better than Mickey Mantle.
05:06A big, blonde, strapping kid out of Oklahoma
05:11gets off the plane in New York
05:13carrying a $7 cardboard suitcase.
05:18The hayseed, who you could almost see
05:20cranking his neck up to assess the skyscrapers.
05:23It's a perfect story.
05:26In the early 1960s,
05:28Mickey Mantle was our country's symbolic son,
05:31our star of stars,
05:33the physical and spiritual center
05:35of the most successful team
05:37in America's most popular sport,
05:40the New York Yankees,
05:42winners of five straight American League championships
05:45from 1960 to 1964.
05:50Writer Leonard Coppett.
05:53The Yankees of the early 60s
05:55were distinctly stronger than the Yankees of the 50s.
06:00The Yankees still had their accumulated stars
06:04still at a playable age
06:07and the products of what had been
06:10the best farm system for about 20 years.
06:15In 1961, Mantle and his teammate Roger Marris
06:20set off in tandem after Babe Ruth's home run record.
06:23Marris broke it, adding to the legend
06:26of a team others saw as awash in arrogance
06:29and loaded with muscle.
06:31Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Mombuquette.
06:34When I pitched against the Yankees at Fenway especially,
06:37I used to just watch batting practice.
06:40Here comes Richardson.
06:41He hits line drives all over the plate,
06:43and then Tony Kubik hits the ball the other way,
06:46and then the bombers were coming.
06:55Oh, my God.
06:57Couldn't believe you could hit balls that far,
07:00and it was easy.
07:02I'd watch Al Forrester, groundskeeper,
07:05go up the ladder on the wall with 4 or 5 buckets
07:09and come down with all of them full.
07:11Now, you knew how many balls that were in there,
07:14probably 150 balls.
07:19When we finished batting practice,
07:22we only had one bucket.
07:24Nine balls in there.
07:27I'm trying to think about it.
07:28How am I going to pitch to these guys?
07:30Next thing you know, Skyron's taking some ground balls.
07:33You say, you going to hang me any curveballs today?
07:40For decades, the Yankees had been the model of consistency,
07:44methodically winning pennant after pennant,
07:47and the first few years of the 60s
07:49looked just like the preceding decades,
07:53with one exception.
07:55In previous generations,
07:56the Yanks reveled in their corporate image,
07:59always insisting that new teammates
08:01follow a strict and professional code.
08:03Now, with rebellious players like Joe Pepitone,
08:08that was changing.
08:09I was the first one to bring a hair dryer to the clubhouse.
08:11They never heard of that.
08:12They thought I was something strange about me, you know?
08:14And they said, what is it with this guy?
08:16I called the telephone company.
08:17They have to come and put a phone in my locker.
08:19I mean, what the hell's going on now, you know?
08:21Pepitone ordered the phone.
08:24Hey, the guy's ready to attach it to the thing,
08:26and a pal came out, grabbed this guy,
08:28threw him out of the clubhouse.
08:29Oh, he was really pissed.
08:31I said, I'll pay for it.
08:33He said, no, you ain't having no phone.
08:35Are you crazy?
08:37Pitcher Jim Boughton.
08:39Whitey and Mickey told Joe Pepitone and Phil Lentz
08:42that they were inviting them out to dinner,
08:44and Pepitone and Lentz couldn't believe
08:46they're going to be going out with the big guys,
08:48Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford.
08:50So here's the address.
08:51It's the Flame Restaurant.
08:52When you get to the Flame,
08:53make sure you ask for Mickey's table.
08:55It's in the back.
08:58It's way, way out of town.
09:00It's in this bombed-out section of dilapidated buildings,
09:03boarded-up windows, and sure enough,
09:05there's this doorway with the glass broken
09:07and a sign hanging halfway down.
09:09It says, The Flame.
09:16In the 40s and 50s,
09:18we were taught to catch the ball with two hands,
09:21and we did,
09:23to keep our eye on the ball,
09:25and we did,
09:27to run everything out,
09:29and we did,
09:31to touch all the bases,
09:34and we did.
09:36And then came the 60s.
09:43In 1958, the Dodgers and Giants reacted
09:47to the post-war population explosion and moved west.
09:51Three years later in 1961,
09:54the Los Angeles Angels joined them in California
09:57as baseball expanded for the first time,
10:00adding two new teams to the American League.
10:05In 1962, the National League grew by two teams,
10:09making a return to New York after a four-year absence.
10:14While aging hometown stars like Duke Snyder
10:17brought back memories of the glorious 50s,
10:20Casey Stengel's Mets turned out to be a failure on the field,
10:24losing a Major League record 120 games.
10:35Although more jobs were available,
10:37baseball's expansion did little financially for the players.
10:41They remained at the mercy of the team's thrifty owners,
10:44who were reluctant to share the wealth.
10:47Pitcher Jim Boughton.
10:49My first contract with the Yankees
10:51was actually signed five minutes before opening day.
10:55Dan Topping Jr. comes over to me in the clubhouse.
10:57He says, Get over here, kid.
10:59And he throws this piece of paper down on the table.
11:01He says, Don't bother reading it.
11:03It's the same one everybody else signs.
11:05Just sign it and let's go.
11:07Couldn't have an agent, although I don't know why an agent
11:09would want 10% of $7,000.
11:12You could even have your father there.
11:18Los Angeles Dodger Maury Wills.
11:21Here I am, just a gung-ho, somewhat dumb baseball player.
