Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel

Baseball is America’s pastime—especially here in New York. Israel is one of America’s closest allies—and an island of liberal democracy in a sea of despotic intolerance. When the two came together in 2017, the result was a rousing underdog story. Cinderella proudly wore the Star of David on her jersey when Team Israel made their surprising run in the last World Baseball Classic, which Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller & Jeremy Newberger document in Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel, which opens this Friday in New York.

The World Baseball Classic is very much like a FIFA World Cup for baseball, including its greater popularity in Latin American countries than here in the United States. Big contract Major Leaguers are discouraged from playing, so most of the Americans who agree to play are veterans looking to make a comeback. However, that presented an opportunity for Team Israel. According to the International Baseball Federation’s “Heritage” rules, any player who could qualify for citizenship in a country is allowed to play for their national team. In the case of Israel, that meant any player with a Jewish mother or grandparents was eligible for Team Israel.

Prior to 2017, Team Israel was ranked 41^st in the World, but their diligent general manager and scouts managed to recruit established MLB players, including Josh Zeid, Jason Maquis, Ryan Lavarnway, Cody Decker, Ty Kelly, and Ike Davis. Indeed, there is a strong connection between Team Israel and the New York Mets, with Kelly and Davis being former Metropolitans and team owner Fred Wilpon serving as a producer of the documentary.

With little fanfare or expectations, Team Israel arrived in Seoul for the first round of WBC competition. Not to be spoilery, but they pretty much shocked the world. If not exactly an all-star Team, Team Israel could definitely be described as an all-hustle team. They also had a much more unified team spirit, thanks to the time they spent together in Israel. They also had a greater perspective on the game, having helped dedicate an Israeli baseball field to a young athlete who was the victim of anti-Israeli terrorism. Plus, everyone dug their mascot: “The Mensch on the Bench.”

Kramer, Miller, Newberger, and their even dozen cinematographers captured every step of Team Israel’s journey, from recruitment, through training camp, the initial qualifier in Brooklyn, up to second round play in Tokyo. Frankly, they do not miss anything of importance from the 2017 season. Along the way, the team notched several upset victories, over some countries well known for their baseball traditions. Seriously, if you did not follow the WBC, you will be impressed. They did not always win, but when they did, it was pretty sweet.

As a work of cinema, Heading Home is straight forward and completely unpretentious, but it tells a terrific sports story. Clearly, Kramer & Company had the benefit of carte-blanche access to the team, but they were really fortunate to have so many insightful players willing to talk on camera. Many team-members obviously gained a deeper appreciation of the State of Israel after their time there (which sadly did include a terrorist act while they were in-country), so hopefully some viewers will too. Highly recommended for baseball fans and viewers of sports programming like HBO’s Real Sports and ESPN’s 30 for 30, Heading Home opens this Friday (9/6) in New York, at the Quad—with the Mensch on the Bench attending select screenings.

The Spy Behind Home Plate: How Moe Berg Back-Stopped the Free World

Catchers are considered the quarterbacks of baseball. They are the brains running the game on the field. That is why catchers have been more successful transitioning to managers than other position players or pitchers. It turns out catchers also made good secret agents. Granted, we only have a sample of one, but he was significant. Morris “Moe” Berg’s sporting and clandestine careers are chronicled in Aviva Kempner’s documentary The Spy Behind Home Plate, which opens this Friday in DC.

Berg was the son of Jewish immigrants, but he was as assimilated as he could be. He was an athlete and a scholar, who graduated from Princeton and Columbia Law at a time when the Ivy League was a bastion of WASPiness. His father was less than thrilled with his choice of a career in the Major Leagues, but Berg developed some interesting sidelines, such as appearing on the quiz show Information Please and spying for the OSS, the WWII-era predecessor of the CIA.

Berg’s work with “Wild Bill” Donovan at the OSS was covered quite well in Ben Lewin’s narrative drama, The Catcher was a Spy. However, Kempner and company offer up a fuller life portrait, including the intriguing tidbit regarding his field work in Latin America on behalf of Nelson Rockefeller’s Good Neighbor initiative, which could be a promising premise for a TV show, even though it would have to be largely fictionalized (truth is for documentarians).

