The "Unofficial" Sports Documentaries Thread

Obscure NBA ... "Finding Big Country." Documentarian was a little girl in Vancouver when the Grizzlies were there. Years later, she set out to find Bryant Reeves and did.
Reeves was cooperative once he found out she was traipsing around rural Oklahoma. Feel-good story.

 

One of my faves was during (I think) the very early days of HBO Sports. A two-parter on the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers called “The Ghosts of Flatbush.”

It seems hard to find now. But it’s excellent.

 

It's on YouTube. Watched it over the winter.

 

Continuing with the HBO Love. The two-parter on Oscar de la Hoya is very good and to his credit, Oscar is pretty damn honest about his flaws, struggles with substance abuse and trying to make up for lost time as a parent.

 

HBO Sports was something I longed for when it was a premium channel I couldn’t afford. Getting access to it recently is so nice. The Hard Knocks with the Lions made me want to play for Campbell.

 

It's almost 10 years old, but The Battered Bastards of Baseball about the Portland Mavericks independent baseball team is a good one.
And not sports related but with sports involved is Long Shot, which focuses on a man wrongly accused of murder who gets off because he was seen in the crowd at Dodger Stadium when Larry David was filming an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm when the killing took place.
Both are on Netflix

 

I've seen both of those. Outstanding.
A guy I know, Kenny Medlock, played for the Mavericks. He became an actor and is in just about every baseball-related movie they make. He was the scout, Grady Fuson, who got in Billy Bean's face and cussed him out in "Moneyball."

 

Do you Believe in Miracles is one of my all time favorite sports documentaries. I used to watch Real Sports religiously and if I happen upon it now I'm probably not turning it off. The original seasons if Hard Knocks were amazing, the Ravens probably the best there has been. It may be watered down significantly but I'm probably still catching up on Hard Knocks when it comes around.

A lot of that has roots 20 plus years ago, but damn if their sports isn't a reason I still definitely have HBO.

 

Not every coach is good for Hard Knocks, but Dan Campbell and Rex Ryan were absolutely tailor-made for that type of docuseries.

 

+1. Everything you stated.

 

Just rewatched the 30/30 on the Boston College point shaving scandal and Henry Hill.

Tremendous. Just tremendous.

And Jim Sweeney did it.

 

I just finished up the 2004 Red Sox doucmentary on Netflix, so I wanted to re-visit this thread for some updated suggestions of what people have seen. The Sox documentary was fun I guess. Varitek taking about Wakefield gave it a nice bit of raw emotion there at the end.