Cheap The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (DVD) (Aviva Kempner) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

This movie isn't your typical boring documentary either. It shows a nice balance of Greenberg's baseball achievements and personal life (though I wish they focused a bit more on the baseball part) with a good mixture of old baseball footage, interviews with fans, family, friends and Greenberg himself, as well as clips from classic baseball movies such as The Pride of the Yankees. You don't have to be a baseball fan/historian to enjoy and appreciate this movie. Besides, there is nothing quite like listening to "Take Me out to the Ball Game" sung in Yiddish.

An exceptional documentary
I think this is a truly exceptional documentary on many different levels. First, it tells the story of one of the best baseball players in history, who often goes unrecognized for his skills. I consider myself a big baseball fan, especially in the history of baseball and stars of the past. Yet before this movie, I knew very little about Hank Greenberg. Despite being one of the best hitters at that time, Greenberg isn't talked about very often. This DVD gets his story out, and shows how dominant of a ball player he was.

A major reason that Greenberg is often overlooked when people talk about great ball players is that he spent many of his prime years serving the war effort and was away from baseball. This has kept his lifetime stats and therefore his notoriety down.

Another major reason this movie was so good was how it showed Greenberg's career in baseball as a Jewish baseball player. Although his abuse was less than what Jackie Robinson would later recieve, he still did suffer abuse. Also, he was watched and revered by the Jewish community. He was respected and admired as a Jewish man who was just as good as other American ball players, giving Jews a sense of pride. One of the best parts of the film is when the viewer learns that Greenberg talked to Jackie Robinson about playing in baseball as a minority, and gave him support.

Whether he was helping Detroit win the World Series, serving his country in the war, being a symbol of pride for the Jewish population, or giving Jackie Robinson advice, we can see that he meant a lot to a lot of people. This is a remarkable story about a remarkable man, through the lens of baseball. If you like baseball and baseball history, this movie is a must-see.

Important Ballplayer for many reasons.
Hank Greenberg seemed like a pretty decent fellow and a whale of a ballplayer. Like many, he lost his prime years fighting those jerks in the Pacific. No telling how good his career number would have been if he could have been back in the states poking at the pill. Even with that handicap he still played in three World Series and won 2 MVP awards. This move does a pretty good job of documenting his life, but it seems to define him too much by his religion. Greenberg wasn't even a religious person, but the film continues to go back to the subject. I'm sure that he found discrimination along the way, but when you see the actual footage of him interviewed in 1983, you get the impression that he would be very uncomfortable with his life being told through that lens. He seems too no nonsense for that. It's interesting when he collides with rookie Jackie Robinson in 1947, and offers him encouragement. It's really a poetic moment in baseball history.

The movie is good enough that it seems too short. A shame that there isn't more baseball footage from that time period.