Of course, centerpiece of any film about Moe Berg will be his work investigating Werner Heisenberg and the German atomic bomb project. Kempner confirms the third act of Lewin’s film to the letter, while bringing in Copenhagen playwright Michael Frayn for some classy commentary. Refreshingly, the documentary gives all due credit to Donovan and the men and women of the OSS for their patriotism and sacrifice (but not William Casey, in a conspicuous oversight). Regardless, it is nice to see the film explore the trust that developed between FDR and Donovan, an outspoken Republican critic of the New Deal.

Indeed, the agents of the OSS were heroes, most definitely including Berg. Frankly, the learned player is worthy of emulation in many respects. Apparently, he was also a bit eccentric. In a nice balancing act, Kempner establishes his social awkwardness, without belaboring the point. Altogether, it is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary life. Highly recommended, The Spy Behind Home Plate opens this Friday (5/24) in DC, at the Avalon and next Friday (5/31) in New York, at the Quad.

Screwball: MLB’s Doping Dopes

It was like the World Series of criminal stupidity. Since it largely unfolded in South Florida, this scandal was fully stocked with colorful characters. There were not a lot of good guys, but arguably the worst of the worst was Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez. Yankee fans could have told you that. The 2013 Major League Baseball doping scandal gets an irreverent but still damning treatment in Billy Corben’s Screwball, which opens this Friday in New York and Miami.

The most of the events in Screwball transpired after the Balco doping media frenzy, so nobody involved can plead ignorance. The dopers knew they were doping and the consequences they were risking. However, Tony Bosch thought he had a system that could avoid detection while still giving performance enhancing benefits through strategic mini-dosing. Rather inconveniently, the jig was almost up when his star client, Manny Ramirez, went off the regimen and tested positive. However, that perversely led an even bigger client to Bosch’s doorstep: A-Rod.

Suddenly, Bosch’s Biogenesis was awash in clients from the professional, college, and most disturbingly, prep levels. He even experimented with franchising Biogenesis’s services through a chain of South Florida tanning salons owned by a shady pair of brothers. That was how Bosch met Porter Fischer, a tanning meathead who would become an unlikely but important witness against nearly everyone involved, through sheer dumb luck.

Screwball is a compulsively watchable, highly entertaining true crime doc, but viewers should be warned. They could get headaches from all the forehead slapping and face-palming it inspires. Sure, Corben exposes plenty of greed and corruption, but most of the time “stupidity” is the word that best defines the actions of the primary figures.

Corben has an affinity for documenting the intersection of illicit drugs and pop culture (in films like Limelight and Square Grouper), so the baseball doping scandals are a logical subject for him to explore. In this case, he makes each twist and turn clear and easy to follow. Each connection is fully established, so there really aren’t any unsubstantiated claims left hanging by the time the film ends.

However, Corben makes an aesthetic choice that will be divisive (and most likely distracting), by staging his dramatic recreations with child actors, sort of making Screwball a black sheep cousin to Bugsy Malone. It certainly distinguishes the film from the pack, but the novelty value yields drastically diminishing returns. Frankly, Corben probably would have been better off employing goofy animation instead.

Corben also needlessly alienates potential viewer by taking a cheap shot at Pres. George W. Bush, who was out of office by the time most of the events of the film took place. If you want to talk presidential politics and steroids, you could better ask why Obama’s Justice Department so conspicuously let Lance Armstrong off the hook. Still, most Yankee fans will appreciate seeing A-Rod and Ramirez (a longtime Red Sox) get put under a searing microscope. One thing is for sure, the film is never boring. Recommended for bitter Yankee fans and viewers of Real Sports and the 30 for 30 series, Screwball opens this Friday (3/29) in New York at the Cinema Village and in Miami at the Tower Theater.

Tribeca ’16: The Phenom

Baseball is a neurotic sport. When the chips are down, it is much more a test of nerves than a contest of strength or speed. Unfortunately, young mega-hyped prospect Hopper Gibson Jr.’s nerves will fail him at the worst possible time. Five wild pitches later, he starts his mandatory sessions with one of the top sports psychologists specializing in baseball. Gibson tries to take the talking cure in Noah Buschel’s The Phenom, which screens during the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

It will barely take the audience five minutes to diagnose the primary source of Gibson’s insecurities. That would be his abusive father. Hopper Senior is not afraid to knock him around a little, but he really does his worst damage on an emotional level. Senior is convinced he could have been a Major League talent were it not for the distractions of prison and whatnot. As a result, he deeply resents his son’s success.

