{alltv} Burns chimes into sports debate

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Being from Canada, we really can't speak with any authority on "America's pastime."

But honestly, looking down to the United States from north of the border, it sure seems as if football rather emphatically has supplanted baseball as the top sport in America's sporting consciousness.

We assumed renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns -- a lifelong baseball devotee and Boston Red Sox fan -- either would disagree with that or be uncomfortable with it.

So with Burns on hand at the Television Critics Association tour to promote Baseball: The Tenth Inning -- a new chapter to augment his 1994 nine-part documentary series Baseball -- we asked him for his thoughts on the football-versus-baseball subject.

"Well, I think in some respects you're right, but I would ultimately dispute it," Burns said.

We knew it. Damn seam-head.

"Baseball enjoyed for so long a supremacy unrivalled by any other sport, except a little fly of college football buzzing around," Burns continued. "And then all of a sudden, we entered a post-World War II entertainment media age in which all the other sports began to blossom and take a kind of primacy.

"And there's something in the game of football that seems in that kind of militaristic way, so utterly American. I refer you to our Eighth Inning and George Carlin's wonderful comparison of the terminology between the two to understand the way in which football fit perfectly into a kind of late 20th century American mentality."

Ah yes, that is a hilarious Carlin routine. Hmmm, it sounds like Burns is making our argument, doesn't it?

Oh, wait, he's not done.

"The numbers don't really add up (in football's favour)," Burns continued. "They've got a Super Bowl that aggregates so many people as a kind of media event. (But baseball) is a game that goes on every day, not once a week, and it goes on for a much longer season. The combination of that, it gets as many eyeballs.

"But more to the point, in football, when there's a revelation that a player takes steroids, it's the front page of the sports section, maybe. But had it happened in baseball, it's the front page of The New York Times."

Well, there are lots of reasons for that, not all of which are complimentary to baseball. But anyway, we get it, Burns loves baseball, let's move on.

Burns' resume includes some of the best documentaries of our time, with titles such as The Civil War, Jazz and The War. But Baseball is the first doc he has chosen to update.

"I first thought about it when the Sox won the World Series (in 2004, their first title since 1918)," admitted Burns, prompting laughter. "But that wasn't enough really to do it. We had more than enough on our plate.

"But when steroids fully became an issue, you realized how consequential, in retrospect, the last two decades have been, dealing with the strike and all the attendant money issues, as well as the other amazing stories that make baseball so attractive and appealing.

"So 2004 made me think about it. But steroids made us decide to do it."

The Tenth Inning, which covers baseball from 1994 to 2009, airs Sept. 28 and 29 on PBS.