Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Michael O'Keefe This film about baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg proves to be an interesting and well researched documentary full of ethnic pride. Although not the first Jewish baseball player, but the first to not change his name. The lumbering slugger from the Bronx joined the Detroit Tigers in 1930; turning out to be a stout warhorse playing first-base and waving a thunderous bat. The power hitter soon led the Tigers to a World Series in 1935. Hank came close to breaking Babe Ruth's home run record in 1938, missing by three hitting 58. Revered by all American Jews during the depression-era, when the popularity of Nazism rose; Greenberg served in WWII and came back to the Tigers and ended his career playing one year for the Pittsburg Pirates in 1947; during that swan song season, he befriended the Dodger's rookie Jackie Robinson. Greenberg entered the Hall of Fame in 1956 and died thirty years later. This documentary is woven with vintage still shots, newsreel footage, newspaper headlines and testimonials and interviews from people like Rabbi Reeve Brenner, actor Walter Matthau, Alan Dershowitz, Senator Carl Levin, Rabbi Max Tickin and even Greenberg himself and his heirs. Kudos to writer and director Aviva Kempner for this look at a baseball icon.

pacholeknbnj Admittedly, this movie is not for everyone. It is for baseball nuts, people with an interest in Jewish life in America (even if they aren't Jewish themselves), people interested in 20th Century American history, and Tigers fans. I fit the first three categories (I'm a Yankee fan but with a lot of respect for the Tiger franchise), and I thought this movie was terrific. Greenberg was not the first Jewish baseball player, but he was the first to become a star and a hero to non-Jews, paving the way for Sandy Koufax and current Dodger star Shawn Green (as well as Rod Carew, who married a Jewish woman and, as Adam Sandler has pointed out in song, converted). The often terrible anti-Semitism that was often faced in pre-World War II America has been obscured -- it's almost as if the Nazi Holocaust was the only indignity that Jews have suffered. Ms. Kempner did a fantastic job bringing this era of baseball, Jewish life and Detroit life to someone not part of that place, time and faith. And I didn't think this film it was much like the Ken Burns miniseries at all. For one thing, the music was better than in the Burns film, at least until you got to the 1950s songs in "Seventh Inning"! And except for covering Ty Cobb thoroughly, Burns paid little attention to the Tigers. He covered Greenberg's 58-homer season (1938) and mentioned that Denny McLain won 31 games in 1968, but that's it. He didn't even mention Al Kaline except in a story that Bill "Spaceman" Lee told. He didn't cover post-Black Sox Chicago baseball very well either, or California except to discuss Koufax. But what can you do with over 100 years of baseball in 19 hours? Kempner did very well with 75 years of life, and what amounted to 10 full seasons of baseball, in an hour and a half. Greenberg may not have lasted as long in the game as some of its other stars, but his seasons, in baseball and out, were full indeed, and the movie shows this excellently.

amarshal-2 This is not just an excellent film about Hank Greenberg, it is an excellent film about discrimination, and how one man took the high road to overcome it. This is a film that should be shown to young people in civics or history classes as the basis for discussion of anti-semitism in North America.

JStraw-3 While skipping some details which would be interest to the devoted baseball-phile (like how he compared to his near contemporary Ted Williams), this is a wonderful and charming look at this baseball and American great. This movie appeals not only from a baseball and Jewish perspective, but touches upon what it means to be an American. Highly recommended.