Eventually, we see through flashbacks how Gibson Sr.’s warped perspective on life poisons his son’s personal relationships. He has a bit of the old man’s paranoia, which makes his suspicious and wary around Dr. Mobley. That is a shame, because the shrink really might be able to help Gibson, Jr.

Phenom is a strange baseball film, because it is clearly very conversant in the recent history of the game, but there is virtual no in-game action. Players go through trials like that kind Gibson wrestles with all the time. (Its even more awkward when second basemen come down with the Steve Sax curse.) This is real drama and the stakes are high.

Yet, Buschel keeps the tone surprisingly understated, mostly stringing together a series of one-on-one confrontations. Playing against his Linklater type, Ethan Hawke is shockingly ferocious as Gibson Sr. You can practically see the negative energy radiate off him. Likewise, Paul Giamatti provides the film’s razor-sharp moral center as Dr. Mobley, in what might be the best on-screen shrink performance since Mathieu Almaric in Jimmy P. He also provides an apostolic link to major league baseball through the Giamatti family. For further off-the-field cred, Paul Adelstein rocks his too-brief appearance as Gibson’s agent, transparently inspired by Scott Boras. Unfortunately, Johnny Simmons is just too sullen and withdrawn for us to fully relate to, which is a bit of a problem, since he is in every scene.

Let’s face it, there is just a desperate shortage young twentysomething male actors in Hollywood who can carry a film. Fortunately, Buschel surrounds Simmons with such talented supporting players (like Frank Wood and Meg Gibson, who make a strong impression in their scene as his long-suffering high school girlfriend’s parents), they are able to pull him through and take some of the pressure off. Regardless, real sports fans will appreciate his largely cliché-free narrative, which ends long before the “big game.” Recommended for those who appreciate moodier baseball films, like Fear Strikes Out and Bang the Drum Slowly, The Phenom screens again tonight (4/20) and Friday (4/22), as part of this year’s Tribeca.

Japan Cuts ’15: The Vancouver Asahi

This underdog 1930s team is sort of like the New York Cubans and other early African American baseball teams. Everyone loves them now, but they faced constant struggles in their day. However, the titular community team organized by the sons of Japanese immigrants actually played against white Canadian clubs in an otherwise all-white league. Life will be a challenge for them on and off the diamond in Yuya Ishii’s The Vancouver Asahi (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2015 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.

Reggie/Reiji Kasahara works tirelessly at the lumberyard, but he dreams big when it comes to baseball. Unfortunately, the Asahi have never won a game. They are simply over matched by the big, beefy maple syrup-swilling Canadians’ power hitting and fastballs. Nonetheless, Kasahara must take some responsibility for strategy when he unexpectedly ascends to the team captainship. On the second game of the season, he experiments with bunt-and-run small ball, shocking everyone by scoring a run.

Soon, the Asahi are regularly winning games with what the local papers call their “Brain Ball” approach. After years of futility, the team finally becomes a source of pride in the Japanese immigrant community. They will need something positive to cheer, considering how the swirling clouds of war will further complicate their lives of economic marginalization.

Yes, Asahi follows a very predictable story line, but it is refreshing to see Canada take its lumps for change after all their tongue-clucking at the U.S.  Yes, there is plenty of discrimination documented in the film, but it is richer and more challenging when it explores the assimilation experience, for which there can be no better example than their passion for the game of baseball.

The sad and nostalgic tone is somewhat reminiscent of Ishii’s previous film, The Great Passage, but its characters are not quite as distinctly drawn as those in Ishii’s reference publishing drama. Reggie and his pals basically work hard and play hard, enduring all that comes their way. However, his younger sister Emmy is a deeper, more complicated figure, who truly strives to integrate into the Canadian society that never truly accepts her.

Ishii and screenwriter Satoko Okudera are not exactly subtle when making their points. Still, it is a painstakingly detailed period production. It also captures a sense of just how significant baseball was in the 1930s. It is almost inspiring to watch the Asahi’s scrappy style of play win over the white Anglo Canadians, even though we know it will all be undone by the WWII internment.

