30 for 30

DegenerateSoxFan

DegenerateSoxFan

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Just caught the documentary on the Escobars. Great stuff - it really captured the malevolent energy of the times there. I handle a lot of federal drug cases, and the thought amongst those on the enforcement side is that Pablo's kill 'em all mentality resulted in successor cartels becoming less violent and more businesslike. His rivals in Cali figured out that it was better just to bribe the shit out of everyone than to kill them. That's been the operative model since - until the Mexican government went to war with the cartels there (with predictable results).

No doubt the soccer players got mucho dinero from the narcotrafficantes. What were they supposed to do in a country that poor?

Fascinating juxtaposition of big-time sports and big-time black market business.
 
Tony C

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My only (minor) complaint is that they gave a bit too much weight to Pablo apologists in jail. Great voices to hear, but there was maybe a slight implication that they were right about how what happened to Andres wouldn't have happened if Pablo was alive. Perhaps literally true, perhaps not, but killing Pablo was essential. I spent a fair amount of time in Medellin at the time and things are night and day different/better now.
 
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QUOTE (Tony C @ Jun 28 2010, 01:00 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=3051232
My only (minor) complaint is that they gave a bit too much weight to Pablo apologists in jail. Great voices to hear, but there was maybe a slight implication that they were right about how what happened to Andres wouldn't have happened if Pablo was alive. Perhaps literally true, perhaps not, but killing Pablo was essential. I spent a fair amount of time in Medellin at the time and things are night and day different/better now.


I posted the same thing earlier and it's nice to see someone agree with me who clearly has a little first hand knowledge of Columbia. The idea that "things got worse without Pablo" may have been true for the short term, but the guy was an absolute monster to everyone while alive. The single minded terror of Pablo Escobar can be summed up in the bombing of Flight Aviance 203. Pablo's cartel thought presidential candidate Cesar Trujillo (a Columbian Congressman who spoke out against the drug cartels) was on that flight. On Escobar's orders, his men loaded up the plane with bombs and detonated them just minutes after takeoff. Trujillo wasn't on the plane and but all 107 innocent passengers were killed. And just for good measure, an additional three people were killed by the debris from the explosion. So the whole, "Pablo kept things in order" argument is a tough one to swallow to people who really know about the history of his reign.
 
Shelterdog

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QUOTE (Tony C @ Jun 28 2010, 05:00 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=3051232
My only (minor) complaint is that they gave a bit too much weight to Pablo apologists in jail. Great voices to hear, but there was maybe a slight implication that they were right about how what happened to Andres wouldn't have happened if Pablo was alive. Perhaps literally true, perhaps not, but killing Pablo was essential. I spent a fair amount of time in Medellin at the time and things are night and day different/better now.


Another complaint that should go in the "a dude on the internet said it" file: a friend was living in Colombia in 1994 and states that the rampant rumor was that Andres was either (a) indebted to the gangsters who had him killed, (b) sleeping with said gangster's girlfriend, or © both.
 
C

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Set your VCRs, folks.

Four Days in October
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(Major League Baseball Productions)

When the night of October 6, 2004 came to a merciful end, the Curse of the Bambino was alive and well. The vaunted Yankee lineup, led by A-Rod, Jeter, and Sheffield, had just extended their ALCS lead to three games to none, pounding out 19 runs against their hated rivals. The next night, in Game 4, the Yankees took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning, then turned the game over to Mariano Rivera, the best relief pitcher in postseason history, to secure yet another trip to the World Series. But after a walk and a hard-fought stolen base, the cold October winds of change began to blow. Over four consecutive days and nights, this unlikely group of Red Sox miraculously won four straight games to overcome the inevitability of their destiny. Using extensive archive coverage from that week, Major League Baseball Productions will produce a film in "real-time" that takes an in-depth look at the 96 hours that brought salvation to Red Sox Nation and made baseball history in the process.
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http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/07/espn-films-announces-%E2%80%9830-for-30%E2%80%99-fall-schedule/

Airs Tuesday, Oct. 5 at 8 pm.
 
