I've liked all the 30 for 30 shows I've seen, but it seems like 90% of the time I see it in the TV listings, it's the one about the University of Miami football team, which doesn't seem interesting at all to me.

I've liked these thus far, despite some flaws, but to be honest, those sound like five fairly boring topics.

I've long thought a good subject for a documentary is the 1995 MLB Replacement players.

For me the 30 for 30 have been up and down. I like how they have somebody different do it every time, leading to some twists in the formula.

Like, for example, there was the one on June 17th, 1994, when Arnold Palmer played his last US Open round, the World Cup started, the NY Rangers had their victory parade, the NBA Finals were going on and Baseball was being played since the strike hadn't started yet..... but in the end there was only one story that day: the OJ Simpson White Bronco chase. It was told entirely with footage from various archives, there was no narration. It was a uncomfortable but oddly fascinating and sometimes funny look at one of the most eventful days in sports history.

I agree on the 1995 Replacement Players documentary idea. I think a good title would be "The Tale of Anthony Friese", after Kevin Millar's MVP '05 alias.

The description for Four Days in October gives me hope that they did it justice.

Suprisingly, most of these have been pretty watchable. I loved the USFL episode.

As a huge college football fan and not a Canes fan, I eagerly awaited the show on the 'U' and it wasn't bad, the guy who did it is very much pro-Miami, and it glossed over some things, and jumped around. For someone who vividly remembers that era of Canes football, it came up short. Bernie Kosar is interviewed and he comes off as half in the bag and really sweaty. All the Canes, at least the ones who spoke, remain brash and unapologetic for their conduct.

I wish there would be one on Rickey Henderson.

I'm interested in Once Brothers about Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac and The Best That Never Was about Marcus Dupree.

I wish there would be one on Rickey Henderson.

Oh god yes.

The only one I really hated was the Jimmy the Greek one. Just thought it was kinda cheesy how they used an actor to portray him and I didn't find him nearly as endearing as I think the filmmaker wanted him to be.

The Two Escobars has been the best one and the USFL one has been the most entertaining thus far. And the Ricky Williams one was just bizarre...in a good way.

I've liked all the 30 for 30 shows I've seen, but it seems like 90% of the time I see it in the TV listings, it's the one about the University of Miami football team, which doesn't seem interesting at all to me.

The U is supposed to be one of the best. Though to be honest, the only one I've seen is No Crossover, because Steve James did it. I'll catch the rest on DVD.

Like, for example, there was the one on June 17th, 1994, when Arnold Palmer played his last US Open round, the World Cup started, the NY Rangers had their victory parade, the NBA Finals were going on..... but in the end there was only one story that day: the OJ Simpson White Bronco chase.

That reminds me of a hypothetical question Bill Simmons brought up in one of his columns:

What would be the biggest sports story of all-time?

The two he threw out there were

A) Lebron James getting busted in a point-shaving scandal, and

B) A famous pro athlete simultaneously comes out of the closet and announces he's marrying one of his teammates.

Any other ideas?

What would be the biggest sports story of all-time?

Something like in the movie "Black Sunday" would be big. I mean the American one, although a vampire-witch who is put to death by her own brother, only to return 200 years later to feed on her descendants would be pretty big if it was sports-related.

- A big name athlete being proven to have actively participated in a terrorist attack. Knowingly hosting the terrorists, providing direct funding to purchase materials, something of that nature then coming out in favor of the attack as he flees the country.

- The World Series/Super Bowl being thrown. Yeah, it's happened before but that was a very different time and a very different media culture and that one has had implications for nearly a century.

- A big name player murdering/contracting the murder of a teammate or opponent. Think Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan only involving Mark Teixeira and Kevin Youkilis.

I have enjoyed most of the 30 for 30s. Some of my favorites: USFL, Run Rickey Run, Len Bias. I hated the one about the history of fantasy Sports. I love the subject matter, but the "documentary" was just awful.

I have not seen them all, but to make a broad sweeping generality about the series anyway; it's been very good.

"The only one I really hated was the Jimmy the Greek one. Just thought it was kinda cheesy how they used an actor to portray him and I didn't find him nearly as endearing as I think the filmmaker wanted him to be."

I second this. I have enjoyed them all otherwise.

