Has anyone else been watching ESPN's series of documentaries to mark their 30th anniversary? So far I've seen five of the seven that have already come out and, although the quality varies, I have to admit that they've opened me up to some wonderful stories that I didn't know about.

Small Potatoes, about the USFL is the best on so far, at least given my limited knowledge. Incredibly uplifting despite being about a league that, ultimately failed. The U, about the University of Miami, is also good although if I was more into gridiron I'd probably end up hating them.

Naturally enough there isn't anything about football except for what will undoubtedly be an intriguing documentary about Andres Escobar.

Anyone know of any similar series of documentaries?

I've mentioned them a few times, and Reed and I had a discussion of The U in last season's college football thread. We both thought it was incredibly self-serving, though I think that was the point. Reed, you might not know, is a fan of Penn State, who beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl (that was the game that the Miami players couldn't believe that they lost; it was also after the notorious pre-game dinner at the honky-tonk place between both teams, when one of the Miami players got up on stage and said "did the Japanese...sit down to dinner...with Pearl Harbor before they bombed them?").

I'm really looking forward to the next one, about Reggie Miller and the Knicks. Reggie is such a great self-aggrandizer (though I don't especially care for the Pacers, he went to UCLA, so he's a legend to me) and what he did against the Knicks was just so unbelievable.

My favorite one so far was the Jimmy the Greek one, because I didn't know the whole story about how he got to be on CBS, and while I knew the story about his comments, I didn't know how big a deal it was when he said them.

DVDs on sale tomorrow:
www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&docId=1000485671

I liked the USFL one and the Wayne Gretzky one especially. But I think the one on the Colts' band was the best.

The Jimmy the Greek one wasn't all that interesting, I thought. It just didn't seem to be about anything wider than just Jimmy an uneducated doofus who liked to gamble. I don't really see what makes him more interesting than any other of the mooks one sees at the track.

I guess one's interest in any of these depends largely on one's personal connection to or memories of the events.

I'm about halfway through Winning Time (the Reggie Miller/Knicks one), and it's my favorite by far. It's just so damn entertaining. Everyone seems to be looking back with humor now, so all of the interviews are really funny.

That was one of the last times the NBA was sort of interesting, but not really, because Jordan was gone. I watched all of the 1994 Finals because I was living without cable and NBC is the only channel I got. The Spike Lee aspect was/is tedious. It was one of those non-regional rivalries in pro sports that emerges suddenly in the playoffs and feels like it's a classic, and then fades just as quickly. Red Wings-Avalanche in the 90s, Steelers-Raiders in the 70s, Cowboys-49ers in the 80s and 90s, etc.

I also find talk of how "tough" these teams are to be oversold. In the grand scheme of sporting toughness and fortitude, standing still and taking a charge is not very tough.

Nobody except Marv Albert should be allowed to call NBA games on national TV.

Nah, those teams were dirty. The NBA doesn't allow physical play like that anymore (with good reason, in some respects).

Finished the movie. It was really well done, but also ended on a nice wry note, since neither team has won a championship since the early 1970s.

I haven't seen the one about that day in 1994 when OJ did his slow chase with Al Cowlings. That day was also the first weekend of the 1994 World Cup.

I'm currently watching The Tale of Two Escobars. It's so sad and horrifying for so many reasons.

For this story, I guess its appropriate that 94 was in the USA, because it is our drug policy, as well as Americans' demand for coke, is inadvertently perpetuating so much of the violence. If we spent half of the money we waste on the "War on Drugs" to building houses and soccer pitches in Colombia, et al, instead of letting the drug lords do it, maybe Pablo wouldn't have been so much of a folk hero and maybe he wouldn't have been able to wield so much power.
Our entire drug policy is comparable to trying to put a fire out with kerosene.

"Winning Time" was great, but that's the only one I've watched so far. I'm going to try and see The Tale of Two Escobars when I get a chance. (And eventually, I'll watch the Ricky Williams one.)

Two Escobars was a bit too long, I thought, but it was easily one of the best ones.

Run Ricky Run was good, but the camerawork (it was filmed by one of his friends, who I don't know if he had much film experience) in parts was terrible. There were some interviews where the person talking was out of focus, the lighting was bad, etc.

I did finally track down the USFL one free online- probably gone by now. Liked it a lot.

Thanks for the tip, Inca.

I've seen most of them. Quick reviews:

Kings Ransom(Gretzky to the Kings): Interesting, but Peter Berg sure wanted to say, "Hey, Wayne Gretzky let me hang out on the golf course with him!"