A

AquaNarc

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Unfortunately I don't think MLB Media will be iconoclastic enough to include a Talking Heads montage
 
Clears Cleaver

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Jordan Rides the Bus was tonight. Enjoyable and debunked many or all the of the conspiracy theorists as to why the greatest basketball player left the NBA to play minor league baseball. tito is heavily involved and you actually forget just how well MJ did at the end of his stint in AA and in the AFL. I also did not know the 1994 strike was a big reason why he returned to the NBA.

Another quality piece in thisn series
 
Rocco Graziosa

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Clears Cleaver said:
Jordan Rides the Bus was tonight. Enjoyable and debunked many or all the of the conspiracy theorists as to why the greatest basketball player left the NBA to play minor league baseball. tito is heavily involved and you actually forget just how well MJ did at the end of his stint in AA and in the AFL. I also did not know the 1994 strike was a big reason why he returned to the NBA.

Another quality piece in thisn series
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Agreed. I also didn't know/remember the strike was a big reason he never went back and I TOTALLY forgot/never knew he played in the frickin fall league, nevermind that he batted .250.
 
Rocco Graziosa

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BannedbyNYYFans.com said:
It was refreshing to hear Steve Wulf admit his SI piece, Bag It Michael, was "swarmy" and that he regretted writing the article. Then finding out that he wrote a follow up story months later lauding Jordan for his improvement...only to have SI refused to publish it.
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In defense of Wolf's article the first time around, that was most definitely the prevailing opinion at the time. And anyone that watched Jordan swing a bat the first two months found verification. (Walt Herinak finds another victim) This well done show, put a different spin on everything, but I'm still a tad skeptical of just about everything surrounding that ordeal. It didn't make sense then, and it still doesn't now. You will never get me to belive that James Jordan was shot dead, drunk in his car, on the side of the road, during the commission of a robbery gone wrong that had nothing to do with his son.
 
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Rocco Graziosa said:
In defense of Wolf's article the first time around, that was most definitely the prevailing opinion at the time. And anyone that watched Jordan swing a bat the first two months found verification.
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Sure, his original swing looked like Barkley at the tee box, but that wasn't my issue with some of the media stories back then. I had no problem with people critical of Jordan's abilities, but I found the whole "Jordan is disrespecting the game" theory to be utter crap - and that was also a prevailing opinion. Billy Crystal getting a Spring Training at bat is an embarrassment - a 31 year old professional athlete trying another sport may be delusional, but it doesn't affect the purity of the game like so many wrote.
 
8slim

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I find it amazing that he even managed to hit .202 in AA when he hadn't played baseball since high school. That he then ramped that up to .252 in the Fall League is remarkable. No stretch to think that if MJ had played another year in the minors he would have gotten a September call-up to the White Sox in '95.

Meanwhile, how freakin' crazy was '94 for sports. 30 for 30 already did that documentary on that day in June. But in addition to OJ and the Rangers and Knicks, we also had the MLB strike, the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding saga and MJ playing minor league ball. Wow.
 
RidetheSeal

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8slim said:
I find it amazing that he even managed to hit .202 in AA when he hadn't played baseball since high school. That he then ramped that up to .252 in the Fall League is remarkable. No stretch to think that if MJ had played another year in the minors he would have gotten a September call-up to the White Sox in '95.
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Couldn't agree more. At first his swing was embarassingly bad. Everyone was just throwing him curveballs. He never saw a fastball. Then they tweaked his stance and his swing, combined with his work ethic and he started to improve and drive the ball. It's insane to me that he hadn't played baseball since he was 18 and was able to do what he did in that competitive atmostphere in such a short amount of time.

I thought the special was really well done. I loved the MJ voiceover when he was talking about how being in the NBA he was on a pedastal and he sort of forgot about the process of getting to that point. That's what baseball did for him. It gave him that chance to start over on something & go through the process.
 
Clears Cleaver

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I listened to the Simmons-Shelton podcast this am on the train to work. A lot of good stuff on Jordan and on Shelton's career and movies. A couple things that I took from it...he became a better teammate after he played minor league baseball and he was fully prepared to play another year in the minors

I had to LOL at the sight of Hriniak as the hitting coach. I mean, could there have been a worse tutor for Jordan at that level than someone who promoted a long helicopter swing?
 