11:24And he said, What do you want?
11:26I said, What's your offering?
11:28Now I stole 104 bases, changed the game.
11:31I came out of that office in 15, 20 minutes sweating,
11:34happy I was still on the team.
11:39Hall of Famer Frank Robinson.
11:42When I had my most valuable player year in 1961,
11:46Will gave me what you made last year.
11:52I hit .29 and drove in over 100 runs one year
11:55and they wanted to cut me.
11:56I deserve a raise. This is what he needed.
11:58He said, Well, I drove in 100 runs.
12:00I hit this. I hit that.
12:02He said, Yeah, but you left 719 runs on base.
12:07Pitcher Jim Cott.
12:11They didn't like single players.
12:13They try to influence you into getting married,
12:15raising a family, settling down.
12:17Then they knew you had obligations
12:19and they really had you over a barrel.
12:21Ray Boone, when I first joined the ball club, he said,
12:24Al, if you can leave this game by owning your own home,
12:27you've had a good career.
12:29Hall of Famer Al Kaline.
12:32With a little bit of money I made,
12:34I want to be able to keep and not spend it
12:36over the winter months because I had two little boys
12:38and I wanted to think down the road
12:40that I want them to go to college.
12:42He started saving money and getting a job.
12:44I got a job every year. I played baseball.
12:47I played 21 and a half years.
12:49Pitcher Dick Raditz.
12:52My first year I played for $7,500.
12:56I hauled furniture and taught school in the offseason
12:58and made $11,000.
13:01I was a teamster for 20 years
13:03and paid my dues religiously.
13:07Until 1967, the minimum salary in the major leagues
13:11never rose higher than $6,000.
13:15Contracts were also very restrictive.
13:18Players were held captive by the organization that signed them,
13:22unable to move freely from team to team.
13:25Ironically, as writer Gordon Eddis remembers,
13:28what was bad for players was good for fans.
13:33When the Reggie Smiths and the Mike Andrews
13:35and the Mike Ryans and the Russ Gibsons
13:37came up to the Red Sox,
13:39you knew, or you sensed anyway,
13:41that they would be there for a while,
13:43so you weren't afraid to give them your heart.
13:46You weren't afraid to give Jim Lombard your heart
13:48and Rico Petroselli.
13:52Al Kaline.
13:54That's one of the great things that we had in Detroit
13:56throughout the 60s.
13:57We had the same players for a long time.
14:01They came through the minor leagues together.
14:04They graduated up to the big leagues
14:06and we played for a long period of time,
14:08six, seven, eight years.
14:10Fathers could take their kids to the ballpark
14:12and they really connected with the players more so.
14:16The fans knew who they were going to have on the field
14:19from year to year.
14:21Writer Tom Boswell.
14:23As you cast your mind back,
14:24you're amazed at how vivid the teams are from that period
14:26and how many good players they had.
14:28Even the worst teams in the league
14:30had a core of exciting players.
14:31I mean, the Cubs in 63 have a lineup
14:33that's a famous lineup.
14:35I mean, look at that.
14:36Ernie Banks, Hall of Fame.
14:37Billy Williams, Hall of Fame.
14:39Ron Santo, borderline Hall of Fame.
14:43You tended to know them more intensely.
14:50Bob Costas.
14:52Because guys stayed with the same teams,
14:55you identified them with those teams
14:57and with their uniforms.
15:04And it's strange because relatively few games
15:06were on television,
15:07so you couldn't say that we actually saw
15:10more baseball in the 60s.
15:15But maybe what we saw made a deeper impression.
15:19So in a sense, you were more distant
15:21from those teams.
15:23But there were a manageable number of teams
15:26and the best players tended to stay in one place.
15:31So you became familiar with the rosters of teams.
15:35And if someone said the Pirates,
15:36you immediately conjured up a notion
15:38of Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski.
15:42If somebody said Crosley Field,
15:44well, you knew that there was an incline
15:46out there in center field
15:47and a laundry out behind the fence in left
15:50and that their lineup included Veda Pinson,
15:55Frank Robinson,
15:58and later Pete Rose.
16:00There was a mental picture
16:01that immediately jumped to mind
16:03and the core of those teams was constant.
16:08Filmmaker John Sayles.
16:11If you think of it in dramatic terms,
16:13the teams were more like long-running series.
16:16They were more like Hill Street Blues or Cheers.
16:21You could turn the dial on this channel on this night
16:24and you knew who was going to be there
16:26and in that way had ongoing character.
16:30All of us from that generation
16:31retain a vivid image of guys' numbers.
16:37Only one person could be twenty-four.
16:39That was Willie Mays.
16:43And only Al Kaline could be number six.
16:46And only Carl Yastrzemski was number eight
16:49if it was a Boston Red Sox uniform.
16:52Or Frank Robinson number twenty.
16:55Only Mickey Mantle could be number seven.
16:58Only Roberto Clemente could be number twenty-one.
17:03There were a couple of forty-fours that stood out.
17:06No doubt about that.
17:08Willie McCovey,
17:10Henry Aaron.
17:11But they were unmistakable in their own way.
17:15Juan Marischal number twenty-seven
17:17with his leg kicking to the sky.
17:20Bob Gibson glaring in,
17:22fearsome on the mound, number forty-five.
17:26The game meant so much to us
17:27that they made an indelible impression.
17:31He is throwing hard again.
17:34Clipping corners.
17:36Shaving letters.
