The Series
Four Episodes
Band of Brothers-style narrative arcs. Not talking heads. Branch Rickey is the connective thread through every episode. Prestige cinematic storytelling with AI-enhanced combat sequences, living archive photography, and the voices of those who were there.
Episode One
The Hill
Yogi Berra • Jack Buck • Joe Garagiola
Elizabeth Avenue, St. Louis. Italian immigrant neighborhood. Yogi at 5447, Joey at 5446, playing catch across the street. Branch Rickey lowballs Yogi at the Cardinals tryout. The Yankees match. Rickey's mistake sends Berra toward pinstripe immortality. Then Pearl Harbor. Jackie Robinson is on the SS Lurline when the crew starts painting the windows black. And on D-Day, a 19-year-old catcher mans a machine gun on an LCSS rocket boat at Utah Beach. The crews called them Landing Craft Suicide Squad.
Episode Two
The Fight Before the Fight
Jackie Robinson • Larry Doby • Hank Greenberg
Three men who faced prejudice in their own uniforms before facing the enemy abroad. Jackie Robinson refused to move to the back of an Army bus at Fort Hood. Court-martialed. Acquitted. The courage forged in that courtroom changed America. Larry Doby integrated the American League eleven weeks after Jackie, with none of the fanfare. Hank Greenberg hit home runs against Hitler. And the man who signed Jackie: Branch Rickey. The same WWI veteran who commanded Cobb and Mathewson. War taught him what sacrifice looked like.
Episode Three
The Bridge
Warren Spahn • Monte Irvin • Combat Engineers
Two future Hall of Famers. Both combat engineers. Same theater. Same hell. Warren Spahn, Battle of the Bulge, wounded at Remagen Bridge, the only intact crossing over the Rhine. The only MLB player to receive a battlefield commission. Monte Irvin, combat engineer, same theater, would become a Giants legend. Jack Buck returns. The voice we met in Episode 1 was wounded at the same bridge. The threads of this tapestry weave tighter.
Episode Four
20/10
Ted Williams • Jerry Coleman • Marine Pilots
We return to where we began. Ted Williams. Two wars. Thirty-nine combat missions, more than half as wingman to John Glenn. February 16, 1953: his F9F Panther takes heavy fire. Plane on fire. He belly-lands at 200 mph. Watching from the runway: Jerry Coleman. Yankees catcher. Another Marine pilot. As Williams emerged, Coleman called out: "Hey Ted, that's a lot faster than you ever ran around the bases!" The explosion that began our story finds its answer in one defiant crack of his bat.
The Empty Plaques
The Lost Players
For every hero who returned, thousands didn't.
Eddie Grant. Elmer Gedeon. Harry O'Neill. MLB players who gave everything. Not Hall of Famers. They never got the chance. The ghosts of what might have been.