FSN is bringing back the diamond’s past through a 13-part series.
Baseball’s Golden Age is set to take its first cut July 6 at 8 p.m. on FSN owned-and-operated regional sports networks and affiliates
The show is produced by Flagstaff Films and Steven Stern, a founding partner of Black Canyon Productions, which created the award-winning trilogy When It Was a Game that aired on HBO and to which the series will likely be compared.
Baseball’s Golden Age reminisces about the game’s greats from the 1920s through the 1960s, including legends such as Ty Cobb, Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, through interviews and the lens of color film shot by fans, the players’ families and the players’ themselves.
Fittingly, with New York saying goodbye to both Yankee and Shea Stadiums this year and the All-Star Game being held at the Big Ballpark in the Bronx, the first installment not only revisits the House That Ruth Built, but Ebbetts Field and the Polo Grounds, as New York was home to three Major League Baseball clubs. The episode explores the rivalries of New York’s squads -- the oft-victorious Yankees and a Dodgers-Giants feud so passionate that it still resonates today, 3,000 miles away in California.
Reflective of a more innocent time when baseball was truly America’s national pastime and fans had a deeper connection with the ballplayers, Baseball’s Golden Age also touches on Babe Ruth and dozens of others who are still discussed today as the best to have ever played the game; St. Louis’ Gashouse Gang; Jackie Robinson and his enormous impact on the sport and America; the sport’s Latin explosion; and the All-Star and World Series games of the period.
Other segments explore the war years and barnstorming tours; the game’s Western expansion; its key broadcast voices; the economics that shaped it; and the classic stadiums that become national cathedrals, before most were reduced to rubble.
“Baseball’s Golden Age is a more specific and detailed project than the baseball documentaries we’ve previously produced,” said Stern in a statement. “Producing 13 episodes allows us to spend more time examining the rivalries, the players and the places that made baseball an American institution.”
