30 For 30 - General Discussion

[kathyk24]

16 hours ago, Ottis said:

I moved to Indiana in the early 90s, and as an outsider my perception of Knight going in was that he was an asshole. I knew that he won, but I would see his antics on TV or read about them in newspapers and think, "What a jerk." After moving to Indiana my exposure to Knight coverage increased, and I would see him in press conferences being an ass to reporters who asked decent questions. "Why the hell do those reporters put up with that?" I would ask.  I never, ever understood why so many people in that state loved him. Winning doesn't excuse the behaviors everyone saw, much less the ones that were uncovered and forced him out. BTW, Bob Knight is what made me a Purdue fan.

Since then, nothing Knight has said or done has shown any remorse or understanding that what he did was wrong. I've long since left Indiana but visit from time to time. There are many people there who still love him. Wonder what they think of this 30 for 30? 

I think fans will forgive rude behavior from a coach as long as he wins. Nick Saban was rude to a reporter on national television and Alabama fans made excuses for him. I think Bob Knight's record made the state look good so fans looked the other way.

[Ottis]

On 12/13/2018 at 11:23 PM, kathyk24 said:

I think fans will forgive rude behavior from a coach as long as he wins. Nick Saban was rude to a reporter on national television and Alabama fans made excuses for him. I think Bob Knight's record made the state look good so fans looked the other way.

I see Saban and Knight as entirely different examples. Saban can freeze you out or be brusque. This 30 on 30 showed Knight aggressively approaching reporters during press conferences, shouting at them and questioning their ability. When I lived in Indiana, I saw more examples of this behavior from Knight on local broadcasts, and wondered why reporters didn't push back. I guess Knight was so big there that to push back might mean being frozen out, but still. It was collective Hoosier Hysteria I guess.

[mojoween]

I wasn’t really interested in the Deion 30 for 30 until the end of the ad when he said something like “it was supposed to be fun for me...but it wasn’t.”  Sold!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Deion's Double Play

Quote

A look at Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, focusing especially on a 24-hour span in 1992 when he sandwiched an NFL game between a pair of Major League Baseball postseason games in cities separated by 1,000 miles.

Original air date: 1/31/19

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Seau

Quote

Long before Junior Seau finally hung up his NFL spikes for good, he was a legend. Seau had everything an athlete could ever want: the adoration of millions, the admiration of his peers, the love of a beautiful family, and a sense of purpose beyond the playing field. And yet, on May 2nd, 2012, at the age of 43, Seau, alone in his bedroom at his home in Oceanside, California, shot himself in the heart. He left no suicide note, offering no clear answers to why he'd take his own life. Now, Seau, a searing, revealing portrait of the Hall of Famer's life and death, seeks those answers, exploring his remarkable path out of an immigrant Samoan family to NFL stardom, and the many complications that ensued through two decades spent at the heart of a brutal and unforgiving game. Directed by Kirby Bradley, Junior Seau's tale of one of modern football's great icons, with a tragic end still reverberating through the sports world all these years later.

Original air date: 4/16/19

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The Dominican Dream

Quote

"The Dominican Dream" is a portrait of the Dominican immigrants of New York in the '80s and '90s, seen through a loving family whose youngest son, Felipe Lopez, became the top ranked high school basketball player in the nation and was hailed as "The Dominican Michael Jordan." Embraced as an immigrant hero, then cast aside as an American failure, Felipe Lopez would eventually find happiness not as a basketball player, but as the man he was always meant to be.

Original air date: 4/30/19

[catlover79]

On 6/21/2016 at 3:58 AM, LeighAnne said:

From the "Things That Were Inevitable" file:  ESPN is showing an updated version of "Believeland" on June 30, with a new ending covering the Cleveland Cavaliers winning the 2016 NBA Championship and its aftermath.  Director Andy Billman is filming now and will be going to the parade for footage.

Not surprisingly, this is my favorite in the series. (Other favorites of mine include The Price of Gold and June 17, 1994.)

[xaxat]

The guy running competitive eating is an egotistical, xenophobic asshole.

Kobayashi was a surprisingly sympathetic character.