17:38Dusting off the heavy stick-crowding clean-up.
17:41Clean down to his smelly socks.
17:45And when that right spike hits the ground,
17:48he's had his look already
17:50and gets hollow in the belly.
17:53And he's got it.
17:56He's had his look already
17:58and gets hollow in the belly.
18:00In his meanest daydream,
18:02he lets fly a sweet stream of spit.
18:06His catcher pops his mitt
18:08and calls him baby.
18:18You had individual games
18:20that managed to rivet the country on Saturday afternoon.
18:23Tom Boswell.
18:25You could see everybody on the game of the week.
18:35And I still remember in the summer
18:36of being a camp counselor.
18:39Marischal against Koufax.
18:42Camp stopped.
18:44We're not having free swim now.
18:46They can drown.
18:47I'm not being a lifeguard
18:49from two to four on Saturday afternoon.
18:51Can't be done.
18:56Pitchers pitched every fourth day,
18:58not every fifth day.
18:59You had a greater chance of seeing those pitchers.
19:01Also, it was a badge of honor
19:03to pitch against the other star.
19:04You might pitch on short rest
19:06to face the other guy's top guy.
19:08Hall of Fame pitcher, Ferguson Jenkins.
19:11I can recall pitching three games in a week sometimes.
19:13Starting on Monday, again on Thursday,
19:15and again on Sunday.
19:16I knew I was going to face Bunning with the Phillies.
19:20I faced Cincinnati.
19:21I might get Maloney.
19:23I faced the Mets.
19:24I'd probably get Seaver.
19:26With the Cardinals,
19:27I knew I was going to get Bob Gibson.
19:30When the starter got the ball,
19:31the manager said,
19:32hey, you're out there for nine innings.
19:34Don't give it back.
19:35I don't want it back.
19:37In the pitching-rich 60s,
19:39the complete game was a badge of honor.
19:42Durable starters like Juan Marischal
19:44would routinely finish 20 or 25 games
19:47in a single season,
19:49strengthening their arms by pitching
19:52batting practice when time permitted.
19:54Broadcaster Bob Costas.
19:57I remember a game in 1963
19:59where Juan Marischal hooked up with the then
20:02forty-two-year-old Warren Spahn.
20:04The game goes sixteen innings.
20:06They each go the distance.
20:09And the Giants win it one to nothing
20:12on a maze homer in the bottom of the
20:14sixteenth off Warren Spahn.
20:15I can say this with absolute certainty.
20:18You will not see a game like that
20:20for the next hundred years.
20:24As pitchers became more dominant,
20:27winning 20 games became commonplace.
20:30Batting averages declined steadily in the 60s,
20:33reaching a low in 1968
20:35when only one player in the American League
20:37hit more than three hundred.
20:39Sixty-eight was also the year
20:41Denny McLean won thirty-one games
20:44and somehow wasn't even the best pitcher in baseball,
20:48historian Dick Johnson.
20:50Grab a bat.
20:52Step in the box.
20:54Let me introduce you to Mr. Gibson.
20:57That withering look of just disdain
21:00and utter menace.
21:03I had one thing in mind as winning the ball game.
21:07Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson.
21:10Losing was not an option.
21:12Okay, here I am.
21:13There's going to be a battle.
21:15So let's go.
21:17The day that I had my good stuff,
21:19I wasn't concerned too much about anybody.
21:22Catcher Tim McCarver.
21:24He intimidated everybody.
21:26He intimidated his teammates,
21:27intimidated his manager,
21:29intimidated the pitching coach,
21:31and he intimidated the opposition,
21:33believe me.
21:34You could see it, you could feel it.
21:35Ferocity.
21:36St. Louis Cardinal Dal Maxfield.
21:39He was not a nice guy.
21:40On the day he pitched, he didn't talk to anybody.
21:42None of us talked to him.
21:43We knew better.
21:44Guys that didn't know him
21:45were rookies that could join the ball club.
21:47Hey, Bob, what's going on?
21:48He'd just look at them and walk away.
21:50They'd go and say, what's wrong with Gibson?
21:52I'd say, nothing, he's pitching today.
21:54I was a jerk on the days that I pitched.
21:57I was always bitching about the game being two to one.
21:59How come I don't get six runs?
22:01Consequently, I was grumpy all the time.
22:03I used to aggravate Tim because he comes out to the mound,
22:06tell me there's a guy on second base still watching.
22:08Well, shit, I knew he was there.
22:09I put him there.
22:11In the 60s, Gibson's intensity was common.
22:15Most of the era's successful pitchers
22:17often excelled through intimidation.
22:19St. Louis Cardinal Mike Shannon.
22:22If you leaned over the plate,
22:24tried to protect the outside part of the plate,
22:26well, you had to pay the price for it.
22:28The price was he was going to whistle one up around your ear.
22:33Al Kaline.
22:35You knew when you were going well,
22:37and if you happened to have a couple of big games
22:39against a team, maybe get three, four hits,
22:41you knew that sooner or later they're going to drill you
22:43or knock you off the plate.
22:44I mean, that was just part of the game.
22:46We're going to shake you up a little bit
22:48and see how you hit when you get off the seat of your pants.
22:51Catcher Jeff Torborg
22:53remembered that even the best, most confident hitters
22:56feared one pitcher more than any other.
23:00Hitters would dig a hole
23:01and really get anchored with their back foot.
23:03Willie Mays dug in sometimes with both feet.