GreenMonster49

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I've always wondered if Stuart Smalley helped Jordan realize his dream to be a baseball player: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91asmalley.phtml ("I don't have to be a great basketball player.... I don't have to dribble the ball fast, or throw the ball into the basket.... Because all I have to do is be the best Michael I can be.")
 
PC Drunken Friar

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Just watched it and I liked it, but you will not convince me that he wasn't "asked" to take a year off...the show mentioned, why would Stern do that? What if he was betting on BBall games, and the alternative was a lifetime suspension a la Pete Rose? A guy with Jordan's psyche does not walk away from ANYTHING.

When we were discussing on the board about Kobe V. Lebron V Jordan et al. No one brought this up... everyone said how MJ would never join a team like the Hear, neither would Bird...Would Kobe walk away for a year (and maybe more, if not for the '94 strike") just because he was "burnt out" and had already proven everything he could of?
 
Jody Reeds Well

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PC Drunken Friar said:
Just watched it and I liked it, but you will not convince me that he wasn't "asked" to take a year off...the show mentioned, why would Stern do that? What if he was betting on BBall games, and the alternative was a lifetime suspension a la Pete Rose? A guy with Jordan's psyche does not walk away from ANYTHING.
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I don't understand how simply taking a year off would absolve a player, especially of Jordan's caliber, from an accusation such as betting on basketball. If Jordan left the NBA for a year for that reason, then something would have been reported by now and it would have been a gigantic news story.
 
curly2

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8slim said:
No stretch to think that if MJ had played another year in the minors he would have gotten a September call-up to the White Sox in '95.
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Jordan might have gotten a call-up, but only to fill Comiskey Park after the Indians had long since run away with the division. He would not have been a major-league caliber hitter.
 
RIrooter09

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curly2 said:
Jordan might have gotten a call-up, but only to fill Comiskey Park after the Indians had long since run away with the division. He would not have been a major-league caliber hitter.
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Seriously. The guy put up a .202/.289/.266 line in AA.
 
8slim

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PC Drunken Friar said:
Just watched it and I liked it, but you will not convince me that he wasn't "asked" to take a year off...the show mentioned, why would Stern do that? What if he was betting on BBall games, and the alternative was a lifetime suspension a la Pete Rose? A guy with Jordan's psyche does not walk away from ANYTHING.

When we were discussing on the board about Kobe V. Lebron V Jordan et al. No one brought this up... everyone said how MJ would never join a team like the Hear, neither would Bird...Would Kobe walk away for a year (and maybe more, if not for the '94 strike") just because he was "burnt out" and had already proven everything he could of?
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This has to be the most conspiraciest conspiracy theory I've ever heard. At least with the JFK and 9/11 stuff people attempt to produce evidence of a conspiracy. For this Jordan thing there has never been, well, anything. Not an interview, leaked document, voicemail... nothing.

Is it really impossible to believe that a guy who in 4+ years probably had all of 15 minutes off while winning 3 titles and a gold medal might have just finally had it when his beloved father was murdered in cold blood? And that he then pursued a dream he shared with that father?

Nah, that's much less believable than the idea that there was enough evidence of him gambling on NBA games that he was given a double-secret year suspension, and not a shred of that evidence has ever been found.
:c070:
 
PC Drunken Friar

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Or the only people that know about it are Falk, Jordan and Stern.

I read that article linked above...ONE unsolved murder in 40+ years under Hubert Stone in what is described as one of the, if not THE most violent county in NC? I wonder how many innocents were locked away.
 
Rocco Graziosa

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PC Drunken Friar said:
Or the only people that know about it are Falk, Jordan and Stern.

I read that article linked above...ONE unsolved murder in 40+ years under Hubert Stone in what is described as one of the, if not THE most violent county in NC? I wonder how many innocents were locked away.
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Thats exactly what I thought. When I finished the article my first thought was......"that place is literally hell on earth".