The reaction of Joey's mom to the pizza story she never heard before was hilarious.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, xaxat said:

The guy running competitive eating is an egotistical, xenophobic asshole.

George Shea is a straight-up garbage human. I didn't realize that the "Major League Eating" only welcomed American contestants until I watched this doc. The way he turned on Kobayashi was disgusting. My heart broke for that man when he talked about how he was jeered by the crowd at that last competition.

I've always been a fan of Kobayashi's. He seemed like a good person who was really dedicated to doing what he does. (Yeah, I know it's considered a "sport," but I can't get fully behind that idea.) I hope he knows now that not all Americans are as gross and hateful than those who were lead by the nose by George Shea.

Joey Chestnut seems like a decent fellow, too. I just no longer care that he continues winning the Nathan's hot-dog eating competition. I record it every year (so I can fast forward through the 50 minutes of filler and commercials) to watch the few minutes they do spend eating.

Oh, and I was thrilled the doc included footage of the, what was it called, "The World's Greatest Eater?" I thought I hallucinated having seen that show years ago on Fox.

[meep.meep]

15 hours ago, xaxat said:

The guy running competitive eating is an egotistical, xenophobic asshole.

Kobayashi was a surprisingly sympathetic character.

The reaction of Joey's mom to the pizza story she never heard before was hilarious.

I liked her description of how all her kids would eat with their arms around their plates to keep people from stealing their food.

Joey Chestnut is a local so we always hear a lot about him.

[Guest]

The Dennis Rodman doc could have been really great if it weren't for the over the top narration of Jamie Foxx and the addition of Chris Connelly who turned into a noxious, shrill moron sometime in the mid-2000s. 

I would up feeling sorry for Rodman in particular when his Oklahoma surrogate mother Pat Rich admitted on camera to calling him the n-word (and she actually SAID the word!) to his face. I mean, I audibly gasped at that. That being said, Rodman claims to not have been fazed by it...but still. I am really curious why he cut the family out of his life, in particular Bryne, whom he really seemed to hold genuine affection for. I'm surprised the documentary producers didn't explore that with him. Then again, Rodman cut out most people close to him from his life - mother, sisters, ex spouses, and his kids. 

[peppergal]

I ended up hating most of the Rodman doc.  There was an interesting story to tell there, but I didn't need to have them pad out the 2 hours with things like renditions Oh What A Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma to showcase that he was an outsider. 

They could easily have cut the existing material down to 60-90 minutes or used the extra time to explore some of the issues they glossed over.

This is definitely one I won't bother to watch again.

[Crs97]

I am watching the Deion Sanders documentary about playing baseball and football in one day.  Man is he a prick.

[Tachi Rocinante]

The U Part 1 had some glaring omissions that they would rather forget, and leaving them out seemed rather disingenuous by the *cough* documentary filmmaker:
1. Hail Flutie
2. The ass-whooping by Alabama and George Teague running down douchebag Lamar Thomas
3. The absolute mudhole stomping by Tennessee

Anyhoo, so the new one is about Lance Armstrong.

Unless the opening scene is him on his knees kissing Betsy Andreu's ass, I probably won't watch. 

Some assholes don't deserve redemption stories.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

Some assholes don't deserve redemption stories.

Totally agree. I always look forward to these 30 for 30s but this one? Not really unless they feature the never-ending line up of people whose lives he ruined with his continual lies.

Fuck this guy. He deserves nothing but all the scorn in the world. He's a terrible human being.

[mojoween]

From what has been said, this one is not going to be a redemption story.  Sounds like he is going to come off as badly as we already think of him.

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Sounds like he is going to come off as badly as we already think of him.

 

[DXD526]

I enjoyed part 1. I know next to nothing about professional cycling, so much of the info was new to me. It's interesting that when Armstrong started competing in the early 90s, virtually everybody in the sport was doping. It was largely unregulated and so pervasive that any rider who didn't do it was at an automatic disadvantage. It was also telling when a rider at the Tour de France, when asked why so many riders would risk taking steroids, knowing what they could do to the body, replied that what riders put their bodies through to compete in the Tour is totally unnatural, so just by virtue of taking part, it's implied that they don't care all that much about their bodies. Yikes. Quite an assessment of the sport.