23:05And he looked up and he realized it was dry zeal.
23:07I don't think he was even thinking at the time.
23:09He called timeout and he filled up the hole.
23:12As if to say, I made a mistake.
23:14I didn't realize he was pitching.
23:16Down he went.
23:20Frank Robinson stood as close to home plate as you could stand.
23:23And when he would hook up with dry zeal,
23:25he would go down once or twice and add back.
23:28And then he'd get back up and hit a bullet somewhere.
23:33He hit me more than anyone else.
23:35He kept it going like a rocking chair.
23:37That night I always felt like I'd been wrestling a bear.
23:40I was so tired when I left the ballpark,
23:42but I respected him for the way he went about his job.
23:46The pitcher who earned the most respect during the 60s
23:50was Sandy Koufax.
23:52Although his career ended prematurely after the 1966 season,
23:57Koufax was still the pitcher of the decade
24:00in the decade of the pitcher, Jeff Torborg.
24:04He had this very slow delivery that lulled the hitter to sleep.
24:08And then when he did let it go,
24:10it just rocketed through the top of the strike zone.
24:15And then he threw this curveball.
24:16This thing would break at least two feet.
24:18I could hear the seams on his curveball.
24:20It was spinning so tightly.
24:21He got on top of the ball so much
24:23that if the mound were a little higher,
24:25the ball would go back to him.
24:26I mean, that is how tight his rotation was.
24:29Ole' Samer, Hank Aaron.
24:32He was very hard, was very intimidating,
24:35and knew how to finish a ball game.
24:37If you got him 2-1 at the 8th or 9th inning,
24:40somebody would call his wife and say,
24:41put dinner on because I'll be home soon.
24:48He was truly magnificent.
24:51Pitcher, Jim Kopp.
24:53He played on teams that did not score a lot of runs.
24:58It seemed like every game he pitched
25:01was 2-1, 1-0.
25:02So every game, he knew he had to pitch a shutout
25:05or hold the opposition to one run.
25:10That probably helped him in one way,
25:12and it probably helped shorten his career.
25:16Because every pitch he threw
25:18was like the last out in the ninth inning.
25:26Weary the years that have passed since then.
25:30Who dreamed as the stardust fluttered down.
25:33Of fame that fluttered beyond the years.
25:37Of glory hooked to the sweep of cheers.
25:40Weary the years that have passed since then.
25:43Faint the dreams in a lonesome den.
25:47The sullen tread of the crowd moves by.
25:50Where stars are dim in a fading sky.
25:54Where is the glory that ruled the fray?
26:00In the mid-1960's,
26:02injuries and age overtook Mickey Mantle.
26:05After more than a decade among baseball's elite,
26:08the Mick had become just an ordinary player.
26:13As New York Yankee executive Marty Appel remembers,
26:16Mantle's decline was especially painful to watch.
26:23Power hitters see their skills diminish.
26:26They hit it just as hard as they used to,
26:28but now it's a long fly ball.
26:30It would embarrass them.
26:32Yankee teammate Joe Pepitone.
26:34He was like 0 for 20.
26:35He threw his helmet down.
26:36He said, that's it.
26:37I've hurt everybody.
26:38It was sad.
26:39He just couldn't do what he wanted to do for the team anymore.
26:41He started crying.
26:43Writer Maury Allen.
26:44He used to tell his story about having a dream.
26:49And he heard the crowd.
26:52And he couldn't get into the stadium.
26:54He would try to sneak in under the stands.
26:57It was the fear of the alternative.
27:00If I don't play baseball, what am I going to do?
27:03Where am I going to go?
27:09Marty Appel.
27:11He hung on and played so long because he just loved the game.
27:15He loved being around.
27:17He loved being a baseball player.
27:18The life.
27:21On his plaque at Yankee Stadium,
27:23it says he was a great teammate,
27:25which is a wonderful line.
27:27It was his own line.
27:29There wasn't a more charming guy in and around the game.
27:32He had a great laugh.
27:34He had a great sense of humor.
27:36And he had a great sense of self in the end
27:39because he knew that he was part of something really magical.
27:43As Mickey faded, so did his Yankees.
27:46The team won its last pennant in 1964
27:49and then began a swift fall through the standings.
27:52Within two seasons, the Yanks were a last place team
27:55with dwindling fans.
27:57From Ruth, to DiMaggio, to Mantle, to Horace Clark.
28:02Forty years later,
28:04the Yankees are still the best baseball team in the world.
28:08From DiMaggio, to Mantle, to Horace Clark.
28:12Forty years of continued excellence had ended.
28:15Baseball historian Dick Johnson.
28:18They started to bottom out.
28:20And it was about time.
28:22What hath God wrought here?
28:24You know, he's paying attention now.
28:26He's a fan too.
28:27The Yankees suck.
28:28It was great.
28:31Bob Costas.
28:34Among other problems,
28:35the Yankees, like so many American League teams,
28:38were very slow to sign black and Hispanic players.
28:42And they paid for it.
28:44The Yankees' racial intolerance
28:46could have been a product of their success.
28:48From 1947, the year of Jackie Robinson's debut,
28:51to 1964,
28:53New York appeared in 15 World Series in 18 years.
28:57But as writer Donald Honig suggests,
28:59there might have been a more malicious reason.
29:02George Weiss had negative vibrations about black players.
29:06The very fact that the New York Yankees
29:08did not bring up the first black until 1955
29:11speaks for itself.
