April is the greatest month on the sports calendar. The NBA and NHL seasons are winding down and playoffs begin. The Masters. The NFL Draft is the most exciting sporting event that doesn’t involve an actual game. NASCAR at the Talladega Superspeedway. College basketball prides itself on March Madness, but the Final Four and champion have recently been cutting down the nets the first weekend in April. And baseball. Yes the long winter is over, Spring training has sprung, and MLB’s Opening Day comes in April.
Usually.
March 11, 2020. A Wednesday Night. The Jazz and Thunder are getting ready to tip off. The season is winding down and every game matters. Only one game separates these two teams who, at the time, were fourth and fifth respectively in the Western Conference standings.
They still are.
Basketball took a time out that night and the rest of the sporting world followed. College basketball conference tournaments were playing games in eerie empty stadiums. Some were cancelled, one crowned its champion after halftime. Hockey postponed their season. The MLB followed suit. We’ve had no Shining Moment. No green jacket. The next team still waits to have their names engraved in Lord Stanley’s Cup.
The New Abnormal
We’ve been without sports for over a month now. Meanwhile talk shows have pressed on through the power of Zoom. There have been some re-broadcasts (how about that Ali v. Frazier). Twitter users with just too much time have debated the pointless lists. Above all, sports fans have just been drifting. These are very scheduled creatures. Kick-off is slated for a specific time. Tune in an hour before for pre-game. Set your fantasy lineup on a certain day a week. MACtion is Wednesday nights, Thursdays and Saturdays are conference play, Sundays are for bowling, Monday. Night. Football. Dun-dun-dun-duhhh. Bum-bom, bum-bom.
There is a devoted audience sitting captive, waiting for something to watch. Let’s watch something together.
And it’s not going to be a HORSE contest filmed on a camcorder from 1997.
It will be MJ.
The Last Dance
Starting tonight (4/19/20) the 10-part docuseries on Michael Jordan will begin airing on ESPN, with an edited for language version on ESPN2, and streaming anytime available on the ESPN+ app. It uses exclusive footage and interviews from the 1997-1998 NBA season; the last year where Jordan and Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippin’s Bulls were together and their last championship run. That makes it less like other documentaries and more like a lost gold mine. What could have possibly taken ESPN so long to realize that people want to see a documentary about the greatest athlete ever?
Well first, much like Disney+ pushing forward Frozen 2 and Onward, we are actually getting this earlier than expected. Originally this was going to come out in June to coincide with the basketball season ending and people needing a sports fix. Little did we know that drought would come a little earlier.
Still, give or take a few months, 22 years is a long time to wait for a documentary of this scale.
The only way filmmakers could get Michael to agree to the camera crews and hoopla, was to give him control over the final product. Nothing could air without his approval. So more than 500 hours of footage surrounding the culminating moment of basketball excellance, the Bulls second three-peat, was locked in a closet somewhere. Until now. Folks we’ve got sports to watch.
Sports Options
It’ll be fun to be Tweeting together again tonight. Then Thursday is the NFL Draft, and although the young prospects in fancy suits won’t be ferried from the green room to an awkward hug with the commissioner on an actual boat, the draft will still be televised and I will still watch. And then what do we do? Go back to our rudderless lives of waiting for self-isolation to end so we can cram next to each other at sports bars or in the stands once again? You can sit around and wait, or you can watch some sports content with me.
Sports Television
Ten glorious episodes of an MJ documentary are only possible because of the five part OJ 30 for 30 of a few years ago. Although it aired at Sundance all crammed together and won an Oscar (changing the rules to prevent limit series from ever doing it again in the process) it really belongs on the small screen. As do the other films in the 30 for 30 catalog. Subscribers of ESPN+ like me (because they packaged it with Hulu and Disney+ which I actually watch) can check these out at any time. Allow me to recommend Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, Straight Outta L.A., June 17th, 1994, and Requiem for the Big East to name just a few.
Producer Michael Tollin of The Last Dance was also part of Iverson, proving that great docs are being made outside the Worldwide Leader as well.
Way outside cable networks like ESPN is YouTube. My favorite storyteller in the world of sports is a man named Jon Bois. He works at SB Nation and has series like Pretty Good, Chart Party, and Dorktown. Currently, he and co-creator Alex Rubenstein are part way through a deep dive on the history of the Seattle Mariners. It doesn’t quite do Jon justice to call him a reporter, or fan, or content creator. Storyteller really is the best word whether it is short stat filled takes or long painted pictures of obscure moments in sport. Here’s a nice medium length, perfect taste of Jon’s story style with a piece on the 1904 Olympic Marathon.
Also on YouTube (although I imagine less legally) are full episodes of sports television. The Timeline, America’s Game, Caught in the Draft, and a great little program that aired on ESPN Classic back in the day called Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame… which gives, well, the top five reasons you can’t blame someone in sports for something they are always blamed for. Like Dan Marino for never winning a Super Bowl, or the refs for Miami blowing the ’03 Fiesta Bowl, or poor Steve Bartman for the Cubs extended World Series drought.
These can all be small distractions, but I know the reason you visit a movie review website…
Sports Movies
The InQua team has given a few quarantine movie watchlists, and here’s another. The 10 best sports movies of all time. Presented without comment. Nah, I can’t help myself, but presented with very minimal comment.
HM: Jerry Maguire: Great romance, very quotable, but at the end of the day, not actually a sports movie.
10. Cool Runnings: The Winter Olympics have some great sports movies from the four man bobsled to hockey and figure skating (and both). Heck you know curling is just ripe for a slap-stick comedy. Step it up Summer Games, where’s your great movie?
9. A League of Their Own: I’m a big fan of the catcher being the star of the baseball team. See also, Bull Durham.
8. Any Given Sunday: Says what The Replacements should have been saying with the seriousness of a director accustomed to political thrillers, all wrapped in the most stylized, highlight reel package feel of any on this list.
7. Space Jam: What, was I not going to include MJ meets the Looney Tunes after bowing to his Airness for half this article? Plus I’m a product of the 90’s. Sue me.
6. The Wrestler: Don’t tell Mickey Rourke pro wrestling is fake and not a sport. He’ll Ram Jam you into next week.
5. Major League: If the movie’s about a team sport, you need a great ensemble cast. This has the best.
4. Hoop Dreams: Even at the precipice of watching 10 separate hour long episodes of an MJ doc, I’m still going to complain that this documentary is too long. But it’s perfect, so it still needs to make the list.
3. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Sports movies aside, this is the best comedy of the past 20 years.
2. Rocky: The first one. I know we love the U.S.A. of the fourth, the speech from the sixth, the homoeroticism of the third, and the realism of Creed, but the first is the best.
1. Remember the Titans: There are gritty sports movies and funny sports movies, and exciting sports movies and animated sports movies, but the best sports movies are the feel good ones. The inspiring ones. And Remember the Titans is that.
We all miss sports. Take some of these and mask the pain for a while. Michael Jordan will surely be as interesting as Joe Exotic right?
Hey remember how I mentioned quarantine watch lists? You could check them out by clicking here for a nice topical Tiger King related one, or here to travel the world with Emily.