And then there's an appearance by a young Keith Olbermann with a bad 90s pornstache! 😄 Looking forward to part 2.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Watched Part 1.  They appear to be setting up the narrative that "everyone was doping, they were just better at it"

I love that Betsy Andreu was labeled as "former teammate's wife". Maybe Frankie declined to be involved, or is in Part 2.

We'll see where it goes.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Tachi Rocinante

[Ottis]

On 5/24/2020 at 11:20 AM, mojoween said:

From what has been said, this one is not going to be a redemption story.  Sounds like he is going to come off as badly as we already think of him.

The parallels between MJ and LA, and yet the very different way they come across, fascinate me. Maybe MJ was saved because he played on a team.  They both wanted to win more than anything, they both acted like dicks, and yet MJ came across as almost admirable while LA is just a douche. Just the way they try to explain themselves is so different. And we have just now made it to the doping!

[Crs97]

The Lance Armstrong documentary has gotten me interested in other documentaries about him.   I have to say that Betsy Andreu is my new spirit animal.  Lance clearly messed with the wrong person.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Crs97

[BellyLaughter]

Betsy Andreu is a boss!  His bullying of her was abhorrent but she never backed down.  Has he apologised to her yet?? 

[Crs97]

From what I’ve seen in other documentaries, he apologized just enough so that he could go on Oprah and say he apologized.  She told him he had to tell the truth about the hospital visit.  Oprah asked and he said he wouldn’t discuss it, acting like he was protecting her privacy.  She was pissed.  He has also tried to tank Frankie’s career Even more by saying he took drugs for the majority of his career.  Frankie responded with his timeline of racing and taking EPO, which was not a majority of his time.  He says he was clean his last year on Lance’s team, which is why he plummeted in the rankings and they essentially dropped him.  Apparently when he told Betsy he had to take EPO to remain on the team, she told him that if he needed drugs to be on the team then he didn’t deserve to be on the team.  Personally I think she saved her husband’s life in so many ways.

[DanaK]

If all Armstrong did was dope and cheat, I think that would be reasonably forgivable given that so many did it (though if so many have to dope so much at a sport because it's too hard, maybe people shouldn't be doing that sport, or the people in charge should make it easier). The problem for Armstrong is that he didn't just cheat. He went after his critics and destroyed them or tried to. He set himself up to be a role model with his cancer foundation and he was lying all that time. He viciously hurt too many people to cover his cheating (and usually in a very public way) and that kind of sliminess and nastiness will take a long time to forgive, if ever

[Crs97]

And he seems to have learned nothing from his experience.  He is still trying to take people down for simply telling the truth about him.  No remorse.  No enlightenment.  No character.

[bosawks]

I think there is something psychologically wrong with Lance Armstrong but the “Lance sends his love” when paying that bar tab made me chuckle.

Dude needs hardcore therapy.

[BellyLaughter]

The amount of deflecting he did in this new documentary was typical of Lance Armstrong.  To this day he still can’t admit that hospital room dialogue played out!   Just goes to show the psychopathy of him.... Betsy stood up to him, didn’t allow the threats and bullying to beat her and the absolute narcissist in Lance Armstrong is never going to give her the satisfaction of a true confession and apology.

I was stunned that he equates the tragedy of Jan Ulrich to his own downfall.... like all of Lance’s difficulties aren’t 100% self imposed.... I don’t really feel like Ulrich’s issues are the same at all.  But I will concede his concern for Ulrich did seem genuine..... if there was one positive thing to take out of this doco.

Edited June 2, 2020 by BellyLaughter

[lovinbob]

I was amazed at what a great liar he was. Not a single tell in any of his denials. And then it was funny to hear Landis say that he's more comfortable lying than telling the truth.

I wonder what Gunderson, his bio-dad's, psychological makeup was. Terry Armstrong was a twisted dude. 

[Tachi Rocinante]

He hasn't learned a thing. The ending is proof; Hincapie isn't a pariah because he wasn't a rotten, litigious asshole, you moron.