Maybe because it is fresh in my mind, having just seen it this week, I thought the one on Matt Hoffman, "Big Air," was especially good. I'm not an X-Games guy. I suppose somewhere in the recesses of my mind I had heard that name, "Matt Hoffman," but if asked a week ago who was the first great BMX freestyle rider I would have said, "Tony Hawk?" (Never mind that he rides a skateboard. I knew that.)

Big Air was a bit gruesome, in showing all of the crashes Hoffman has had and all of the terrible injuries he has suffered. Whenever I surf the dial and watch 5-10 minutes of the X-Games type competitions, I am first amazed at how incredibly courageous these boys are; and second curious as to how they avoid serious injuries. Apparently, they don't always avoid those injuries.

When I was a kid (in the 1970s), the only daredevil I knew of was Evel Kneivel. And while he had crashed a million times and broke every bone in his body multiple times, I think the actual stunts he did pale in comparison to what some of those X-gamers (on bikes, skateboards and motorcycles) do routinely. That's not a knock on Evel. I just think, like with all sports, they have continually gotten better--and put themselves in more and more danger.

As a TV show--and perhaps because I never did any of those stunts--I find the X-Games (after a short while) a bit dull, even though I realize that what each fellow is doing is unbelievably hard, dangerous and full of skill. It's just kind of numbing, because 8 or 10 competitors in a row going up and down on a skateboard ramp gets to be repetitive.

As a documentary, though, Big Air was excellent. I'm amazed Matt Hoffman is still alive at age 38. I suspect he won't be feeling too well the rest of his life. But he put on a hell of a show.

I suppose somewhere in the recesses of my mind I had heard that name, "Matt Hoffman," but if asked a week ago who was the first great BMX freestyle rider I would have said, "Tony Hawk?"

I'd have known that, but only because of my extensive experience watching Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.

And I've enjoyed the ones I've seen - the Baltimore band, USFL, U of Miami. I agree with the problems with the fantasy sports one.

- A big name athlete being proven to have actively participated in a terrorist attack. Knowingly hosting the terrorists, providing direct funding to purchase materials, something of that nature then coming out in favor of the attack as he flees the country/

Laugh out loud. Awesome. Primey.

Which athlete might be a candidate for the attack? I suppose he would have to have a big, bushy beard. Baron Davis? Pau Gasol? No. It would have to be this guy.

As a documentary, though, Big Air was excellent. I'm amazed Matt Hoffman is still alive at age 38. I suspect he won't be feeling too well the rest of his life. But he put on a hell of a show.

I had vaguely heard of Matt Hoffman also. But what I didn't know was how much of the current BMX people owe to him. Not just for the death-defying stunts that he pioneered, but for the fact that he was the BMX tour in the early 90s. If it wasn't for Hoffman, then BMX would not have survived long enough for the X-Games to boost its popularity.

I'm really intrigued by the question in #9, I'm going to spend my weekend asking it. As I think it through I think a lot will depend on the player involved. A Derek Jeter or an Albert Pujols or Joe Mauer doing something terrible is going to be vastly different from Milton Bradley doing the same thing. I think one of the things that made the OJ Simpson situation so wild is that OJ was always the "good guy" in whatever he did.

isn't there more than 30 documentaries already?

- A big name athlete being proven to have actively participated in a terrorist attack. Knowingly hosting the terrorists, providing direct funding to purchase materials, something of that nature then coming out in favor of the attack as he flees the country.

The Bobby Fischer Story. close enough.

The only one I really hated was the Jimmy the Greek one. Just thought it was kinda cheesy how they used an actor to portray him and I didn't find him nearly as endearing as I think the filmmaker wanted him to be.

This one was semi-interesting. The band one about the Baltimore Colts one was not, to me, and it was the epitomy of hypocrisy. The fantasy sports one has been done to death the last few years, and the Raiders one was boring.

Considering that I was highly entertained by a few, and mostly entertained by others, I'll take it.

isn't there more than 30 documentaries already?

According to Wiki, with the list of upcoming episodes, it will take us to exactly 30. The wiki also lists two additional episodes:

- Charismatic's run at the 1999 Triple Crown.
- The life of Olympic gold medal-winning speed skater Johann Olav Koss who, following his career, founded Right To Play in 2003.