All the Asahi players look like they are young and hungry, starting with the wiry Satoshi Tsumabuki as Reggie Kasahara. Yet, it is Mitsuki Takahata and Koichi Sato who really elevate the film as his studious sister and rough-hewn father, respectively. Ultimately, it is an earnest and endearing film that wears its tragic fate with dignity. Recommended for fans of old fashioned baseball dramas, The Vancouver Asahi screens this Saturday (7/11) at the Japan Society, as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Tribeca ’15: Fastball

They say for fastball pitchers, it more about movement and location then velocity, unless they can hurl it over 100 mph. In that case, it really is about velocity. Some of the game’s best power pitchers and power hitters explain what it is like to be on either side of the high heat in Jonathan Hock’s enormously entertaining Fastball, which screens during the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Obviously it is almost impossible to compare pitchers from different eras, but Hock and his on-screen experts will develop a methodology to do just that. Hock surveys the game-changingest fastball pitchers throughout baseball history, starting with Walter Johnson’s celebrated 122 feet per second fastball, segueing into Bob Feller’s still impressive 98.6 mph benchmark. Yankee fans will be delighted to see Goose Gossage get ample screen time, but will be baffled by the absence of Mariano Rivera (what, the cutter doesn’t count?). Still, future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter turns up as consolation (presumably he is like Martin Scorsese in classic cinema docs, if you can get him, you find a place for him).

Okay, fans from every city might wonder why their respective teams are not better represented, but nobody will question the time spent with Bob Gibson and Nolan Ryan. There are even more Hall of Famers represented on the hitters’ side of the equation, including George Brett (yes, the pine tar incident is revisited), Hank Aaron, and Al Kaline. Some fans might find it rather bittersweet seeing the recently passed Ernie Banks and Tony Gwynn adding even more class to the film.

There are a lot of laugh-out-loud stories in Fastball, but there is also a lot of nostalgia. In fact, the film becomes unapologetically sentimental and empathetic when chronically the story of Steve Dalkowski, the almost Major Leaguer who partly inspired the film Bull Durham. It is a tough game sometimes.

Surprisingly, Hock even incorporates lessons in physics and physiology into the film that really heighten our appreciation of fastball pitching (and hitting). The manner in which the documentary breaks down and adjusts fastball measurement over time might sound a little geeky, but it is totally perfect for such a wonky, numbers-obsessed sport. To Hock’s credit, Fastball is willing to make the call as to which pitcher really was the fastest, without any hedging or second-guessing, so there is even some suspense built in.

Throughout the film, Hock always hits the right notes and Kevin Costner’s narration is the perfect finishing touch. If you are a baseball fan, Fastball will bring make fond memories of the game and if you do not follow the boys of summer, you can still enjoy the anecdotes. Highly recommended, Fastball screens again this Saturday (4/25) and Sunday (4/26), as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

30 for 30: Brothers in Exile

New Yorkers would recognize Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez’s high leg kick anywhere. His half-brother Livan did not do so badly for the Florida Marlins either. For the Cuban pitchers, winning World Series championships was the easy part. Escaping Castro’s police state was much more difficult. Their journeys to freedom and a better life are chronicled in Mario Diaz’s Brothers in Exile (trailer here), which airs this coming Tuesday as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 film series.

As half-brothers, Orlando and Livan Hernandez did not grow up together, but baseball clearly ran in their mutual father’s side of the family. Orlando quickly made a name for himself, first as the ace of the Havana Industriales and then with the Cuban national team. That name would be “El Duque.” From time to time, he would visit his younger half-brother, giving him tips. They clearly panned out. Unfortunately, when the state athletic commissars and minders finally pushed Livan past his breaking point with their controls and humiliations, his defection caused profound problems for El Duque. The Party security apparatus and their plain clothes thugs just automatically assumed El Duque was in on his plans.

Banned from baseball, shunned by society, and frequently harassed on the streets, El Duque feared for his safety and his family’s future. Unfortunately, thanks to the Clinton Administration’s changes in immigration policy (never addressed in Exile), it had become much harder for Cuban refugees to be granted asylum status, while it was still just as treacherous navigating the Straits of Florida.

The truly perilous circumstances of El Duque’s flight for freedom are perhaps not a scoop per se, but they are certainly not well understood by the general baseball public. Frankly, he is lucky to be alive. Likewise, the role John Cardinal O’Connor and the New York Catholic diocese played facilitating El Duque’s eventual reunion with his family will be eye-opening stuff for many viewers.

