30 for 30 running thread

From Bill Simmons' ESPN.com chat:

Thomas (Washington, D.C.)
Whatever happened to the Cubs/Bartman 30 for 30? Will it ever air?

Bill Simmons (3:19 PM)
We moved it out of the series because the director (Alex Gibney, who is brilliant) wanted more time with it. On the one hand, it was a shame because it would have been one of the 3 best docs of the series and possibly No. 1. On the other hand, the fact that he's spending MORE time on something that was already great has us really excited. PS: We're spinning off the "30 for 30" series next year into something that will probably be called "30 for 30 Presents" or something like that... we're going to be putting out 4-5 sports docs per year on the level of the best "30 for 30" docs and getting the best filmmakers to do them. Same creative team is involved. We have some terrific ideas in the hopper. So even though the SMU doc will be the 30th one (right after the Heisman ceremony) don't think the spirit of the series is going away.

...

matt (Denver)
So when will the Bartman documentary be shown? Sometime next year?

Bill Simmons (3:24 PM)
Next spring. It's outstanding. I can't say enough about it. For the record: it's about the concept of scapegoats in sports more than it's about Bartman.

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/35710/page-2-bill-simmons

 

It's interesting to me, because that's an issue that really irritates me about sportsdom. How Steve Bartman, Bill Buckner, Don Denkinger etc., get the blame when their incident was just one in a line of follies that changed their particular game.

 

I trust Gibney to do something great, though. Have you seen Taxi to the Darkside? Amazing film... won the Oscar a couple of years ago. He also did the Enron film and Client 9 about Eliot Spitzer, which I haven't seen, but it's next on my list.

If it's Gibney, the worst it could be is really, really solid.

 

The Bartman one is the one I was looking forward to most. Can't wait to see it.

 

Saw the Dupree documentary last night - Very interesting and enjoyable, since I wasn't around for his heyday.

 

I saw some of it last night. Will watch the rest later. Did it address the SI story that caused Switzer to go ballistic? I remember reading in Switzer's book that no article on OU football ever made him madder than the cover story on Dupree.

 

Yes it did. I caught most of it again last night.

 

Since Gibney made "Smartest Guys in the Room," his new film is definitely worth seeing.
Wonder if he'll be updating again after Friday night's events in Reno.

 

Did anyone else notice a couple of the OU-Dupree story bylines were by Tom Cowlishaw?

 

I have caught up with a few I recorded: Steinbrenner was OK, didn't think it was one of the better ones. Like the Tim Richmond one (if it keeps Mrs. Huggy tuned in - and she had never heard of him before the show - it is a good one), same with the Evert-Navritalova one, interesting way of doing it, just letting them talk.

 

This SMU one is pretty entertaining. But this is like the third one in the series where at some point Brent Musburger has played media critic, basically making it sound like SMU was doomed by a good ol' newspaper war.