Title—Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino
Year–2004
Summary–Discusses the “cursed” history of the Boston Red Sox through interviews with fans and archival footage up until the curse was broken in 2004.
My Thoughts–I LOVE THIS DOCUMENTARY!!! I don’t think there are enough words in the universe to express how fond I am of this little show. As a baseball fan, especially as a Cubs fan, I feel like I understand what the people in Boston went through during the “cursed” period in time. I like to think of Boston fans as my kindred spirits.
There is quite the story behind this little show. The original documentary for HBO was called The Curse of the Bambino, and it interviewed Boston fans talking about how depressing it is to be a Red Sox fan and whether or not they thought there was a curse. This aired in 2003. Then the very next year, the Red Sox actually won the World Series!! So the filmmakers went back and interviewed the same people and remade the special to include the happy ending.
For those of you who don’t know, the legend of the Red Sox curse is that after the owner of the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, they were cursed to never win another World Series. They had won 5 of the first 15 World Series, but after “selling” Ruth they went 86 years before winning another one. They came very close several times, but something horrifying would always happen to cause them to choke.
The interviewees in the film run the gamut from authors, to radio personalities, actors, and a rabbi. Red Sox fans young and old and female (YEA!!) are all featured. My favorite part of the film is when they show lots of different people telling the same story. It jumps back and forth between people who are all saying the same thing with the same emotion. It is fabulous. These are people who live and breathe the Red Sox and can literally recite what the announcer was saying when their hopes were dashed to the ground each year. As they tell the tales of Bucky “Bleepin” Dent, Bill Buckner, and Aaron “Bleepin” Boone, you can’t help but feel their pain.
But then……but then, they start to talk about the 2004 season. 🙂 You can totally tell when the documentary switches over to the new footage (not just because everyone’s dressed differently) because they look like different people. These are not the sad, droopy faced fans of before, these are people who live in a world where the Boston Red Sox are World Champions. There is a moment at the end when they all try to talk about what it felt like when they won and it shows everybody in turn and they are all speechless, many of them are choked up as well. I always start to cry at this part and cry through the whole last few minutes.
Some of you might say that baseball is just a game and it is silly for people to get so worked up about things like this. I think it is glorious when people can throw themselves into something with such commitment and loyalty. If you look up loyalty in the dictionary, you should find a picture of a Red Sox (or a Cubs) fan.
This documentary is really awesome for all the reasons I just mentioned, but also because it is really well done. The music is wonderful, the old footage is perfect, and the production value all around is really high for a documentary (probably because it was produced by HBO).
Final Verdict–Great, great sports film that is short and sweet (less than an hour). It’s the perfect underdog tale, unless you are a Yankee fan!
Jen
P.S. I hope that anybody who wants to see this can get their hands on it. Only one library in my whole state had it and they wouldn’t ILL it, so I just bought it from ebay for like $5. Hopefully Netflix won’t let you down.
NerdGirlBlogging 