ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series has been mostly top-notch. Even the docs that haven’t been entirely interesting are well-crafted and expertly laid out.
Lucas Jansen and Adam Kurland’s “Silly Little Game” is right up there with the very best of the lot. It would have been so very easy to simply make a film about the booming popularity of fantasy sports, but the directors wisely dug deeper and decided to frame the story around the original Rotisserie Baseball League, founded by a group of mostly writers and publishers in New York City in the winter of 1979. The first draft was held in 1980.
This was a wise choice, as these people, being writers, were clearly more than willing to speak at length about the early trials and tribulations of fantasy ownership. The key to the film’s appeal is that it’s clearly not taking itself very seriously. Dealing with events and happenings that were largely undocumented by cameras, Jansen and Kurland employed the use of goofy, fanciful re-enactments for events such as the league’s inception at the New York restaurant La Rotisseire Francaise, the drafting of the league’s only female owner, the inaugural auction draft and the first Roto league convention in which the dorks find out they are merely the tip of the dork iceberg.
Through these personalities, the film rather brilliantly illuminates all the things that contemporary fantasy owners have come to know about the game. The notion of having control over something bigger than you, the guy in your league who is persistently bombarding everyone with trade offers, the guy who you draft on a total whim and ends up winning you the league (in the film, it’s Mets reliever Neil Allen us modern-day fantasy baseballers would cite Rays utility man Ben Zobrist). It’s all there and it feels sort of special to know that these traits have sort of been ingrained in the game’s DNA since its origin.
I also particularly enjoyed the displaying of the original participants’ team names, as any fantasy player worth his/her salt can attest to the fact that selecting an appropriately witty nom de guerre is half the fun.
The film concisely and creatively charts the league’s swelling popularity through the early 1980s, culminating with a cover story in Inside Sports magazine, spawning copycat leagues across the nation. Like all great dramas, the highest of the highs inevitably gave way to the lowest of the lows, as the original Roto crew was muscled out of any lucrative merchandising rights due to the coining of the term “fantasy” baseball and the marketing blitzkrieg that ensued.
It is particularly ironic that they choose to highlight league founder Dan Okrent’s philosophy of “There is nothing more interesting than your own fantasy team and nothing less interesting than someone else’s fantasy team.” While this is absolutely true in a modern setting (I go on autopilot when people start telling me about a great trade they pulled off or how lousy their pitching is), the irony remains because that is precisely what the film is–a story about other people’s fantasy teams, and one that is light years from boring.
As you’ve likely guessed by wording in this write-up, I’m a complete fantasy nerd and am the reigning champion of my fantasy baseball league. I also boast league titles in football in 2008 and a runner-up showing in 2007. I know, you’re very impressed. Back on point, given my voracious appetite for made-up sports, I was holding this film to a pretty high standard. The goal of any worthwhile documentary should always be to enlighten and to teach, which “Silly Little Game” pulled off in spades.
For instance, I was under the impression that auction drafts were a relatively new fad and I had actually been unwilling to partake in them for that reason. The film’s reveal of the first draft deing of the auction variety is pretty eye-opening for me as an appreciator of film and a fantasy sports player. Even more astounding is the fact the Okrent invented the WHIP stat, a figure placed in the highest regard by most sabermetricians when it comes to evaluating pitchers.
The film’s denouement showed the old Roto dinosaurs finally getting recognition from the city of New York and a baseball Hall of Fame endorsement from ESPN’s Matthew Berry. Finally, we were left with a funny and almost heart-wrenching nugget of information: that Okrent, the godfather of Roto, is still to this day without a fantasy baseball league title, an ingenious way to console all of us fantasy losers whose diligent research and exhaustive analysis lands us just out of the money every fall.
A few very minor squabbles I had: I suspect that the film probably won’t have a whole lot of tremendous crossover appeal. If you weren’t into fantasy baseball before seeing this, it probably didn’t convince you to start. But then again, that’s not really what the film is aiming for. Also, the inclusion of Bill Simmons in the 30 for 30 films is odd to me, seeing as how he is the driving creative force behind the whole project. I am one of Simmons’ biggest fans (a fact to which my signed copy of “The Basketball Book” can attest), but his presence in this capacity just seems a little too easy, doesn’t it?
But again, the film is a nearly flawless slice-of-life tale about the humble beginnings of what has become a full-fledged phenomena among sports fans. Keep ’em coming, 30 for 30.