I was surprised at Landis' parting shot at Vaughters.  Same answer, though. Vaughters kept quiet.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Tachi Rocinante

[mojoween]

I didn’t really feel “poor Lance” when he’s living in Colorado in that house.  He’s getting money from somewhere.

I did feel terribly for poor 12 year old Luke having to deal with that.

Lance said he flew to Italy to apologize to the Italian cycler whose name escapes me, and he said he shouldn’t have called Emma O’Reilly a whore, but I didn’t hear him say he ever apologized to Emma.

And for Christ’s sake.  Watching that man peel a potato was painful.

[greyhorse]

On 5/28/2020 at 2:38 PM, Ottis said:

The parallels between MJ and LA, and yet the very different way they come across, fascinate me. Maybe MJ was saved because he played on a team.  They both wanted to win more than anything, they both acted like dicks, and yet MJ came across as almost admirable while LA is just a douche. Just the way they try to explain themselves is so different. And we have just now made it to the doping!

MJ was saved because HE DIDN'T CHEAT.  He might have been a jerk to his teammates, but it was all in the name of winning.  Sure, Lance did the same to his team, but the retrospective look back is clouded because when we see him, all we see is a cheater.

No sympathy for Lance, and I'm confused with the "I'd do it all again" comment.  Really?  This was shortly after saying he kind of wished that he had not raced that last Tour that exposed him.  But then saying that he needed it and needed a bomb to go off to tear him down.  Nah, he didn't want to be torn down.  He's just trying to justify what happened to him.  

I don't hate Lance.  I think he did what everyone else did.  It's just that he denied it so vehemently.  That was his flaw.

Bonnie Ford (the ESPN person) seems really to have had it out for him.  I wonder why she's so passively aggressive angry.

So Anna his fiancé... they've been together 10 years, have two kids together, yet she's still his fiancé?  When is the wedding?

Curious what Lance does for income these days and what his net worth is.  If you "downsize" from Austin, moving to Aspen is one of the last places I'd expect him to go.  I think he'd go somewhere affordable like Tucson.

[Guest]

I still can't bring myself to watch the Armstrong eps on my DVR and feel that I'll be deleting them much like the Michael Vick doc I recently got rid of. However, looks like next week there's a Bruce Lee 30 for 30 that I won't be missing. 

[Ottis]

17 hours ago, greyhorse said:

MJ was saved because HE DIDN'T CHEAT.  

As my comment noted, my observation was based on the 30 on 30 BEFORE he cheated. Pre-doping.  LA came across differently *regardless* of doping.

Here is what I don't understand, and I think was a big miss for the 30 on 30: WHY is LA so angry at Floyd Landis that he called FL a piece of shit? She doesn't ask him that. I guess she assumes it is because FL ratted out LA, but if that's the case, then wouldn't that make any of LA's comments about contrition moot? I think she should have asked LA why he feels so strongly about FL. Either make it clear it was because FL ratted and let LA hang himself, or show us it was some other (probably manufactured) excuse in LA's mind. 

[Crs97]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/12/07/lance-armstrong-is-poised-to-become-billionaire-despite-doping-downfall/amp/

Lance invested in Uber.

 

Once again Betsy Andreu cuts through the crap to get at the heart of the matter.

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Crs97

[BellyLaughter]

“The irony is, by not wanting to lose, he’s the biggest loser of all.”

Betsy Andreu

[lovinbob]

On 6/4/2020 at 9:02 PM, Ottis said:

Here is what I don't understand, and I think was a big miss for the 30 on 30: WHY is LA so angry at Floyd Landis that he called FL a piece of shit? She doesn't ask him that. I guess she assumes it is because FL ratted out LA, but if that's the case, then wouldn't that make any of LA's comments about contrition moot? I think she should have asked LA why he feels so strongly about FL. Either make it clear it was because FL ratted and let LA hang himself, or show us it was some other (probably manufactured) excuse in LA's mind. 

That's exactly what I wanted to know. 

Edited to add: I have no idea of this article is valid, but the following could make sense.