#17, not just that. OJ Simpson was:

1. a Heisman Trophy winner;
2. a great track star;
3. THE USC tailback;
4. the best running back in the NFL in his time;
5. the guy who ran for 2003 yards in a (shorter) season;
6. a football commentator on Monday Night Football and later the NBC weekend show at a time when cable TV was not important and most of the audience was concentrated on those three networks;
7. the star of a lot of TV commercials at a time when almost no other black American athletes were featured in commercials or got any kind of endorsement deals;
8. a movie actor in quite a large number of big studio films, going back to his playing days; and
9. The Juice!

I don't think there ever was a football star who had a broader range of stardom than OJ. Certainly Muhammed Ali was a bigger and more important star athlete. And years later Michael Jordan topped OJ's fame. And many others won more professional championships and elevated themselves past him. But for his time, OJ was the King of All Media(TM).

What would be the biggest sports story of all-time?

a presidential assassination at the world series/super bowl etc.

Something like in the movie "Black Sunday" would be big. I mean the American one, although a vampire-witch who is put to death by her own brother, only to return 200 years later to feed on her descendants would be pretty big if it was sports-related.

I don't normally do this but: LOL.

That was great.

I can't think of a modern actress that is even remotely simultaneously ugly odd-looking, exotic and erotic as a Barbara Steele or Karen Black even.

And the Ricky Williams one was just bizarre...in a good way.

perhaps it is because I've known Ricky's story for a long time, having followed him closely at UT, but there really wasn't anything interesting in that episode. Ricky in hiding, sipping tea, Ricky sprawled out on a couch day after day in shorts and a tee, in a messy home in the middle or rural California. Ricky playing poker with other fellow weed smokers (oh wait, that's the one scene Ricky didn't want filmed). That had to be the most boring year of that filmmaker's entire life.

The Len Bias episode hooked me because I was living in Europe at the time and missed the whole thing. I had never heard of him.

The biggest Sports Story of All Time that haven't been mentioned yet:
An entire (or close to an entire) major sports team (esp. if a elite team like the Yankees, Patriots or Lakers) perishes in a plane crash and all the aftermath that would result.

Actually that has happened before, although never to a North American "Big Four" team.

B) A famous pro athlete simultaneously comes out of the closet and announces he's marrying one of his teammates.

It'd have to a be a transcedent, Babe Ruth/Tiger Woods/Michael Jordan-level talent, someone world-recognized. I'm old enough to remember the media firestorm when Billie Jean King came out in 1981, and she was a (comparatively) minor celebrity.

The obvious answer is when a gay, terrorist athlete kills his lover (and former big league rival) and then dies in a plane crash.

My money's on Pierzynski.

The Len Bias episode hooked me because I was living in Europe at the time and missed the whole thing. I had never heard of him.

Same with me and the June 17, 1994 episode. I was one week into a honeymoon in Alaska, and missed most of it. We heard about it as our ship pulled into port that day and we went ashore. But, having been focused on my wedding around the time of the murders*, I had no idea of the details.

* My alibi checks out.

a presidential assassination at the world series/super bowl etc.

By an athlete who then professes allegiance to a terrorist network. Bonus points if it's someone like A-Rod.

The band one about the Baltimore Colts one was not, to me, and it was the epitomy of hypocrisy.

My favorite part about that one is the (very brief) moment where they talk about how what they did to Cleveland is exactly the same thing (exactly) that happened to them. There's a brief glimmer of self-awareness, and then it's gone again in the discussion about how their stupid marching band saved football.

The obvious answer is when a gay, terrorist athlete kills his lover (and former big league rival) and then dies in a plane crash.

My money's on Pierzynski.

Nobody would be that interested in Brett Tomko dying.

27:

The biggest Sports Story of All Time that haven't been mentioned yet:
An entire (or close to an entire) major sports team (esp. if a elite team like the Yankees, Patriots or Lakers) perishes in a plane crash and all the aftermath that would result.

Interesting link that details what each of the major sports leagues would do in that scenario:

http://espn.go.com/gen/s/2001/0328/1163463.html

National Basketball Association

If a disaster occurs in which five or more players die or are dismembered, the league will hold a Disaster Draft to replace the individuals who were lost. Teams unaffected by the disaster each would be allowed to protect five players.

Of course, this just leads to the Even BIGGER Sports Story of all-time, in which a rabid fan of a hopeless team (say, the Knicks) murders 5 players on the team in the hopes that they'll improve in the Disaster Draft.

