Documentary filmmaker Burns: Baseball has never been better

Nick Christensen

Friday, April 8, 2005 | 9:15 a.m.

Ken Burns knows about perspective. So when an audience member at a lecture by the famed documentarian asked Burns about the escalating salaries, he had an easy response.

"If an outfield stays together when you're 10, 11 and 12, that's a quarter of your life," Burns said. "It's the relativity of time."

It was 11 years ago that Burns' 18 1/2-hour documentary on the history of baseball became the most-watched show in the history of PBS, and in the interceding time, the game has seen a strike and the recent steroids scandal.

Yet, when asked if the current time was the "Civil War" of baseball, Burns scoffed.

"Did you watch the World Series and playoffs last year?" he said. "It's never been better. It's utterly reflective of who we are right now, the good and the bad."

In a 49-minute lecture for an audience of about 1,200 at UNLV's Artemus Ham Concert Hall, Burns spent a good deal of time talking about baseball and the impact it had on American history. But most of what he had to say about the sport was through others' words, notably historian Gerald Early.

"I think there will be three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball," Burns cited Early as saying. "They're the three most beautifully designed things this culture has ever produced."

In the lecture, Burns said that baseball and its parks have witnessed the "growth, decay and now rebirth of great cities." He also said that Jackie Robinson's first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers was the greatest moment in history and the next great step in fighting racism since the end of the Civil War.

In that time, another Burns documentary topic, boxer Jack Johnson, was arrested and jailed for transporting a white woman over state lines. Burns has joined a committee working to get Johnson a pardon from President Bush, a move that has thus far been unsuccessful despite Bush declaring Johnson's birthday "Jack Johnson Day" five times while Bush was the governor of Texas.

"It's got to happen," Burns said emphatically. "I got so outraged making the film when we finished last spring. We got a law firm to put together a pro-bono brief to the Justice Department ... nothing happened."

Burns said he's continued pressing the issue.

"I had a chance to speak with the president, and nothing happened," he said. And last week, senators John McCain, Ted Stevens, Orrin Hatch, John Kerry, Edward Kennedy and Harry Reid sent a letter to the White House "urging him to do that."

Burns was unavailable for interviews afterward due to a late flight to Hartford, Conn. He was appearing in conjunction with UNLV's Barrick Lecture Series.