To his credit, Garcia is pretty forthright documenting the persecution directed at El Duque and his family by the Party and its enforcers. However, he essentially lets Castro and his fanatical devotion to a command-and-control ideology off the hook for the mass suffering experienced during the so-called “special period.” Regardless, some of the best sequences explore the significance of the Hernandezes’ successes for the Cuban-American community.

Exile has a strong emotional kick, but it also brings back many fond memories for Yankees and Marlins fans. In fact, some of the best stories come from their respective glory year catchers, Jorge Posada and Charles Johnson. Ultimately, it expresses the value of baseball and freedom, two things that have a prized place within the Cuban-American experience. Recommended as a solid installment in the first-rate 30 for 30 series, Brothers in Exile premieres this Tuesday (11/4) on ESPN.

Diamond in the Dunes: Baseball in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Region

You will never find a collegiate sports program less tainted by agents and money than the Xinjiang University baseball team. It is the only area of the highly segregated campus where Uyghurs and ethnic Han Chinese freely mix. They could not field a team without each other. Christopher Rufo documents the passion for the game that keeps the underdog team together in Diamond in the Dunes (trailer here), which airs this Sunday on PBS World as part of the current season of Global Voices.

Parhat Arblat might be the best baseball player in the entire Xinjiang province. He is also a member of the Uyghur minority. Despite his soon-to-be-completed university education, his future remains uncertain. He is far more likely to return to shepherding than field an offer from the Yankees, or even our beloved Mets. Although he might be a comparatively okay player, he unfortunately appears to be getting played by his childhood sweetheart.

Nevertheless, he emerges as a leader on the field, teaching the younger players how to play the game and conduct themselves in life, as they train for their one big annual game with a Tibetan University. Yes, Arblat and his Xinjiang teammates are the boys of one single summer day. They practice all year to face their nearest rivals, one thousand miles away—a thirty hour train journey. That is commitment.

The irony of an American game bringing together Xinjiang’s fractious ethnic groups is not entirely lost on the players. Frankly, the broadcast cut of Diamond could have played up the unifying power of sportsmanship more, because it is quite compelling. Rufo also seems to deliberately de-emphasize the Uyghurs’ Muslim faith, portraying the regions’ differences in largely racial and cultural terms.

Still, the extent and severity of Xinjiang segregation exposed in the film is truly mind-boggling. The fact that Communist China gets a pass from professional protestors and NGOs constitutes sheer hypocrisy. Indeed, the film serves as an indirect indictment of the western media’s coverage of China. Remember all the coverage of the 2009 Ürümqi riots? Exactly.

Arblat is an enormously sympathetic POV figure, so it is nice that Rufo can balance some hopefulness with the hardscrabble realities of his provincial Xinjiang life. While the broadcast edit feels noticeably abbreviated, it still makes rewarding viewing. Recommended for baseball fans and China watchers, Diamond in the Dunes airs on PBS World this Sunday (8/10).

NYAFF ’14: Kano

Sure, a three hour baseball movie might sound like bizarre overkill, but it is still considerably brisker than many of Al Leiter’s outings for the Mets (we’re all fans here, by the way). It is long, but this scrappy underdog story of tolerance and resilience generally makes good use of its time. Taiwanese and Japanese players will indeed come together on the diamond in Umin Boya’s Kano (trailer here), the centerpiece selection of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, which screens tomorrow, so forget that World Cup noise.

Despite the spectacular revolt dramatized in co-writer-producer Wei Te-sheng’s Warriors of the Rainbow: Sediq Bale, Japan has consolidated its imperialist hold on Taiwan. Despite the increasing (but unequal) economic ties between the two countries, Taiwan is not where the Japanese go when their careers are on the way up. However, for tightly wound account Hyotaro Kondo, it represents a chance to start over following a vaguely defined public humiliation. Yet, against his better judgment, Kondo soon volunteers to coach the Kagi Agriculture and Forestry Public School’s high school baseball team (called Kano for short).

It was Kondo’s intense coaching style that led to so much grief in Japan, but he has never had a team like this. For one thing, it is an ethnically mixed squad, consisting not just of Japanese and Taiwanese players, but aboriginal and Chinese students as well. They also receive next to no material support from their school. Still, Akira Go, the kid on the mound, has a monster arm. Everyone scoffs when Kondo vows to take the team to Koshien, Japan’s national high school tournament, especially given their ‘O-fer record, but guess what happens next year.