"Of course, this just leads to the Even BIGGER Sports Story of all-time, in which a rabid fan of a hopeless team (say, the Knicks) Isiah Thomas, in his comeback as GM of the Knicks murders 5 players on the team Miami CHeat in the hopes that the Knicks will improve in the Disaster Draft."

Or maybe that.

The Len Bias episode hooked me because I was living in Europe at the time and missed the whole thing. I had never heard of him.
Same with me and the June 17, 1994 episode. I was one week into a honeymoon in Alaska, and missed most of it. We heard about it as our ship pulled into port that day and we went ashore. But, having been focused on my wedding around the time of the murders*, I had no idea of the details.

Amazing how our perspective and life experiences are altered when we 'miss' big events. I had the chicken pox while cursive handwriting was being taught in school. As a result, I have never written about 3/4 of the letters of the alphabet.

Oh, I was also fishing in the middle of nowhere when Jacko died last year. Allelueia! Had no idea for ten full days.

I couldn't watch the Len Bias one, much too painful even all these years later. The Reggie Miller/Spike Lee one was pretty good and the USFL one was fantastic.

B) A famous pro athlete simultaneously comes out of the closet and announces he's marrying one of his teammates.

I think you can dial this up more. This would be shocking, but people would generally be happy for them, and there'd be solidarity. How about:

A famous pro athlete comes out of the closet and outs another famous pro athlete of equal stature.

I've seen a few of them: Colts marching band (a little hypocrisy but the NFL accepted Jacksonville and Carolina, forcing them to steal from Cleveland), USFL (I thought expanding in their second season was the real reason why they failed), Hurricane's gang of criminals (so much for sports building character). Most are pretty good but never set VCR to watch them.

How sad a Simmons list of biggest sports stories deals with bad outcomes instead of an NBA team winning 75 games/championship. hockey player scoring 10 goals in a game. a hitter breaking Hack Wilson's rbi record, etc. Alright, some athlete getting a same-sex marriage isn't bad..but it's not what for what he did on the field.

How sad a Simmons list of biggest sports stories deals with bad outcomes instead of an NBA team winning 75 games/championship. hockey player scoring 10 goals in a game. a hitter breaking Hack Wilson's rbi record, etc. Alright, some athlete getting a same-sex marriage isn't bad..but it's not what for what he did on the field.

Shoot, Barry Bonds breaking the all-time HR record was barely front page news.

The Reggie Miller/Spike Lee one was pretty good.

That's the one I wanted to see, since it was the only time I've been interested in the NBA in my lifetime.

Shoot, Barry Bonds breaking the all-time HR record was barely front page news.

We need a gay visible minority to break the HR record but as they round the bases they die tragically in a terrorist attack. For years people would debate whether the last HR counted because he never made it to home

a presidential assassination at the world series/super bowl etc.

By an athlete who then professes allegiance to a terrorist network. Bonus points if it's someone like A-Rod.

Super bonus points if the reason for it was because he was being mind-controlled. And of course, nirvana points if Enrico Pallazzo foils the attempt.

Biggest Sports Story Ever that Would Be a Overall Positive As Opposed To If It Bleeds It Leads (or, as i like to call it, the BSSEWBOPAOTIIBIL): A underdog national team of amateurs defeats a nearly-invincible team of professionals-but-not-professionals-due-to-semantics to bring hope and inspiration to the country at a time when everyone is feeling down.

So, in other words, we've been going downhill since 1980.

The impact at the time of 1980 must be very hard to understand if you didn't live through it. I was a kid in Toronto and we were swept up in it. I can only imagine being in the US.

Super bonus points if the reason for it was because he was being mind-controlled. And of course, nirvana points if Enrico Pallazzo foils the attempt.

super-ludicrous nirvana points if OJ Simpson is maimed by falling off a balcony at the stadium that day.

Biggest Sports Story Ever that Would Be a Overall Positive As Opposed To If It Bleeds It Leads

How about.... an active professional sports athlete is elected to Congress as a result of a write-in campaign? (IE, a bunch of New Yorkers go crazy and make Derek Jeter their next senator)

How sad a Simmons list of biggest sports stories deals with bad outcomes instead of an NBA team winning 75 games/championship. hockey player scoring 10 goals in a game. a hitter breaking Hack Wilson's rbi record, etc. Alright, some athlete getting a same-sex marriage isn't bad..but it's not what for what he did on the field.

