A Whole New Ballgame

This segment of Ken Burns "Baseball" centers on a decade in which the country was in a big mess with riots everywhere, political assassinations, big social changes and a huge change in labor-business relations in baseball. The players hire Marvin Miller, a labor lawyer, to represent them. Since the writer and producer of this series is definitely Left Wing, you get a lot of bias toward labor here. A lot of that, however, was justified as the owners had too much power for too long. (Sadly, now the pendulum has switched too far in the other direction.).

The "reserve clause" is the big topic here and Curt Flood, the St. Louis Cardinal, who challenged and beat it - giving the players free agency ever since, is spotlighted here.

They still cover a decent amount on on-field action here with features on Carl Yazstremski, Stan "The Man" Musial, Sandy Koufax, Roger Maris, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson and others. World Series highlights include Bill Mazeroski's ninth inning home run to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a championship. The decade ends with "The Amazin' Mets."