Baseball

Narrator:
It is played everywhere. In parks and playgrounds and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers' fields. By small children and old men. Raw amateurs and millionaire professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game in which the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime, and ending with the hard facts of autumn. It is a haunted game, in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness. Speed and grace. Failure and loss. Imperishable hope. And coming home.

Narrator:
It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and it made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stitched by hand precisely 216 times. It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home - and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away. The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes. It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn. Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom. At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time. It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective. It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.

Billy Crystal:
[on baseball in New York in the 1950's] It was one of the greatest times, watching Mickey, Willie, and the Duke. And you go out to the corner bar and you would hear the arguements. [in Harlem accent] "Willie's the greatest! He can do anything!" [in Brooklyn accent] "You're nuts, it's the Duke! The Duke is a classic! You ever see him running with his elbows in like that?" [in Bronx accent] "Guys, you are both wrong. It's Mickey and that's it! He's strong, he's blond, he hits from both sides of the plate, you should really reconsider."

Billy Crystal:
[on when the Dodgers left Brooklyn] It was like your uncle died. It was a death in the family. I wasn't really a Dodger fan, but you liked that they were there, because there was tremendous talent on that team. Jackie, Pee Wee, Gil, Duke, and Roy. We beat them pretty much every year but... it was like a death in the family, and then complicated by the fact that the Giants had left. So two good spirits had left New York and... it was sad time. I felt bad about it, because I thought, "If they could leave, *baseball* could leave, you know... what's next?"

Aidan Quinn:
[as grand jury investigator] Does Mrs. Jackson know that you got five thousand dollars for helping throw these games?

Keith Carradine:
[as Joe Jackson] She did that night, yes.

Aidan Quinn:
[as grand jury investigator] What did she say about it?

Keith Carradine:
[as Joe Jackson] She said it was an awful thing to do.