29:14The Yankees could have gotten anybody they wanted.
29:19There was Willie Mays,
29:20playing in the Negro League in Birmingham.
29:22Any number of players.
29:26They could have had an outfield of Aaron Mays and Mantle
29:29if they wanted.
29:31They were available.
29:32You mean to say Yankee scouts didn't notice them?
29:36And when they did bring up Elston Howard,
29:38Weiss's comment was telltale.
29:41He's a good ball player and he's a gentleman.
29:43Since when did you have to be a gentleman
29:45playing the major leagues?
29:47It seems to me that George Weiss might have been a bigot.
29:50It's as simple as that.
29:51As Tom Yawkey might well have been a bigot.
29:53I mean, how else do you explain these things?
29:56Yawkey's Red Sox were the last major league organization
29:59to integrate when they belatedly brought
30:02Pumpsey Green to Boston in 1959.
30:05The wait was costly.
30:07Like many other American league teams,
30:09Boston fell far behind the more aggressive National League
30:13and the competitive damage would remain for years.
30:19So Whitey played in Milwaukee and Atlanta
30:23where the mound was his warning track
30:27and the fences drooped, or seemed to,
30:29when he zinged a liner that never climbed higher
30:31than a horse's head.
30:34In the field, he moved slowly, or seemed to.
30:38What is the word now?
30:40Deliberately getting there.
30:43Was always the tortoise whipping the hare.
30:46Check the records for luck.
30:48You'll find the numbers were all in his wrists.
30:56Hall of Famer Hank Aaron.
30:59We had to do better than our white teammates.
31:02You didn't have black ballplayers being utility players.
31:05Black ballplayers on the team, he was a regular.
31:07So we had to try harder. We had to play harder.
31:11But I think that you had more talent
31:13in the National League than you had in the American League
31:15simply because you had more blacks playing in the league.
31:19Musician George Thorogood.
31:22I would go to the Connie Mack Stadium
31:24and watch the Cincinnati Reds
31:26and just marvel at watching the black players.
31:33I look into Frank Robinson's face, Vada Pinson.
31:36They were serious people when they got on that field.
31:38This is one of the few opportunities to excel
31:40for people of their race in this country.
31:43They meant business.
31:46Baseball historian Dick Johnson.
31:49The National League was like the Democratic Party.
31:52The American League were like the Republicans.
31:55They were sort of the men in the gray flannel suits.
31:58The National League looked more like America.
32:00It was African-American. It had a Spanish accent.
32:04Hunger your hearts.
32:06And ultimately, better baseball.
32:09It was just common sense.
32:11There was not as much a social movement as it was
32:13a move to win games.
32:17The pioneer, of course, was Jackie Robinson,
32:20whose distinctive flair and dramatic playing style would,
32:23in time, become a trademark of the National League.
32:28Professor Michael Eric Dyson.
32:31When they brought that kind of speed and power into the game,
32:34it revolutionized it. It gave it more energy.
32:36Gave it a sense of inherent drama
32:38and made it easier on the eye.
32:43The National League took on a different sense of savoir-faire,
32:46a different sense of presence.
32:48And so what you had with black ballplayers
32:50was a strengthening of the script of baseball.
32:53It popped off of the page, so to speak,
32:56and the eye was alit with the glories of their profound talent.
33:00It made it a different game.
33:02It made it not simply America's pastime in the white imagination.
33:07It allowed black people to have ownership
33:10over a game that historically had excluded them.
33:13Frank Robinson.
33:16It was just a tremendous error
33:18because when I used to play against the Braves,
33:21I used to want to compete against Hank.
33:23I didn't want Aaron out to do me.
33:25So if Hank hit one, I wanted to hit one.
33:27If he hit two, I wanted to hit two.
33:29If he hit three, I wound up with two.
33:34That was a league identity, and when you played in the National League,
33:37you were the best league as far as you were concerned.
33:39You didn't want anything to do with the American League.
33:41We thought that the American League
33:43was a place where old ballplayers went to die.
33:47Bob Gibson.
33:49We had a younger group of guys,
33:51and certainly we could look and see
33:53that there weren't that many black players over there,
33:55but we thought it was basically a retirement community.
33:59In the 60s, the imbalance of black and Latin stars was so great
34:04that the National League dominated the All-Star Game,
34:07losing just once the entire decade.
34:11Each year, black and Latin players monopolized
34:14nearly all of the National League's offensive categories.
34:17And yet, as writer Charles Einstein remembers,
34:20throughout the decade, there was one player
34:23whose skills consistently rose above the rest.
34:27Candlestick Park, less than two out.
34:29And that man on third base would be tagged up.
34:34And the sound in that ballpark was indescribable.
34:38It was a growing roar of apprehension.
34:41Oh, I guess, and will he get the ball?
34:45Oh, and then here came the throw.
34:47And it came on the fly.
34:54And it was an astonishing moment.
34:57People would remember that and tell their grandchildren,
35:00I saw this happen.
35:03You have your great violinists of all time,
35:06like Yehuda Emanuel and Isaac Stern.
35:08But then you have Heifetz.
35:10You had all your great baseball players.
35:15But then you had Mays.
35:20Willie Mays came into the 1960s
35:22already one of the game's premier players.
35:26And then he got better.
35:29In the first seven years of his second decade,
35:32Mays hit more homers and drove in more runs
35:35than any other comparable period of his career.