Is that surprising? Simmons was among the forerunners in the sports/culture merger (in his case, lowbrow culture). His view of sports is largely through the cultural lens, so his biggest stories would all involve things that transcend sports.

The biggest Sports Story of All Time that haven't been mentioned yet:
An entire (or close to an entire) major sports team (esp. if a elite team like the Yankees, Patriots or Lakers) perishes in a plane crash and all the aftermath that would result.

It's already happened.

The average age of Manchester United's team which won the Championship in 1955-56 was just 22, the youngest ever to achieve such a feat. 21 were killed in the plane crash. It was the Day the Music Died for soccer/football.

RON KARKOVICE SEX TAPE!

Pro Wrestling is real.

An 0-22 college basketball regular season team, that wins its conference tournament (automatic bid), then 6 (or is it now 7) NCAA tournament games and cuts down the nets.

The Two Escobars has been the best one

that was one chilling episode. i was engrossed.

The average age of Manchester United's team which won the Championship in 1955-56 was just 22, the youngest ever to achieve such a feat. 21 were killed in the plane crash. It was the Day the Music Died for soccer/football.

The great Torino squad that died in the Superga crash had about the same effect in Italy.

The average age of Manchester United's team which won the Championship in 1955-56 was just 22, the youngest ever to achieve such a feat. 21 were killed in the plane crash. It was the Day the Music Died for soccer/football.

I already said it had happened in Europe, but thank you for bringing up perhaps the most notable example.

Other notable teams that were devastated by air accidents include the Marshall University Football Team, the 1961 United States Ice Skating Team, the 1980 USA National Boxing Team, the aforementioned Torino FC in 1949, Peruvian footballers Alianza Lima, the entire Zambian national team in 1993, and California Polytechnic's football team in 1960 (which is one of various reasons given for John Madden's fear of flying). However, note how none of those happened during the "modern era" of media. No internet, no twitter, etc. If something as horrible as those disasters were to happen to a team today it would be vastly different and larger than how those were probably covered.

Not to mention none of those had any sort of "doomsday draft". So many story lines from that, some of which I don't want to think of because they'd be so uncomfortable to think of. imagine if the Mudville Nine all died in a tragic accident, and a player on the Gotham City Knights who was born in Mudville comes out publicly saying he doesn't want to be a player protected in the "doomsday draft" because he wants to go and help his hometown and the team he grew up rooting for recover from a horrible tragedy. And then there is the "survivor's guilt" stories that would come in about the guys who didn't travel because they were hurt, or had stayed behind because their wife was about to go in labor, or they had just been told they were being sent down to AAA. I'm looking at this as a would-be journalist.

The 1949 Superga disaster that killed Torino might be the biggest one ever. That was truly one of the great club teams of all time and their deaths put paid any chance of Italy winning its third consecutive World Cup as well as being one of the influences of Italian football moving towards catenaccio.

The US ice skating team in 1961 was catastrophic as well in its effect on US ice skating. It took years for the US to return to prominence - in 1964 the US got but one medal (bronze) in all three events, when in 1960 they had taken four, including both the men's and women's events.

I've long thought a good subject for a documentary is the 1995 MLB Replacement players.

I'll second that one. But the problem is finding a documentarian and film distributor or network who won't mind being blackballed for life by the MLBPA and probably just about anyone else associated with MLB. ESPN wouldn't come within a million miles of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_replacement_players

Wow, Shane Spencer was a replacement and thus MLBPA non-member.

Karl, I believe similar reasons caused the football movie The Replacements to be about a fictional league, and not the NFL.

Shoot, Barry Bonds breaking the all-time HR record was barely front page news.

I'd seriously, honestly, not joking forgotten this. I guess if you asked me who the HR record holder was I'd have said Barry after a seconds hesitation, but still.

I had a similar discussion with my friend when Michael Jackson died: if they died right now, whose death would be the biggest news story? Barack Obama is a given, but, who else? Presumably for maximum news story value, it would be someone relatively young, and either someone who you would never in a million years expect to just suddenly drop dead, or someone whose descent we're already intently following. Names we tossed around included Lebron, Tiger, Jeter, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan. Ultimately, we weren't sure that any of these would actually be a bigger deal than Michael Jackson dying.

