If Ken Burns is such an intelligent documentary filmmaker, then why did he begin "The 10th Inning" with the statement: "Despite what happens off the field, it's still a beautiful game" and then show, as illustration, a player hitting a home run? And not just any player, but one embroiled in the bulking up scandal? It contradicted the message of all the previous hours of "Baseball," which is that it is the small things, the often unnoticed subtleties, that make baseball such an exquisite game. Whether it's the "greatest game ever invented," as someone claimed last night, is debatable, and awfully jingoistic. Is it superior to soccer, chess, or solitaire (which our electronic age has given a new life).
One of the small things that is sadly disappearing from the game is the organist (you don't get that with chess). After four decades, Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust is retiring, and taking with her an era of graciousness, individuality and wit. (She would, with input from fans seated nearby, play songs appropriate to the opposing team's batters.) She personalized the game, and made sitting at U.S. Cellular Field different from sitting in almost any other ballpark.
Now, the White Sox want to give their fans the same blast of canned, homogenized music that's everywhere these days, even in the retro stadiums. (Retro only goes so far.) Burns - if he really wants to capture the spirit of baseball today - should play some of this music over a shot of George Will, mouthing words we can no longer hear.