Quote

According to Sports Casting, the Floyd Landis lawsuit was settled in April 2018 when Armstrong agreed to pay the U.S. government $5 million. Interestingly, Landis received $1.1 million of the Lance Armstrong doping settlement for his actions in filing the original claim, leaving no doubt as to why does Lance Armstrong hate Floyd Landis.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by lovinbob

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Promo for Be Water:

 

[Ottis]

 I don’t know why there was a 30 on 30 on Bruce Lee. He was an actor. Did he participate in any organized, competitive sporting events? Also, given current events, I wonder if those people who felt British rule in HK was bad now would prefer it to what is coming. Finally, it was a strange choice to have various people talk and never show them. I would have liked to have seen them. I learned way more about discrimination against Asians than Bruce Lee. He was born, his parents sent him to the US, he got married, he had kids and he was in movies. I may have missed some finer points since I fast forwarded through bits. After the amazing Last Dance and fascinating Armstrong episodes, this one was a clinker. 

[Raja]

I guess his inspiration for mixed martial artists was enough for a content starved ESPN to include Bruce Lee. And it allowed a firebreak between Tour de France cheating and Major League Baseball cheating next week 

[Ottis]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I guess his inspiration for mixed martial artists was enough for a content starved ESPN to include Bruce Lee. And it allowed a firebreak between Tour de France cheating and Major League Baseball cheating next week 

Good points. I admittedly don't understand martial arts films. It's always seemed to me that, in those films, the same blow that barely pushes back an opponent then kills another opponent. There is no consistency to the fights. Without any consistent cause and effect, it always seemed like a lot of running around and hitting people randomly, until the movie decided to have everyone fall down. I want a 30 on 30 on Lee Majors - he played college football and I loved the Six Million Dollar Man as a kid.

EDIT ADD: OK, so this 30 on 30 made me go look up stuff about Bruce Lee. He died in the home of his secret girlfriend? He and his girlfriend had been taking hash all day and having sex? He had had a similar brain issue before, and had been hospitalized? The show claims his death was form a reaction to Equagesic, but he had been warned after his prior hospitalization not to take hash because his low body fat made him sensitive to drugs, so some believe the death was from an overdose of hash? Cerebral edemas are also caused by trauma - was he often hit in the head as part of his movies or training? Did I miss all this when I fast forwarded? Or was this 30 on 30 that incomplete?

Edited June 8, 2020 by Ottis

[Ohwell]

I loved the Bruce Lee episode.  I took tae kwon do years ago and it gave me flashbacks to my "badass" younger days. 😄

2 hours ago, Ottis said:

Finally, it was a strange choice to have various people talk and never show them. I would have liked to have seen them.

At the very end they did show his wife, daughter, and various others who did voiceovers, including Kareem Abdul Jabbar. 

[Thomas Crown]

Not a sports documentary per se, but I enjoyed it nonetheless including addressing how Bruce Lee was confronted with racism and prejudice.  

Seeing the clip at the end of Brandon 😢  Tragic in the true sense. So much potential and to be robbed of that by the senseless accident that killed him.  

[mojoween]

Yep.  As someone Of a Certain Age that little snippet of Brandon made me cry almost as much as I did when I saw The Crow in the theater.

I don’t think I missed it, why Bruce changed the spelling of his last name?  Was it to westernize it?

I enjoyed this one, not as much as The Last Dance, but I found it interesting.  And Linda looks amazing for has to be 80 or going on.

[DanaK]

On 6/4/2020 at 6:05 AM, Giant Misfit said:

I still can't bring myself to watch the Armstrong eps on my DVR and feel that I'll be deleting them much like the Michael Vick doc I recently got rid of. However, looks like next week there's a Bruce Lee 30 for 30 that I won't be missing. 

I’m glad I watched the “Vick” 2 parter and I recommend others watch it and not delete it. Part 2 may make you feel better than Part 1 does. I didn’t recall at the time that Vick ultimately took responsibility for his actions and after prison did a lot of charity and other work to talk against dogfighting. He’s fully owned up to his actions and committed to change, something Armstrong still hasn’t done

i honestly didn’t realize at the time how much the rhetoric against Vick was racist or veered in that direction. People were rightly upset that he was involved in harming and killing dogs, but I can now understand why Blacks got upset about the attacks against Vick

It wasn’t stated in the doc, but quite a few of the dogs were ultimately saved in a change in procedure (dogfighting dogs were typically put down), where they were rehabbed and given new homes

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, DanaK said:

He’s fully owned up to his actions and committed to change, something Armstrong still hasn’t done

I'm happy to hear that. Mr Misfit watched the doc and encouraged me to do the same because he thought it was well done butI had deleted it already. At some point I'll get around to it.