The Band That Wouldn't Die (Colts band): Really good. Very heartfelt.

Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?: All kinds of awesome, especially for a fan of the USFL like me.

Muhammad and Larry: Very interesting and sad, in a way. Poignant that Holmes really didn't want to beat Ali up.

Without Bias: Such a sad story, but well told.

The Legend of Jimmy The Greek: If you're of a certain age and remember when the NFL Today was the show, it was quite interesting. Also a fairly sad figure and story.

The U (Miami football): Went to Florida. Wasn't about to watch this one. You can't spell SCUM without UM.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks Liked it because I lived it. Covered some of those series for a media outlet in one of the cities (I show up in one of the clips) and was at the eight points in six seconds game or whatever it was.

Guru of Go (Loyola Marymount basketball): Didn't see it.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson: A very interesting story of race relations. Never been an Iverson fan and he's a complicated person, but this film gave me some insight I didn't have previously. His case has more grey areas than you might think.

Silly Little Game (Fantasy sports): I got through maybe six minutes of this. A topic I don't care about, told in a completely idiotic way. I could not watch it.

Run Ricky Run (Ricky Williams): Really made me think. You think of Ricky Williams as just being mentally ill (and I did, and he may be), but he's a very interesting subject. As mentioned above, the filmmaking itself was not that fantastic.

The 16th Man (South African rugby): I did not know the story at all and really really enjoyed it.

Straight Outta L.A. (Raiders move to and from Los Angeles): I'll save you the trouble if you haven't seen it. "The Raiders reflected LA, LA reflected the Raiders, rap music reflected LA and the Raiders. Repeat that meme incessantly for an hour and throw in an appearance by the animated corpse of Al Davis." Also, Ice Cube is not a filmmaker.

June 17th, 1994: An excellent reconstruction of that day, though the Arnold Palmer thing didn't resonate with me, because I'm too young to remember him in his prime, don't care about golf and he was ineffective for years before that last round at the Open. The OJ stuff - even though I knew how it turned out - was riveting.

The Two Escobars: Probably the best of the bunch so far and absolutely one of the top sports documentaries I've ever seen in my life. I'm a soccer fan, so I may be biased, but there was so much about the story I didn't know. I could not stop watching this. Utterly fascinating, meticulously researched and fabulously delivered.

I'm looking forward to the one on Jordan in the minors (Ron Shelton should do well with that), the one on Steve Bartman (interested to see how they make a film about him without his cooperation) and the one on Marcus Dupree. The others I'm not so interested in. The 30th one has yet to be announced, I believe. Hopefully that's a big one.

Hopefully they'll put the set out on dvd.

The Straight Outta LA certainly looked painful from what I watched on the previews. It would've been great if it was in fact about NWA and had a bunch of video of Dre, Cube, and Eazy-E going to games.

From what I saw of Jimmy the Greek (and I indeed grew up watching that crew) it looked great.

The bottom line is I don't have cable so all I get to see are the 2-3 minute previews on the site.

They're out on DVD now, and I think all to purchase on iTunes as well.

I liked Straight Outta LA--I thought the cinematography was very good (my god, Al Davis' skin is frightening), but the storytelling was a bit repetitive. The premise is one I agree with 100%, but I don't think the case was made all that well.

Agree with clever_username about Silly Little Game, except I love fantasy sports and I couldn't get through more than 10 minutes of that movie. A little too much creative license.

Guru of Go was good. But I might be biased, because I attended both the first and second round games of LMU's amazing NCAA tournament run that year--I was there for the Michigan game. Even though I was just a little kid, still the most incredible game I've ever been at.

I should be working but...

Kings Ransom(Gretzky to the Kings): Interesting. Agree about Peter Berg being a bit too close to the subject, but it was a good way get Gretzky's reflections. He is still ambivalent. Pocklington is not the villain he's made to be. I love that Glen Sather is still bitter about it. McNall comes off as the brilliant con-man that he is.

The Band That Wouldn't Die (Colts band): Fantastic. It would have been gutwrenching if I didn't know that it had a happy ending.

Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?: Awesome indeed. Shows that the USFL had some great players and that Trump is a douche of the first order.

Muhammad and Larry: Didn't see it or know this was on. Where was I?

Without Bias: Heartbreaking.

The Legend of Jimmy The Greek: Very sad story but well told.

The U (Miami football): Hated it so much I stopped watching. Misleading, unapologetic, glamorizes stupidity and thuggery. F'ck Miami.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks. Meh.

Guru of Go (Loyola Marymount basketball): Didn't see it or know it existed.

