‘One Golden Summer’ is About More than Baseball
Still from One Golden Summer | Credit: State Street Pictures
I have to confess: I’m not a baseball fan. While I watch a lot of sports, baseball is simply not one of them. So when I heard about this documentary about a little league baseball team, I wasn’t sure I would like it.
But I was wrong.
One Golden Summer takes us into the story of the Jackie Robinson West little league baseball team, their historic rise, and their heartbreaking fall.
While this film is about a little league team and their journey to the Little League World Series, it’s actually about so much more. The documentary takes us into not just the lives of these players, but their families as well. We see their elation at defying the odds and also the tragedy when they are subjected to horrible mistreatment.
One Golden Summer is an incredibly empathetic documentary. The players on this team were vilified in the press and forced to grow up way too early. They know what it feels like to have someone take a story and twist it into something else. They know what it’s like to be blamed for something when you did nothing wrong. So they were likely hesitant about taking part in a documentary like this. And yet, we see their faces and hear their stories, and unlike much of the media at the time, One Golden Summer seeks to center their humanity.
In this film, we learn, of course, about what happened to them during this pivotal time in their lives. But we also see what they’ve done in the ensuing years—the triumphs and the tragedies. These young men have their own dreams and aspirations, and the film makes space for those.
Something that impresses me the most about One Golden Summer is that it isn’t seeking to vilify anyone. Plenty of people made mistakes throughout this story, but the film still paints them as human. It also doesn’t shy away from critiquing the systems that contributed to the injustices that these families experienced.
One Golden Summer is about way more than baseball. And it’s paced brilliantly to keep you engaged from start to finish, whether you’re into baseball or not. This is a powerful documentary about the power of narrative, the danger of unjust systems, and the damage that can happen when people forget the humanity of others. It also highlights the resilience of these young men and their families, and the joy of achieving a dream.
This is a fantastic documentary that you can watch right now! It’s currently streaming on HBO Max and OWN.