I have no interest in the Little League or Steinbrenner docs, but the other three sound cool. I find the Jordan/baseball thing to be fascinating. First that he decided to do it at all, which is still rather enigmatic to me, and then I actually think that the fact he hit .200 at AA was an amazing athletic feat, given his previous level of baseball "experience."

there was the one on June 17th, 1994, when Arnold Palmer played his last US Open round, the World Cup started, the NY Rangers had their victory parade, the NBA Finals were going on and Baseball was being played since the strike hadn't started yet..... but in the end there was only one story that day: the OJ Simpson White Bronco chase.

Oh, God, if you cared about the Knicks being in the Finals for the first time in about 20 years, this was the absolute worst thing ever. "WE ARE IN THE FINALS HERE. GET THIS ############ OFF MY TELEVISION." (At this point, of course, it'd take several "Disaster Drafts" to get the Knicks back there.)

I had a similar discussion with my friend when Michael Jackson died: if they died right now, whose death would be the biggest news story? Barack Obama is a given, but, who else? Presumably for maximum news story value, it would be someone relatively young, and either someone who you would never in a million years expect to just suddenly drop dead, or someone whose descent we're already intently following. Names we tossed around included Lebron, Tiger, Jeter, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan. Ultimately, we weren't sure that any of these would actually be a bigger deal than Michael Jackson dying.

Probably the "answer" could be found if one had access to the lists that networks have for what people would be "worthy" of having special reports that interrupt programming.

The Two Escobars has been the best one

that was one chilling episode. i was engrossed.

i watched this one on repeat with my dad. about an hour in, he went into the kitchen to eat lunch and only then noticed that the interviews were being done in spanish.

a presidential assassination at the world series/super bowl etc.

Cobra once kidnapped the president from a New York Dandees game but luckily the Joes were there working security undercover and were able to save the day. I don't recall the name of the Dandees cross-town rivals that they were playing that day but I know Darryl Blueberry was on the team.

The 30 For 30 stuff is great. No Crossover, the Len Bias and USFL docs and The Two Escobars were my favorites. The Mat Hoffman doc was really fascinating for someone who had next to zero knowledge of the history of the X Games/BMX/"big air"/etc. I think the worst ones would have to be the fantasy baseball cheeseball and Ice Cube's love letter to Raider Nation. (Both interesting topics, but not very interesting or well-done films.)

The series is excellent and being received quite well in Australia - the Two Escobars is amazing -

Lebron, Tiger, Jeter, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan

The two has-been starlets are on drugs. Druggies dropping dead wouldn't be surprising no matter how young they are.

Now that we all know Tiger's life is a mess, the shock value is pretty low if one of his mistresses Glenn Close'd him.

The whole city of Cleveland loves play the role of the jilted lover. Supposedly Lebron still goes back to Akron on occasion. No, wouldn't be surprising either if they Glenn Close him.

The only one who would surprise is Jeter, who's survived RSN assassination attempts over the years. It would be like when the KGB finally got to Trotsky.

Now that we all know Tiger's life is a mess, the shock value is pretty low if one of his mistresses Glenn Close'd him.

the steve mcnair.

the steve mcnair.

Should be made into a drama. A chick flick to be released in a boxset with The Blind Side.

An entire (or close to an entire) major sports team (esp. if a elite team like the Yankees, Patriots or Lakers) perishes in a plane crash and all the aftermath that would result.

I've actually written a treatment for a screenplay on this topic. In my version, a first-place baseball team is devastated in a plane crash, killing all but a few players. The club calls up AAA guys to finish the season, desperately trying to hold onto the pennant. Late in the season, one of the players that was in the crash (not well-liked beforehand: think Barry Bonds) returns to help "the kids" make the playoffs.

I've always wanted to see a serious treatment of the first female player in MLB. What would she be like? (Strong, tough, smart.) What position would she play? (Relief pitcher, maybe middle infielder.) How would her teammates treat her? (Since the usual quasi-sexual hazing would be impossible, they'd probably just ignore her for a while, then grudgingly accept her...if she was any good.) What would the media do? (Go batshite insane...at first.)

What would she be like?

This?

In my version, a first-place baseball team is devastated in a plane crash, killing all but a few players. The club calls up AAA guys to finish the season, desperately trying to hold onto the pennant. Late in the season, one of the players that was in the crash (not well-liked beforehand: think Barry Bonds) returns to help "the kids" make the playoffs.

