That was indeed a sad tale that you recounted how a Northerner journalist decided to present a totally biased view on the result of a very serious game of baseball. He needs to be taken to task over this, but I'm afraid it happens all the time. I've heard that the motto guiding journalistic behavior is "never let the truth get in the way of a good story." I find it difficult to agree with Tom's view that History is "not a science but a point of view." I always thought that History had some factual basis and as a result was more than a point of view. It seems to me that truth should play some part in its reporting.
This is a very good example of the multiple perspective dimension of knowledge described by the constructivists. Ken Burns with his northern ideologies and upbringing brings a totally different perspective to this game and sees its conduct and outcomes in a totally different manner to someone like yourself from the South with a more refined and sensitive view on life. (You are from the South aren't you?) According to constructivism, you are both right and should both respect each others' "knowledge" relating to the game, constructed by your own experiences!
But look on the bright side, we have a game down under called Test Cricket that is quite like baseball. There is a bowler (pitcher) who flings a ball at a batsman (batter) whose job it is to hit the ball to the furthest point of the stadium. But whereas your batters are compelled to hit the ball and run or get out, our batsmen can just block it and hang around. You can imagine what that does for the game. Some batsmen stay facing the bowler for hours and hours, so much so that the bowlers are rotated and as many as six bowlers can try their luck. The trouble with all this is that it takes a long time for the bowlers to get the batsmen out, and when there are up to eleven batsmen in a team, the game goes on and on. It goes on for so long that the game is organized to include drinks breaks, lunches, tea (with cups and saucers due to the Pommy influence) and the game continues for five whole days. This is so long that there is often a holiday in the middle so the players (and spectators) can see their families and get back to work to answer pressing calls on their answer machines. But that is not all. The rules of the game are so organized that after five days (30 hours of play and 2,500 balls being bowled and struck) most games end in a draw. I suspect this is to avoid the situation you have described where one team has to lose and there is the risk of journalists bending the truth to suit their own needs. In this game, having drawn matches leaves all players, teams and supporters feeling good because no one has lost. The bad thing about this is that the teams are organized to play each other six times in the space of two months to try and get a result one way or the other
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