Despite its incontrovertible status as a sports movie, Kano neatly sidesteps a number of the genre clichés. The big game will duly choke you up, but in a far more satisfying way than you expect. Coach Kondo even says there is no crying in baseball, but good luck with that.

Masatoshi Nagase is truly the coach of all movie coaches as the strict but fiercely loyal Kondo. He commands the screen just like Kondo commands his players, but when he lets his softy paternal side peak through, it is always heavy. Oddly, perhaps the most distinctive supporting turn amongst the players is actually Ken Aoki as rival pitcher Hiromi Joshiya, whose trip to see Kano’s dirt playing field for himself while on leave from the Imperial Army supplies the film’s framing device. British based Japanese actor Togo Igawa also adds a note of gruff dignity as Kondo’s former mentor, Coach Sato.

Production designer Makoto Asano’s recreation of 1931 provincial Taiwan looks so real you can practically taste the mud and thatch. It is a high quality period production and probably the most epic baseball movie ever thanks to cinematographer Chin Ting-chang’s sweeping, wide screen visuals. Yet, the on-field camaraderie is not simply a good lesson in sportsmanship. It looks like a conscious attempt at Taiwanese-Japanese rapprochement , strategically coming at a time of high Mainland saber rattling (and frankly that is probably not a bad impulse to act on).

Happily, Kano does not feel like it runs anywhere near its three hours, but there is no getting the generous helpings of baseball. As great as Nagase is, Kano’s appeal will probably be limited to fans of the game (which includes just about everyone in Taiwan judging from its domestic box-office). Earnest, entertaining, and appealingly old fashioned, Kano is recommended for lovers of baseball and those who follow Japanese and Taiwanese cinema when it screens tomorrow evening (6/29) at the Walter Reade Theater, as the centerpiece of this year’s NYAFF.

Tribeca ’14: The Battered Bastards of Baseball

They were like an adult version of the Bad News Bears. The Portland Mavericks were the last independent team to compete in Major League Baseball’s minor league system. Instead of simply developing prospects for big league affiliates, the Mavericks played to win. They also did their best to put on a show for the fans. Nearly thirty-seven years after their final game the Mavericks will entertain audiences once again when Chapman & Maclain Way’s documentary The Battered Bastards of Baseball screens at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

Bing Russell was a working actor still probably best known as Deputy Clem on Bonanza, but baseball was his first love. About the time the Cartwrights were finally canceled, Portland’s AAA farm club left the city for Spokane. To the bemusement of just about everyone, Russell decided to launch an independent Single-A club and announced open tryouts to fill out his roster. The sports establishment laughed, but a whole lot of people showed up. However, Russell was able to recruit one veteran minor leaguer: his son Kurt Russell, a.k.a. Snake Plissken. Oddly enough, the makeshift Mavericks starting winning—and drawing. Of course, that rather embarrassed the baseball establishment.

Years later, Russell still chuckles at his father’s showmanship. In fact, Battered is one of the rare documentaries with no dirty family linen to air. Clearly, he thinks old man Bing was a cool cat and has the rest of us convinced in about thirty seconds. Without question, the senior Russell set the tone for the Mavericks, who consistently lived up to their names.

Yes, Battered is a sports doc, but it is also a show biz story, a family history, and a great big slice of Americana. Of special interest to cineastes, Oscar nominated director Todd Field also extensively reminisces throughout the film about his experiences as the Mavericks’ batboy. It is about rooting for the underdogs and defying the old boys’ network. Most importantly, Battered is just more fun than an Elvis bobble-head.

The Ways were blessed with a great story that is already being talked about as a potential narrative feature, but they make some shrewd presentation choices throughout the film. There are the odd poignant moments in Battered, but they generally revel in the madcap spirit of the team. Few docs ever fly by at such a breezy gallop. Very highly recommended for fans of baseball, either Russell, and defiantly idiosyncratic entrepreneurship, The Battered Bastards of Baseball screens this Wednesday (4/23) and Saturday (4/26) during the Tribeca Film Festival.

Sundance ’14: No No: a Dockumentary

For most baseball fans, Dock Ellis is best known as the man who won the 1976 AL Comeback Player of the Year and helped pitch the New York Yankees into that year’s World Series. It is a perfect example of how a great team can rejuvenate veteran players. There are also those remember him for throwing a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. Jeffrey Radice profiles Ellis’s colorful career and meaningful post-baseball life in No No: a Dockumentary, which screens during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Radice openly evokes Superfly and other blaxploitation films when chronicling Ellis’s early seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ellis liked to dress sharp, but he was not inclined to take guff off anyone.  However, he was far less confident beneath his bluster, which is why he regularly took some narcotic courage before starting a game.