35:40He was the most valuable player in 1954.
35:43And he won in 1965.
35:45Nobody in history
35:48has ever gone twelve seasons apart
35:50and won most valuable at both ends of that.
35:54This was Peter Pan or somebody.
35:56This was the joy of youth that was just preserved
35:58and preserved and preserved.
36:05You couldn't take your eyes off Willie Mays on the ball field.
36:08And there was never a more alert ball player than Mays.
36:11His baseball-playing IQ is comparable to Einstein's.
36:14He was a great baseball player.
36:16He was a great baseball player.
36:18He was a great baseball player.
36:20His baseball-playing IQ is comparable to Einstein's
36:23in physics.
36:26Jeff Torborg.
36:29Willie Mays was at third base and a little pop-up
36:31went behind second base and Jimmy Lefevre catches the ball
36:34and Mays makes a bluff fake toward home plate.
36:36And Lefevre and Mays both smile.
36:41As soon as Jimmy put his head down,
36:43off takes Willie for the plate.
36:45He could do everything to beat you.
36:48And do it with a flair and do it with ease.
36:51I was a young player and he picked up my bat
36:53and I asked to have a picture taken with him.
36:56And he picked up my bat and he put it up toward his mouth
36:58and he said, I clean my teeth with ease.
37:00Donald Honig.
37:02You see him catching that ball in center field
37:04just like he's absorbing it.
37:06It's like it was tossed to him from three feet away.
37:10He was just a marvelous baseball-playing machine.
37:13And the fact that he did it with this carbonated personality
37:18you just enjoyed what he was doing as much as you admired it.
37:24You cannot say Willie Mays and be angry.
37:28It's impossible to do that.
37:30It's got a joy inside itself.
37:32Arbuthnot Fauntleroy, is that the kind of a name you want
37:35for somebody who can do these things?
37:37No, no, you want Willie Mays.
37:40It's very distinct at the ballpark.
37:44The players play ball.
37:46The umpires arbitrate.
37:48The groundskeepers manicure the grounds,
37:51watering the base paths with grave, sylph-like movements.
37:56The young Dominican pitcher surveys his outfield.
37:59Vibrant green under the lights.
38:03Este es mi pueblo.
38:07Este es mi parque.
38:11The tears of the patrons rain down on his deaf ears.
38:15At the ballpark, it's all very distinct.
38:23Baseball Executive Omar Minaya.
38:27I was born in the Dominican Republic
38:29and my parents migrated to the United States when I was seven years old.
38:33The teams that I was introduced to
38:35were the teams that had a large amount of Latin players.
38:40In its own way, it has some type of social implication.
38:44It has some type of social attachment
38:46growing up in the inner cities,
38:48a sense of identification.
38:52Although the inclusion of Latin players in the majors
38:55predated Jackie Robinson,
38:57by the 60s, when the first real Hispanic invasion occurred,
39:01Latin players were still struggling to survive.
39:04Author Roberto Echevarria.
39:08They had to face the discrimination
39:11that black players continued to face in the 60s.
39:16But in addition, they had a huge problem because of the language
39:20and adaptation to a culture that is so different from ours.
39:25Writer Samuel Regalado.
39:27You're dark-colored, you don't speak any English,
39:30and so there was that sense of alienation.
39:34Felipe Alou arrives to the United States.
39:37He has only a few dollars in his pocket.
39:39They put him on the bus.
39:41Every bus stop is segregated.
39:43One of the first words he learns in English is the word colored.
39:48He gets there. He has no idea where the streets are.
39:51He doesn't speak any English at all.
39:53He's tired. He's hungry.
39:56He went to sleep. He went to sleep on a park bench.
39:59Frank Robinson.
40:02I'm scared to death myself in the minor leagues.
40:04And my roommate and the only other black player on the club
40:07was a Cuban kid that spoke no English.
40:09And the only thing he knew was eggs and ham.
40:13That's all he ate.
40:15Minnesota twin Tony Oliva.
40:18I never left my family before. That was my first time.
40:21When I get here, I was so lonesome.
40:24I miss my family so much.
40:26Many times I went through my mind to go home.
40:31Stereotyped and misunderstood,
40:33Latin players often received horrible treatment
40:36from others unwilling to accept a different culture.
40:40Writer Samuel Regalado.
40:43They should be speaking English.
40:45Much of this, of course, is augmented by managers
40:47who begin to institute codes within the locker rooms
40:50by which the players can speak only English.
40:53It's a cultural insult.
40:55Cepeda explodes over the whole thing.
40:59Charles Einstein.
41:03Pagan was on third base and Cepeda was on second.
41:07They started jabbering at each other in Spanish.
41:09This irritated the Cincinnati pitcher,
41:11and he turned to Cepeda and says,
41:13Can't you talk English?
41:14Cepeda says, Yeah, kiss my ass.
41:16Is that English enough for you?
41:20Although they came from different countries,
41:22the two best-known Hispanic stars of the 60s
41:24were strikingly similar.
41:26Roberto Echeverria.
41:28Marichal and Clemente had an air of royalty about them,
41:34where it's not only how you perform,
41:38but the elegance with which you do it
41:40and the character that you project in doing so.
41:45The wind-up is part of the aura,
41:47a retention from bullfighting.
41:49He's all by himself in the middle of the diamond.
41:52It's a move that is not just functional.
41:54It is also a move that exudes elegance, artistry.
42:01Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal.
