THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270413
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Baseball
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star asked nine local baseball
people to score acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns' ``Baseball,'' appearing
on WHRO. Their comments will appear each day of the nine-part series,
an 18 1/2-hour work that traces the history of the sport - and of
America.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
The Eighth Inning covered my teen years. Every time I saw something, I would reminisce. It had pieces on Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Carl Yastrzemski and the Miracle Mets.
During this time the U.S. was going through the biggest social changes in its history: The Cold War, the Beatles, Cuban missile crisis, assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. . . .
Baseball purists didn't want the game to change, but a lot of change came anyway.
Flood and Gibson fought for black players' rights. Marvin Miller started the Major League Players Association. Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale held out as a group. Expansion teams came in and so did indoor stadiums and Astroturf.
Flood may have been responsible for the biggest change when he challenged the reserve clause in the Supreme Court and won.
Best scene: The torment Maris went through chasing Babe Ruth's home run record.
Best fact: How dominant Gibson and Koufax were as pitchers.
Weakest scene: Bill Lee talking about playing at Fenway Park. It should have been Yaz.
Score this one: (Strikeout, single, double, triple, home run)
A home run. I watched it twice.
- NORBIE WILSON ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Photo
ABOUT TODAY'S REVIEWER
NORBIE WILSON
Age: 45
Residence: Virginia Beach
Connection to baseball: Head coach at First Colonial High School.
Won the state title in 1993.
Favorite team: New York Yankees.
Most vivid baseball memory: Meeting Mickey Mantle at Yankee Stadium
when I was 7. I dropped my glove over the centerfield fence and he
gave it back to me.
by CNB