Greetings,
So I kind of hate sports. I think I may have mentioned that on one or two or three hundred occasions here. And let me make this quite clear. I do not hate every single person in the sports world, nor do I hate all the fans. I know that, in both of those groups, are good people. Some of them are friends of mine. But, overall, the sports thing just isn't my thing. Still, I have to be honest and give credit where it is due, as always. And, honestly, I really like this series I have recently discovered called 30 For 30.
30 For 30 is a series of documentaries from ESPN, which was created in 2007 by Bill Simmons. It's basically a collection of docs about sports stories directed by various people on various subjects. And they are really, really good. I just found them on Netflix Instant Streaming and decided to check one out. That led to my watching several others, because, despite how I feel about sports, I do like hearing interesting stories. Now, even as a non-sports fan, I could predict some of the subjects they cover here. Of course, they do one about O.J. Simpson, the baseball career of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson's HIV announcement, and the latest one I've seen, the story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, no doubt to...commemorate(?) the twentieth anniversary of the incident. There's a story that never gets old. Still, I've watched some that deal with things that maybe aren't constantly in the forefront of people's memories, sadly, in some cases.
There are quite of few of these documentaries that discuss things beyond just "Hey, remember the great season that one team had? Well, let's talk about it". Actually, I should be less calling these shows documentaries about sports and rather documentaries about people who happen to be connected to the sports world. And those ones are very good, as well, just differently so. They have one about Len Bias, which talks more about the tragedy of his death and what potential he had to be anything, not just a sports star. And there's one that discusses the trial of Allen Iverson, and that ends up being less about him as a basketball player and more about people debating on how race did or did not play a part in his conviction. Heck, there's even one about someone who wasn't even a sports figure at all but just stumbled into the public eye by trying to catch a foul ball. Because the Law and Order episode based on that just wasn't enough!
Look, I could go on and on about all the docs in this series, but I'm going to wrap this up. It's hard for me to talk about anything sports related in a positive light, but I can't deny the quality of these short films. And I truly feel like a lot of these are very well made and should be seen. Seriously, one of the things I don't like about sports is that they bore me, personally, but, like I said, these are more about the people. They are just very interesting accounts of events in their lives. You don't have to be a sports fan to appreciate that.
So, whether you like football, basketball, etc or not, and you, for sure, like good documentaries, I say check a couple of these out. Again, most of them are on Netflix on Instant, and putting them on your queue would be a wise idea.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