42:04So many people come up to me and say,
42:06Oh, I used to love the high kick.
42:08I used to try that, and I fall over.
42:12In my home or in the hotel room in front of the mural,
42:16I have to practice the balance.
42:19I used to close my eyes and try to visualize,
42:22and I can see myself kicking the leg and throwing the ball.
42:29Frank Robinson.
42:30Marichal had 15 pitches,
42:33and people said, 15 pitches?
42:35That's right, 15 pitches.
42:36Five pitches he could throw from three different angles.
42:39Over the top, three-quarters, sidearm.
42:42Once in a while, I thought he threw a couple between his legs.
42:47But of all the great Latin stars,
42:49it was Roberto Clemente who championed
42:52the Hispanic players' struggle for acceptance.
42:55Roberto Echevarria.
42:56I was in awe of Clemente.
42:58What a player he was,
42:59and there was a certain controlled violence
43:03to the way that he ran on the bases.
43:07You have to display all of this the same way
43:11a rooster displays his beautiful,
43:13honor and dignity.
43:16Broadcast journalist, Geraldo Rivera.
43:19He played like a gazelle, a beautiful, graceful man,
43:23going from zero to 60 in the blink of an eye.
43:32A guy who could combine suave smoothness
43:36with tremendous power.
43:39To have someone break through into mainstream culture
43:42with tremendous success and skill.
43:46Roberto Clemente is to Hispanic culture
43:50as important as Jackie Robinson to African-American.
44:00Here is the fancied green of our wishes.
44:03Here is the green of our dreams.
44:06Here is the green of our wishes.
44:08Here where I still think the ballplayers are older than I.
44:13This is where they are unreasonably adept.
44:17Where our failure is turned inside out
44:20by quick hands and an always white ball.
44:24I sit in section nine and sometimes wonder why.
44:29But I know I am at ground zero,
44:31where art is made,
44:33where there is no profit, no loss.
44:37The planet lies perfect in its orbit.
44:45For much of the 1960s,
44:47baseball was still our national pastime,
44:50the game very much a part of our daily routine.
44:55On the green fields of our childhood,
44:58we followed the game,
45:00played the game,
45:02and lived the game.
45:04The sounds and smells of warm summer days
45:07always led to baseball.
45:09Bob Costas.
45:11You could walk into the ballpark for any game
45:14and buy a very good ticket,
45:16a box seat at Yankee Stadium.
45:18I'm talking about right next to the dugout.
45:20Almost reach out and touch Mickey Mantle or Roger Marris.
45:24Three dollars and fifty cents.
45:26Three dollars and fifty cents.
45:28General admission, a buck and a half.
45:32Baseball historian Dick Johnson.
45:34Every year when the schedules were announced,
45:37you would scan the schedule to see when the doubleheaders were.
45:40We'd probably go to two or three a year
45:42and they'd invariably be on a Sunday afternoon.
45:45Writer Tom Boswell.
45:47I loved to go to doubleheaders.
45:49I'd go an hour and a half before the game to watch batting practice.
45:55The games were so quick back then,
45:57there was a fear that the game would be over so fast
45:59that you wouldn't get enough baseball.
46:01You might see a two-hour and five-minute game.
46:03Would that be enough?
46:04The Indians are in town. I want to see the Indians.
46:07So the doubleheader really was an insurance
46:10that you would get enough baseball.
46:17When you're playing with a bat that's been taped up three times
46:20and you've driven nails through the handle of it
46:22and put it back together,
46:23the whole neighborhood's only got three bats
46:25and two of them are broken,
46:26bat day's a big deal.
46:29Broadcaster Howie Rose.
46:33For some perverse reason,
46:35your identity as a human being
46:38depended upon whose bat you received at bat day.
46:46The first bat day I can remember at Shea Stadium
46:49that I went to was 1968
46:51and I got a Jerry Bucek bat.
46:53The rest of the day, people were pointing at me going,
46:56Jerry Bucek, Jerry Bucek.
46:58When I had dreamed the night before
47:00of Ed Cranepole, Cleon Jones or Ron Swoboda,
47:04I was forever Jerry Bucek.
47:08Professor Michael Eric Dyson.
47:11You identify with these players and you became them.
47:14I'm Bob Gibson today.
47:17Well, I'm Willie Stargell.
47:18I'm going to swing my bat around three or four times
47:21in that complete circle.
47:23We all wanted to be these figures
47:25and we fought over who that day
47:27could be Willie McCovey.
47:28We really fought for that
47:29because it was a privilege to identify with them.
47:35Actor Robert Wohl.
47:38If you were left-handed like I was and Jewish,
47:40you were Sandy Koufax.
47:42Everybody was Sandy Koufax.
47:45Howie Rose.
47:47Mickey Mantle had this shoulders-punched manner
47:50of running around the bases
47:51where he almost looked like Walter Brennan
47:53in the Real McCoys.
47:55I was, thank God, a perfectly healthy
47:57ten or eleven-year-old
47:58playing Little League in the mid-1960s.
48:00But whenever I had to run out a fly ball
48:02or even a base hit,
48:03I looked like Amos McCoy.
48:05I wanted so very badly to look
48:07even the slightest bit like Mickey Mantle.
48:09It looked neat, so we had to do it.
48:13Bob Costas.
48:16Pack of baseball cards cost a nickel.
48:18I never heard any kid offer another kid money for a card.
48:22Uh-uh. I'll flip you for the card.
