Burns and co.’s constant mythologizing is a lot more appropriate here than it was in The Civil War, and as such I feel like this effort is the more successful one, despite the greater historical importance of the first series.

And to their credit, they only mythologize about certain things. For some examples, the game’s ludicrous origin myth is thoroughly destroyed, as is the idea that the best players of all-time played in the early ’20s when African Americans weren’t allowed in the pros.

But the program is a little myopic given its length; though some local focus is necessary this documentary is far too focused on the New York and Boston teams. Yes, the Yankees are the greatest professional sports team in North American history, but the same cannot be said for the Dodgers, Giants or Bosox, and some episodes of Baseball carry on as if few other teams existed. You wouldn’t know the Tigers or Indians, for example, had really been around as long as they have if you only watched some middle episodes.

One other thing I have to nitpick though: there is so very little talk of the Jays that I take it a littler personally. Had they not won two World Series in a row, that would be a little more understandable, but are they really trying to tell me that this team warrants not even a footnote?

The above was my opinion on the series until I watched “The Tenth Inning,” an altogether different beast. This update of the series is, for me, the best episode. It is far more free of the mythologizing that Burns’ is work is so prone to but, far more importantly, it takes on the steroids issue from both points of view, something I never would have expected from this show.

It is extraordinarily refreshing to see people expressing understanding of why steroids happen instead of the usual moral outrage of the baseball writing establishment, which is so tired and so very, very ridiculous. (To clarify: so many old-school baseball writers have a problem with roids and / or gambling – and the players who used them, not the league that allowed it. But these same writers don’t have a problem with the violence, alcohol or drug abuse, and womanizing of players of an earlier era, or with spit balls and other forms of “cheating.”) To paraphrase Chris Rock in this episode, ‘If someone gave you a pill and said this pill will get you paid like Steven Spielberg, you’d take it. Of course you would.’

This episode is the series’ crowning achievement and is seriously forcing me to re-consider my rating of the documentary.

I guess this is a documentary on the Civil War and how Jackie Robinson finally won it by playing baseball. At least that is what the focus seemed to be. The Civil War and Jackie Robinson.

There is a lot more to baseball that that, and, honestly, with all due respect to Jackie Robinson, there is a lot more to baseball than him.

Honestly, it makes the sport seem like a downer. It makes it seem depressing. He has interviews here of people talking about how fun baseball was... and he makes it seem depressing and almost evil.

There are people on the interview that talk of father-son bonding, of playing with their friends on beautiful summer days and... he almost makes it feel dull. It almost makes it feel like he has a bit of a grudge against the sport, that he doesn't realize it's a game, that he's searching to make it something more.

It feels too much like Burns is trying to make baseball sound like more than it is, more than it ever could be, a metaphor for America and all of its problems.

I have to disagree with that, and I say this as someone that once rented a horrible apartment just because I could see a softball field from the living room window. I have to disagree as someone that goes to high school baseball games and local softball games just to watch people play baseball when I have nothing else to do and was, well, and was single and had the freedom to indulge.

Baseball is a lot of things, its a national past time, it's a sport, its an obsession, but, it's a game. It's not really a metaphor for anything. Baseball doesn't define the Civil War, it doesn't define the Civil Rights movement, it's a game.

Jackie Robinson was a big deal for America, he was a mark of desegregation and it made sense that baseball did it. It was a triumph... but Burns makes it seem like Baseball desegregated the nation, and that's not right. Baseball desegregated and Jackie Robinson played a game (and played it very well)... but the Civil Rights Movement desegregated America.

I guess what I am saying is that baseball is fun because it's a game. You play it for the same reasons you play any other game, and you enjoy it because the rest of the world, things like war and segregation and hate and politics drift away while you're playing it.

When you make Baseball about all of that, you take away the very thing that makes people love baseball. You take away the reason they play it.