‘Bronx’ lingers within the (not) friendly confines

When portraying historical figures, is play- ing them accurately any different from playing them well?

ESPN’s “The Bronx Is Burning” (10 p.m. Tuesday) -- drawn from Jonathan Mahler’s “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning,” a nonfiction account of the traumas that gripped New York City during 1977 -- isn’t so much adaptation as reenactment. Mahler’s book depicts New York as a city on the verge, thanks to factors economic and political. But none of that tension is captured in the series to date (including this week’s episode, four installments remain). Instead, it hews closely to the events unfolding in and around the New York Yankees’ clubhouse. About three-fourths of the series is given over to baseball (this is ESPN, after all), with only brief pauses to acknowledge the rest of the city.

Tensions among the Yankees’ three key personalities -- Manager Billy Martin (John Turturro), owner George Steinbrenner (Oliver Platt) and newly acquired slugger Reggie Jackson (Daniel Sunjata), perhaps the only man in baseball unafraid to take on the sport’s two leading megalomaniacs -- drive this series, for better and worse. They are legion and the stuff of legend: complete lack of workplace security, feuding egos, casual racism, wars of words waged in the press.

As Jackson, a Hall of Famer who was one of the most outspoken players of his day, Sunjata has the requisite physical swagger, though he’s a bit stiff, a bit too certain. He gives good pronouncement -- Martin, he says, can’t handle a black man with his ability and intellect -- but when he likens himself to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, it lacks the required poetic touch. (This isn’t the first time Sunjata has played a bombastic ballplayer -- he was nominated for a Tony for his riveting performance in 2003’s off-Broadway play “Take Me Out,” in which he played a superstar who comes out of the closet.)

Platt plays Steinbrenner as a manipulative naif, an approbation-craving oaf whose ham-fisted strategies alienate all those around him. Turturro’s Martin is the most engaging of the three, despite some kinks early in the series. He bears the affect of a heavy eyelid, always seeming weighed down. “Nothing’s guaranteed,” he sighed to a reporter last week. “Hell, life itself is 6 to 5 against.” He also often seems timid, a far cry from the oft-fired manager’s rowdy public image. Turturro plays him as gentle, tortured and, most notably, sympathetic. (Jackson has complained about not being consulted for the series, though interviews with him are included in some of the back-story segments that conclude each episode; former Yanks Fran Healy and Graig Nettles were consulting producers on “Bronx.”)

As the series has unfolded, interactions among the three have begun to feel more natural. When Martin and Jackson squared off across a table two weeks ago to settle their differences, it felt like a true grudge match. And in this week’s episode, when Steinbrenner and Martin film a Miller Lite ad, it’s credibly awkward.

There are strong supporting characters, as well: a perfectly deadpan Yogi Berra (Joe Grifasi) and a spitfire Mary Rivers (Janine Green), wife of gambling-addicted Yank Mickey.

Unfortunately, though, not only must the actors out-act one another, they must also best their wardrobes -- Platt’s hair is a slick helmet, Sunjata’s Afro and mustache are disorienting, and Turturro’s ears demand their own show. In this way, and others -- clumsy editing, continuity and so on -- “Bronx” consistently undermines itself.

The secondary story line, about the “Son of Sam” killings that haunted New York during 1976-77, feels perfunctory. Occasionally, Steinbrenner reads a Jimmy Breslin (Michael Rispoli) column about the murders; sometimes the homicide cops catch a glimpse of a Yankees game. Otherwise, nothing at all bridges the two stories -- it’s like changing channels midshow.

Occasionally the Yankees plot line can have the same effect, though. “Bronx” includes a great deal of vintage footage, though the transitions back and forth are jarring. This is especially the case when clips of actual events are juxtaposed with actors attempting to re-create them. Two weeks ago, Martin and Jackson nearly came to blows in the Yankees dugout after Martin pulled Jackson from a game for loafing. When it’s Sunjata and Turturro sparring, it feels like an intermediate-level Method workshop.

But in the newsreel footage, even through 30 years of deterioration and grit, what’s crystal clear is genuine animus. The one thing you can’t out-act is the truth.