No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson: Didn't see it or know it existed. When was this on.

Silly Little Game (Fantasy sports): I don't care about fantasy but I thought this was a good story. The way it was told was kind of gimmicky, but I could forgive that.

Run Ricky Run (Ricky Williams): A bit too much amateur video, but really fascinating. Confirms a lot about what I've always suspected about big time sports - People who use their own brains will always struggle to fit in there.

The 16th Man (South African rugby): Didn't know this was on. Want to see it. I found Invictus very moving, but I don't really understand some aspects of the back story. If SA was boycotted, who were the Springboks playing all those years such that white South Africans cared about them so much? Did black South Africans see all of rugby as racist, or just the Springboks?

Straight Outta L.A. (Raiders move to and from Los Angeles): Haven't seen it. Ice Cube? I'm not optimistic.

June 17th, 1994: Saw some of it, but tuned it out when it got all into Arnold Palmer. I don't give a shit about golf now and I sure as hell didn't in 1994. That had no bearing on how I remember that day.

The Two Escobars: Fantastic. Probably the best of the bunch, but maybe just because the topic is so heavy. Heartbreaking. It was long but it could have been a miniseries or a long book. The film doesn't really get into all the details of the US involvement, Los PEPEs, and all of that.


Ron Shelton is doing the thing on Jordan? Excellent. That should be good. I feel like Bartman and the Cubs self-congratulatory-self-flagellation has been already done to death.

jasoñ voorhees wrote:

The Straight Outta LA certainly looked painful from what I watched on the previews. It would've been great if it was in fact about NWA and had a bunch of video of Dre, Cube, and Eazy-E going to games.

NWA is featured quite a bit, just not at games. But we do see Ice Cube and Snoop Dog walking around an empty LA Coliseum with a football hammering the meme about the confluence of rap and the Raiders and LA and the 1980s.

You wouldn't run this particular doc on TLC, you'd have to run it on THC.

That's the scene on the preview, of Snoop and Cube in the Coliseum. Ice Cube's interview was the same shit out of Davis as the outstanding NFL Films Raiders History set.

I remember when Ed Lover (the old host of Yo MTV Raps) interviewed Jackie Chan, and attempted to ask him how it felt that he was a hero of Black America. I didn't see it, but from what I saw of the interviews none of the questions had to do with the Raiders effect on gangs and West Coast hiphop.

I didn't think much of the Raiders one. Ice Cube is a sell-out and a bit an idiot, I think. Al Davis is insane and even in his prime was really just a prick. It didn't break any new ground. The history of NWA and ganster rap has been explained, better, before and the whole LA Raiders story is hard to be excited about given that Davis fucked over Oakland and then fucked over LA pretty soon after.


I really liked the one this week about Matt Hoffman. Certainly, no retrospective of the last 30 years of sports would be complete without some discussion about so-called "extreme" sports, now marketed as "action" sports (because football, basketball, etc. are so stationary and passive?) Whatever. In general, sports writers and the general public over a certain age tends to underestimate the influence of these sports on kids. Tony Hawk and Dave Mirra are more famous now, but Hoffman's story better captures how backyard and doing-it-just-to-do-it it all was and still largely is because while Hawk was in California, Hoffman was doing it in Oklahoma.

Although personally I'm too concerned about my own physical well-being and am not sufficiently athletic to do stuff like skateboarding or BMX vert, I'm all for those sports. There's a great DIY and community spirit among the competitors that reminds me of some of my fondest childhood memories playing street hockey or jumping our bikes off a ditch down at the park. The XGames are bit now, of course, but when Matt Hoffman got started building a massive ramp in his backyard in Oklahoma, it was all very much duct tape and shaky hand held cameras.

The interview with his orthopedic surgeon was a nice touch. Another touch that most viewers might miss is that right at the very very end of the end credits there's a home movie clip of Hoffman's young child throwing herself off the headboard onto the bed and as mom (Hoffman's wife) looks on and winces "oh, that must have hurt" - a pretty good summary of her whole existence - terrified but resigned to what she has signed up for and now having to see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

It makes me somewhat less despondent about America to realize that most of these activities were pioneered by Americans like him. The Existentialists would have liked a guy like him - doing crazy shit just for the sake of doing crazy shit.

I watched "The Two Escobars" this weekend, and thought it was excellent. So much more to the story than I knew, and all the footage was pretty incredible (and well edited). It could have been a tad tighter (felt they were recycing some of the footage by the end), but for the most part it was just fantastic. A worthy film.