I wound up deleting the Armstrong doc tonight. I've read the comments here and see no need to waste hours of my time watching that piece continue to be a piece of shit. 

The Bruce Lee doc was pretty good -- he was an extraordinary athlete. (I wish they talked about the details that @Ottis added above though.)

I could barely stomach watching the atrocious racist stereotypes presented in the film though -- particularly notable racist John Wayne playing Genghis Khan and ABC's egregious miscasting of David Carradine (whose name no one could seem to remember LOL) in Kung Fu. 

[Ottis]

Whoever produced the baseball home run episode was way too caught up in whatever "field of dreams" shit that people who love baseball revere. That '98 home run chase was about dudes who were juicing (i.e. cheating) breaking a record because they were juicing.

You wouldn't know it from this 30 on 30. Admittedly I fast forwarded it because the reverence was maddening, but juicing didn't come up util almost halfway through so I quit watching and deleted it. Up until then, it had been every cliche you could think of ... Mark McGwire talking about the "baseball gods" and not getting cocky, the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry ("they want the Cards to win - and the Cubs to lose!"), the "mental pressure" of the chase, comparing it to the Beatles. Good god.

The entire chase was A FRAUD. That should have been the story from the opening minutes, the betrayal of sports that the HR chase was and the embarrassment of all involved. Ugh. After the wonderfulness of The Last Dance, two completely lacking 30 on 30s in a row.

[Raja]

12 hours ago, Ottis said:

Whoever produced the baseball home run episode was way too caught up in whatever "field of dreams" shit that people who love baseball revere. That '98 home run chase was about dudes who were juicing (i.e. cheating) breaking a record because they were juicing.

You wouldn't know it from this 30 on 30. Admittedly I fast forwarded it because the reverence was maddening, but juicing didn't come up util almost halfway through so I quit watching and deleted it. Up until then, it had been every cliche you could think of ... Mark McGwire talking about the "baseball gods" and not getting cocky, the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry ("they want the Cards to win - and the Cubs to lose!"), the "mental pressure" of the chase, comparing it to the Beatles. Good god.

The entire chase was A FRAUD. That should have been the story from the opening minutes, the betrayal of sports that the HR chase was and the embarrassment of all involved. Ugh. After the wonderfulness of The Last Dance, two completely lacking 30 on 30s in a row.

In the last 15 minutes after the feel good honors Mark & Sammy got in 1998 had run its course, even after the small interlude with the admittance of over the counter supplements we had Bob Costas say something like "and then" Cut to commercial and we get back to Barry Bonds and the relatively minor fallout McGuire and Sosa got compared to him, or Lance Armstrong in bicycle racing

Edited June 15, 2020 by Raja

[DXD526]

The reverence of this ticked me off, as well. I, too, expected it to acknowledge from the start what a farce that whole 'chase' turned out to be. Instead, it's an ass-kissing puff piece up until that final segment, which is tepid, at best. It's so biased and turns such a blind eye to reality, it makes me wonder about the agenda behind those who made it. We all know this 'chase' was totally dirty and dishonored the game. It's like they're trying to rewrite history. 

[Court]

Just watched the one on Dennis Rodman. I didn't know much about his background. I found it very heartbreaking. 

[DanaK]

I watched the first part of “Lance” so far and just the opening story alone that Armstrong told about some hecklers shows exactly what he’s about. At first, he wanted beat them up, then he chose to get in their heads and dominate them by telling the waiter that he was paying for their meal and to make sure the waiter told them that. If it were someone else, I suppose those actions would be seen as a positive thing in fighting adversity, but with Armstrong, it’s a weapon. Everything he has to dominate, whether it’s tough races, cancer, or people. It’s all the same to him, at least it seems so to me.