Play Ball
This HBO series is a unique one. It attempts to capture the aura and heyday of baseball and it manages to do that in large part by using only vintage 8 and 16mm footage. Much of this footage is from baseball fans, eye witnesses to these events. Some of it was even captured by other players filming their teammates. As such, you will see a lot of candid and ‘real’ footage, which is quite refreshing. It’s like watching war time footage only the situation is much more pleasant.
To supplement this collage of footage, a narrator introduces numerous voices that talk about particular memories and eras. These include broadcaster Bob Costas, Actor Billy Crystal, Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, and at least a dozen other journalists, players, and folks close to the game. Their anecdotes are interesting and at times amusing when intended to be.
Each episode has the same format, with just a different era covered. This all works out well, with the only complaint I might offer being that some segments seem too short or are overlooked. At the same time, they’re trying to cover decades worth of very rich baseball history in a short time, so that some players and games may be glazed over is understandable. Additionally, this is not a biography on any one player or team, but a high level documentary of baseball over the course of these several decades.
The Blu-ray Release
When It Was A Game on Blu-ray isn’t going to blow you away with its image and sound quality, but given the source material, you can’t expect anything else. So if you’re prepared to view nothing but 8 and 16mm home footage, some of it black and white but most of it in color, then you can appreciate what is shown here. Even the interviews are all audio only, so in some sense there is no “HD” as we think of it here at all. Nevertheless the images and sounds of these episodes look good on Blu-ray.
As for extra features, there are none to be found. You could argue that the vintage nature of the content of the show would account for that, but still, it’s not at all unreasonable to have expected some kind of bonus material out of this release.
That’s about all there is to this particular release. Let’s get to the summary…