While our Yankee chauvinism might sound like an exaggerated put-on, the late Ellis might not have objected. While he was happy to notch the no-no career milestone, many of Dockumentary’s talking heads suggest Ellis was uncomfortable with all the sophomoric jokey attention focused on the LSD part of the story.  After all, some of the most compelling sequences follow Ellis’s drug-fueled implosion and his subsequent comeback as an addiction counselor.

Radice talks to a number of Ellis’s former teammates, family members, and ex-wives, compiling a pretty thorough composite of his subject.  He maintains a brisk pace, while Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz’s score and the funky licensed tracks evoke the 1970’s vibe quite distinctively. Ellis’s story also raises several topical issues, such as drug use, domestic abuse, and the state of post-Jackie Robinson racial relations in Major League Baseball.  Radice gives them all their proper due, but never strays too far from the baselines.  Frankly, he gets the mix of social relevancy and retro attitude just right.  Highly watchable, No No: a Dockumentary is recommended for audiences beyond the obvious ESPN market. It screens again in Park City today (1/24) and tomorrow (1/25) as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Knuckleball!: The Few, the Proud

The last two years have been tough for Mets fans, but there have been a few bright spots.  They have had the pleasure of watching Bobby Valentine “manage” another team and R. A. Dickey has posted All-Star worthy seasons on the mound.  When he signed with the Mets, he was one of two knuckleball pitchers in Major League Baseball.  And then there was one.  Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg follow Dickey as he works to make a name for himself, while his knuckleball throwing colleague Tim Wakefield chases a series of career milestones in the thoroughly entertaining documentary, Knuckleball! (trailer here), which opens this Thursday at the IFC Center.

Tim Wakefield did just about everything you can do as a member of the Boston Red Sox, an often overlooked Northeastern team best known for trading away Babe Ruth, including giving up the eleventh inning walk-off homerun in game seven of the 2003 ALCS.  Honestly, that was something of a fluke.  Wakefield always had success against the Yankees, which made the Red Sox’s decision to banish him to the bullpen rather baffling.  In a year when the Sox were largely out of contention, beating the Yanks whenever possible would have been a logical fallback goal.  Nonetheless, Wakefield saw little meaningful time on the mound at the start of the 2011 season, despite the tantalizing closeness of his 200^th win.

A journeyman pitcher who stunned the baseball world, particularly including the Amazins, by winning a spot on the rotation, R.A. Dickey finally signed a guaranteed contract.  However, a nagging injury threatens to put a damper on the party.  Fortunately, Dickey can call on the knuckleball support network, especially his mentor, veteran knuckleballer Charlie Hough, for advice.

Some of Knuckleball’s best scenes capture the get-togethers of this knuckleball fraternity, including Hough, both active proponents, and Wakefield’s early guru, Phil Niekro.  As one might expect, they have some funny stories to tell.  Wakefield and Dickey do a fine job explaining what the knuckleball pitch does and does not do.  However, all knuckleballers are at a bit of a loss to explain the deep-seated disdain for their bread-and-butter pitch.  Considering how radically different it looks to batters, one would think every club would want one knuckleballer on staff, but no, not by a long shot.

Stern and Sundberg do something rather remarkable in Knuckleball by building to a big satisfying emotional crescendo, even though they are following two pitchers whose respective teams were a country mile away from the pennant chase.  It comes through loud and clear Wakefield and Dickey are not just concerned with their individual stats.  They are representing their pitch, like faithful practitioners of an esoteric martial art.  Yet, this is exactly what baseball is all about: tradition.

Dickey and Wakefield are consistently likable subjects and the old school knuckleballers, including Hough, Niekro, and Jim Bouton, are even more so.  Prolific documenterians, Stern & Sundberg’s best known work is probably Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and their most important project is easily Burma Soldier, but Knuckleball is by far their most enjoyable.  Non-sports viewers will still find it completely engaging, but for baseball fans, it is like a bag of salted peanuts at an office getaway game (that’s a good thing).  Enthusiastically recommended to general audiences, Knuckleball! (with exclamation point) opens this Thursday (9/20) in New York at the IFC Center.