48:24I'll play you Nakalina for the card.
48:27I'll trade you for the card.
48:29I'll trade you three Norm Seaburns
48:31and four Bob Perkys for that Hank Aaron.
48:34Maybe, although that wasn't enough.
48:36They had emotional value.
48:38They were for keeping,
48:39for putting on the spokes of your bike
48:41to make a very cool noise
48:42while you rode down the street.
48:45But they had no value
48:47other than your attachment to baseball.
48:51Robert Wohl.
48:53You had baseball cards on the spokes of your bike?
48:56Never to players you wanted them.
48:57No one ever put the Yankee on the spokes of his bike.
49:00You had to be out of your mind to do that.
49:02That went for Ken Aspermani.
49:04That went for a Philly.
49:05You know, that went for a Kansas City A.
49:08But not for the Yankees.
49:10Dick Johnson.
49:12We had a couple of Yankee fans in my class in Worcester.
49:15And I don't know why.
49:16They probably had relatives in New York or New Jersey.
49:18I loved getting cards of Tom Trash,
49:20who we used to call Tom Trash.
49:22I hated him.
49:24And I would take these cards
49:26and I would hold them in front of these kids at recess
49:28and I'd tear them into pieces.
49:30We'd flip them in the dirt.
49:31The Yankee cards, only the Yankee cards.
49:35Bob Costas.
49:37I know I can't prove this
49:38and maybe the people at Tops would deny it,
49:40but I swear there were at least 11 Jerry Lumpies
49:44for every Willie Mays in these packs of cards.
49:47They'd be guys you'd get in triplicates and five times over
49:50and you'd go through and you'd get Jerry Lumpy,
49:53Manny Jimenez, Bill Stafford, Eli Gerber,
49:56Barry Lattman, a checklist.
49:58That was worthless.
49:59A checklist, just a list of all the guys you don't have yet.
50:02And then all of a sudden,
50:03popping up seemingly out of nowhere,
50:05almost like a neon sign.
50:07Wait a minute, is that Mickey?
50:08Yeah, Mickey Mantle right there in the middle of the pack.
50:11And as a bonus, you got that waxy piece of gum.
50:15And whatever card was resting against that gum
50:18would retain the film and the aroma of that gum
50:22for roughly three centuries.
50:27If you can find an Eli Gerber
50:29that was resting against that rectangular piece of gum today,
50:33you can still sense that gum on Eli Gerber's jersey.
50:38It's a frightening concept now that I think of it.
50:46The last true pennant race in baseball took place in 1967.
50:51The Boston Red Sox battled four other teams
50:54and won the American League pennant
50:56on the last day of the season.
50:58The regular season would never again
51:00have such singular importance.
51:04Baseball soon added four more new teams,
51:07split each league into two divisions,
51:10and created a new round of playoffs.
51:13No longer did having the most wins in the league
51:16guarantee a team a place in the World Series.
51:21The game, however, carried on and kept its charm.
51:26In 1969, the New York Mets,
51:29a team that hadn't even existed at the beginning of the decade,
51:32won the last World Series of the 60s.
51:37It was an amazing feat that clearly defined the end of the era
51:42and perhaps the end of the innocence.
51:45Writer Donald Honig.
51:47The 60s, which began with 16 baseball teams,
51:51ended up with 24.
51:53Baseball became almost unrecognizable.
51:57It set the tone for future changes, future expansion,
52:01franchise hopping, the designated hitter.
52:05Robert Wohl.
52:08You had four or five really ugly stadiums
52:12being built at the same time.
52:14One of them was worse than the other.
52:15They were all cookie cutters.
52:16They all had artificial turf.
52:19These stadiums sucked.
52:24But for baseball, the real revolution was yet to come.
52:28In 1970,
52:30Kurt Flood boldly challenged baseball's reserve clause,
52:34and soon players were able to move freely from team to team
52:38for the highest price.
52:41Free agency not only changed the game,
52:44it also changed the way Americans felt about the game.
52:48Over time, team loyalty faded,
52:51and the emotional bond between players and fans
52:54began to slowly erode away.
53:00For more than half a century,
53:02baseball commanded our attention like no other sport.
53:09It was our game,
53:11a national obsession.
53:19As we moved out of the 60s,
53:21baseball entered a new and different time,
53:25a time far removed from its romantic past
53:30when it was a game.
53:36Game called.
53:38Across the field of play,
53:40the dusk has come, the hour is late.
53:43The fight is done, and lost or won.
53:47The player files out through the gate.
53:49The tumult dies.
53:51The cheer is hushed.
53:52The park is still.
53:54But through the night,
53:55there shines the light of home beyond the silent hill.
54:00Game called where in the golden light
54:02the bugle rolled the reveille.
54:05The shadows creep where night falls deep,
54:09and taps has called the end of play.
54:12The game is done.
54:14The score is in.
54:16The final cheer and jeer have passed.
54:19But in the night beyond the fight,
54:22the player finds his rest at last.
54:26Game called.
54:29Upon the field of life, the darkness gathers far and wide.
54:35The dream is done.
54:37The score is spun that stands forever in the guide.
54:42Nor victory, nor yet defeat,
54:45is chalked against the player's name.
54:49But down the roll,
54:51the final scroll shows only how he played the game.
55:48¶¶
56:17¶¶
56:36In association with SFX Black Canyon Productions,
56:40this has been a presentation of HBO Sports,
56:44the network of champions.