Some fire, plenty of smoke in ‘Bronx is Burning’

ESPN's new miniseries "The Bronx is Burning," which focuses on the New York Yankees and their combustible relationships in 1977, does a convincing job of showing how much Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner loathed each other. But it's not without its problems.

Hatred is the coin of the realm in this eight-part, hour-long show that debuted a week ago and will continue at 9 p.m. each Tuesday through Aug. 28. John Turturro's portrayal of Martin is brilliant -- the prosthetic ears, hunched shoulders and seething internal demons are all spot on. I covered Martin in another life during the late 1970s, and he re-emerges perfectly here.

I also covered Jackson and Steinbrenner. Daniel Sunjata's portrayal of Jackson is close enough to the real Reggie of that time, though Sunjata's Reggie fails to convey the transparency of the real Jackson's self-confidence. As for Oliver Platt's Steinbrenner, he turns George into a cartoon figure, a near fool with all his fulminating. The Steinbrenner I knew was demanding, yes; cartoonish, no.

The most serious problem with "Burning," though, falls at director Jeremiah Chechik's feet. The series is adapted from Jonathan Mahler's nonfiction best-seller of the same name. In that book, Mahler wove the Yankees' crisis into a tapestry of other ills bedeviling New York at the time: the "Son of Sam" killings that terrorized residents, the chaotic political battle for the mayoralty, the bankruptcy of the nation's foremost city.

In the series, Chechik uses the same device -- a mistake. The juxtaposition of some discord on a ballclub with a series of hellish killings and a staggering civic financial collapse comes off on the screen as a reach -- and a ludicrous one at that. Are we really at the point in our civic life where a ballclub's ups and downs can be equated with serial murders and a city's collapse?

Fans, though, will find this B-level series at least mildly worthwhile. Jason Giambi doubles as a New York cab driver. And Jeffrey Maier, the Yankees fan who leaned over the fence to catch a homer and help them win a 1996 playoff game when he was 12 years old, doubles for the actor who plays Graig Nettles.

Meanwhile, this week HBO is airing a two-hour documentary, "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush," a much finer product than "Burning." (Show times are 11:30 a.m. Thursday and 8 p.m. Friday; there will be six other showings through Aug. 25.)

The piece explores 10 years in the storied team's history, starting in 1947, which cover Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, the "Bums" winning their first World Series title over the hated Yankees and, finally, their move to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

The Robinson saga is compelling enough. But the history, produced by Ezra Edelman and Amani Martin, breaks important new ground. It places blame for the Dodgers and New York Giants moving to the West Coast not on Brooklyn owner Walter O'Malley, long considered the chief villain, but on Robert Moses, the all-powerful New York City planning commissioner.

O'Malley had chosen a new stadium site in downtown Brooklyn and clearly would have stayed had Moses made minimal concessions. But Moses refused and New York lost two of its three storied teams.

• BONDS BEAT -- A fault line has developed between Fox's Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in their views of Barry Bonds and steroids. It was apparent during the All-Star Game telecast last Tuesday and, in McCarver's case, again during the Dodgers-Giants broadcast Saturday.

Put succinctly, Buck thinks the public has realized it's going to have to tolerate a certain level of suspicion on players' use of steroids and human growth hormone. And he himself is not about to criticize Bonds or any other player who has taken them. McCarver, a former player from the pre-steroids era, is instinctively harder on the issue.

Buck is coming across as an ethical relativist, McCarver an absolutist. I'm dying to hear Buck say that cheating is cheating. But I'm not sure it's in him. I'm still waiting to hear him say something akin to what McCarver did Saturday:

"From 1920 to 1965 there were 16 players who hit 50 home runs or more ... a 45-year period. Over the last 12 years, there have been 21 players who have hit 50 home runs or more. Did that just happen? Well, the clear answer is no, it didn't."

Attention must be paid.

Bill Taaffe is a former award-winning TV/radio sports columnist for Sports Illustrated. His "Remote Control" column is published Tuesday. He can be reached at taaffe-reviewjournal@earthlink.net.