The first act is too tragic. The second sounds wonderful. The third is too inspirational.

It might just work.

On edit > One problem is that virtually every sports movie has an enemy (like that fat Yankee slugger in Major League), who is always brash and frequently is a borderline cheater - the team's triumph is also the enemy's comeuppance which makes it all doubly satisfying - but it would be difficult to frame any competitors as an enemy without making them look actually evil. Who would brag about beating the AAA callups that all of America is undoubtedly rooting for?

The Bonds figure's reappearance would have do be a Kirk Gibsony pinch-hitting appearance, of course.

Who would brag about beating the AAA callups that all of America is undoubtedly rooting for?

Hank Steinbrenner might be up to that.

Other notable teams that were devastated by air accidents include the Marshall University Football Team, the 1961 United States Ice Skating Team, the 1980 USA National Boxing Team, the aforementioned Torino FC in 1949, Peruvian footballers Alianza Lima, the entire Zambian national team in 1993, and California Polytechnic's football team in 1960 (which is one of various reasons given for John Madden's fear of flying). However, note how none of those happened during the "modern era" of media. No internet, no twitter, etc. If something as horrible as those disasters were to happen to a team today it would be vastly different and larger than how those were probably covered.

Also the Wichita State football team, which effectively ended that program, a program that produced Bill Parcells and Jumpy Geathers among many other NFL players.

I think the worst ones would have to be the fantasy baseball cheeseball and Ice Cube's love letter to Raider Nation. (Both interesting topics, but not very interesting or well-done films.)

I change my vote to worst one to be the fantasy baseball one. Ugh. And I like Daniel Okrent. But it kinda made me mad that some of the originators behind fantasy baseball were people that seemingly knew little about baseball. And the entire style of the film showing actors portraying them in flashbacks with baseball occuring all around them was super-annoying. If they had played it straight like "Word Wars" or "Spellbound" I think it would have been more compelling - the story itself was actually kinda interesting (I had no idea that the genesis of the phrase "rotisserie baseball" was actually rotisserie chicken).

The Raider one was okay if only to see that Al Davis looks like he died ten years ago and has been decomposing ever since. Actually it was kinda interesting because I really had no idea about why the Raiders kept moving.

I have to agree with #44. The Miracle on Ice is the greatest sports story of all time, and I don't even really like hockey.

It wasn't mentioned, but the 1972 basketball nightmare provided even more backdrop for the Miracle on Ice as redemption for US Olympic fans. I saw an HBO special about that US-Soviet Finals game, and it's the sort of story that if you saw it in a work of fiction, you'd complain about how over-the-top it was. An overwhelming display of officiating incompetence.

Down 49-48, and Doug Collins is fouled. He makes the first free throw, and the second one goes up as a horn sounds, but it's good anyway. 3 seconds left. The Soviet assistant rushes to the scorer's table to protest that a timeout had been called between free throws. Olympic rules prevent a timeout from being called after the second free throw, so the Soviets must inbound the ball.

The first inbound: The Soviets inbound the ball but the distraction at the scorer's table is enough to force the referees to stop play with 1 second remaining. Whether the timeout was called or not is irrelevant, because the release of the free throw results in a live ball, and the assistant stepping onto the court mandates a technical foul. The officials ultimately rule that no timeout was called.

The second inbound: An Olympic official with no such authority demands that the entire sequence be replayed from the 3-second mark. Meanwhile, the Soviets have gotten plenty of time to plan a play even though the officials ruled that no timeout was called. The officials hand the ball to the Soviets, not noticing that for some reason, the scorers have set the clock to 50 seconds. The Soviets release an errant pass, a horn sounds, and the Americans start celebrating.

The third inbound: Yet the game is not over. The horn was to stop play because it had been improperly started before the clock was ready. So the Soviets get another chance. Tom McMillen is defending the inbound pass, but the official gestures to him. McMillen, fearing some sort of penalty (even though there's no rule, this isn't outrageous in light of how messed up the officiating has been), backs up giving a clear line for the pass. The inbound passer might or might not have stepped on the line (depending on the accuracy of a very, very blurry photograph), but the pass ends up in the hands of a Russian player who makes an easy layup to win 51-50.

Much like the Miracle on Ice, our players were amateurs (college basketball players) and the Soviet team members were "quasi-professional." Our basketball players were the youngest ever to represent the US in Olympic competition.

#### you Russia