Television review: ‘The House of Steinbrenner’

Barbara Kopple’s “The House of Steinbrenner,” the latest in the ESPN documentary series “30 for 30,” in which notable filmmakers look at sports events and figures of the last three decades — over the life of ESPN, in other words — is a tale of two ballparks: the old Yankee Stadium, born 1923, and the one that replaced it next door in 2009. It’s a lightweight but affecting little film, about time and tradition and torches passed, that doesn’t get into any of the controversies over the new stadium’s gestation or delve too deeply into the being of the team’s late, brand-defining principal owner, George Steinbrenner, a figure loved or hated in New York in direct proportion to how well his team performed. (The loving and the hating was, we see, a kind of sport in itself.)

“If you lose this stadium, then you lose nearly a hundred years of history,” says a young man of primary-school age, schooled in the faith of his fathers; he goes on to note the “blood, sweat and tears” that have been shed there — it’s hallowed ground. (“We are not leaving,” reads a sign held aloft at the old stadium’s last game.) Baseball, a sport of stats and records and anecdotes, is especially bound up in its own history and, indeed, the new Yankee Stadium was designed to evoke the old, in both its original and final forms. There were times watching “The House of Steinbrenner” when I wasn’t sure whether I was seeing the new building being put together or the old one being taken apart — parts of it, such as the outfield friezes and the pitcher’s mound, set aside for sale to collectors.

Kopple, a two-time Oscar winner for films about miners in Kentucky (“Harlan County USA”) and workers in a meat plant (“American Dream”), lets the people’s voices push the tale along: There are fans and stadium hands, construction workers and destruction workers, who invoke departed parents and present children and children yet to come. (“That’s going to be, like, my son’s building as opposed to this is my building,” says one.) But there are also sportswriters, players, and front-office folk, all the way up to Steinbrenner’s son Hal, his flamboyant father’s temperamental opposite, self-described as “introverted,” “cautious, thorough,” “a mama’s boy” and “a numbers guy.” Nevertheless, he was in the driver’s seat last year when, in their current park, the Yankees won their first World Series in nine years.

The new stadium, with its Hard Rock Cafe and sushi bar, its high-priced luxury seats preventing access to the dugouts to all but the well-heeled, and its expensive concessions, does have its detractors. “I just spent $100 on four sandwiches and four drinks,” says an amazed fan on opening day. And there’s melancholy in the decommissioning of any ballpark. But philosophy finally carries the day.

“There’s a lot of history here that we’re going to miss,” says one worker, moving stuff out of the old park. “But time keeps moving. Time keeps moving.”

robert.lloyd@latimes.com