There isn't a chance in hell they got to the bottom of James Jordans murder.
 
wutang112878

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8slim said:
This has to be the most conspiraciest conspiracy theory I've ever heard. At least with the JFK and 9/11 stuff people attempt to produce evidence of a conspiracy. For this Jordan thing there has never been, well, anything. Not an interview, leaked document, voicemail... nothing.
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There is no proof and this post wont provide any either. But there were a lot of powerful parties who were very interested in just making this go away, Jordan, Stern and all NBA owners. Look at the hit that Kobe went through and eventually came back from, the Jordan rumors would have been equally damaging and Jordan made the NBA ratings what they were at the time, whereas Kobe never had the sway with ratings that Jordan did. Just one more conspiracy theory reasoning on why there is no proof.
 
SemperFidelisSox

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The investigation Stern launched into Jordan's gambling problems in '93 turned up nothing. At least not anything they didn't already know. He wasn't betting on basketball games, which is really all they wanted to know.
 
Spacemans Bong

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RIrooter09 said:
Seriously. The guy put up a .202/.289/.266 line in AA.
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Does anybody have his AFL stats? all I've found is that he hit .252. What surprises me is that he actually controlled the strike zone pretty well. 51 walks in 497 PA's is pretty good, more so when you consider the number one complaint about athletes who try to play baseball is that they can't control the strike zone.
 
curly2

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Spacemans Bong said:
Does anybody have his AFL stats? all I've found is that he hit .252. What surprises me is that he actually controlled the strike zone pretty well. 51 walks in 497 PA's is pretty good, more so when you consider the number one complaint about athletes who try to play baseball is that they can't control the strike zone.
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Maybe he got all the calls in baseball, too. :lol:
 
BoSox Rule

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Has anybody heard anything about the '04 Sox 30 for 30. It was mentioned a page or two ago that would it be Oct 5 but nothing is listed here: http://30for30.espn.com/schedule.html
 
A

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I asked Simmons on twitter but he never responded. I seem to remember him mentioning when the whole thing started that they wanted to do it but they weren't sure if it was going to happen, but I can't imagine they'd announce an air date without at least a rough cut completed. It also may have something to do with the unique nature of this particular doc, no "director" per se but MLB Media or whatever using just existing footage. Hopefully this one has a Talking Heads montage as well...
 
mabrowndog

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I surfed onto the Chris Evert-Martina Navratilova film tonight, and decided to watch it in hopes there'd be something intriguing or interesting in terms of the storyline and history, or visually captivating in terms of production and cinematography. It's an emphatic "no" on all counts.

It's basically a Barbara Walters interview where they're sitting on adjoining couches and just asking each other questions, while occasional highlight clips are shown. I withstood it for about 7 minutes before ditching it. This is easily the most drab and mundane 30 for 30 I've seen yet.
 
Senator Donut

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According to [twitter]sportsguy33[/twitter], a rough cut does exist. I still can't find any information about when it will air.

Just saw a "Four Days of October" rough cut (our '04 Sox-NYY @30for30 doc). Millar's home video of Schilling's ankle pre-G6 is jaw-dropping.
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http://twitter.com/sportsguy33/status/24775115806
 
W

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Huntington Avenue Grounds said:
Watching that trailer just made my day....
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6 years later and I still can't believe it happened.

I've told my daughter that if I ever come down with Alzheimers, that, every week, she should have the nurses play the highlight reel from the 2004 ALCS, and let me be totally stunned at the greatest comeback over and over and over again. Kind of like Slaughterhouse Five, but in reverse.
 
TheGazelle

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Huntington Avenue Grounds said:
Watching that trailer just made my day. If the program is as well put together it should be an amazing 60 minutes (or longer I hope).
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It doesn't even have to be well put together to be amazing. I would watch 60 minutes of raw, discombobulated footage and love every second.

EDIT - "discombobulated" is a long word.
 
cornwalls@6

cornwalls@6

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Between this and Ken Burns 10th inning coming up this month on PBS, this fall, is going to be a great fall, for re-living that fall. Can't wait. And 6 years later, I still can't completely fathom it. Most intense, gut-wrenching, all-consuming, and ultimately best month as a sports fan I've ever spent.
 
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