Negative or Positive?
Dueling road ragers, Michael Jordan's mother, and Boris Becker walk into a bar...
The other night, New York Mets infielder Luis Guillorme laid down a bunt that rolled up the third base line, seemingly defying the laws of physics by staying fair.
Two batters later, catcher Tomás Nido took a mighty swing that resulted in a dribbler that was almost identical to Guillorme’s bunt. (See the video here.)
I’ve been watching baseball for about 40 years, and I’ve never seen two identical plays like that happening in such close proximity.
San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish, who surrendered the two improbable hits, was philosophical about it after the game. He noted that you might only see one such hit in an entire season, so seeing two in one inning was extremely rare indeed. He added, “I don’t know if that’s unlucky or if I’m lucky to be able to see that.”
I love that Darvish suggested that his seemingly lousy luck may, in fact, have been good luck.
In recent months, I’ve been trying to adopt that kind of positivity more often.
For example, when my weekly Wednesday night deadline for this newsletter is approaching, and I’ve only identified one item to write about, my instinct is to lament, Oh man, I still have to find two more things for this week!
But lately I’ve been correcting myself with, Hey, I get to discover two more cool things this week!
Changing my mentality is a work in progress. And so am I.
On to the list…
The Best…
…Series I Watched This Week
Beef (2023) — Created by Lee Sung Jin
Streaming on Netflix
Beef, which premiered last week on Netflix, is the best new series I’ve seen in a while.
At its most basic level, the show is about a traffic dispute between two motorists that escalates in surprising ways.
But more than that, Beef speaks to what many of us see in our families, communities, and around the country — anger, loneliness, the feeling that things are breaking down, and how our inability to talk to each other polarizes us.
Created by Lee Sung Jin, Beef successfully reflects aspects of our current cultural moment, with daring direction, terrific writing, and outstanding acting performances, particularly from leads Steven Yeun and Ali Wong.
The show also finds dark humor in the craziness and is totally unpredictable. And because it creates so many entry points for connection, I think viewers will find it relatable in a variety of ways.
I have great appreciation and admiration for everyone involved in producing this 10-episode series. They’ve made something that recognizes what’s happening now and tries to help us understand each other better.
If only we’d listen.
…Movie I Saw This Week
Air (2023) — Directed by Ben Affleck
In theaters
Filmmaker Cameron Crowe makes a comment in Judd Apatow’s book, Sicker in the Head, that you will always be nervous meeting someone whose poster you had on your bedroom wall when you were 17.
I met Michael Jordan at an interview shoot for NBC News in 2007. I don’t know if this was nervousness, but when I shook his hand, I remember having this goofy smile on my face that probably said, “Do you know who you are?”
Of course he did. He was — and is — Michael Jordan.
I wasn’t a Chicago Bulls fan growing up. But there was indeed a Jordan poster on my bedroom wall. I had a pair of Air Jordans at one point. And I drank gallons of Gatorade “like Mike.” (But I drew the line at wearing Jordan-endorsed Hanes underwear.)
Again — I didn’t even necessarily root for him to win basketball games. That’s how awe-inspiring an athlete he was and how much he dominated the culture of the era (and, clearly, how susceptible I was to corporate marketing).
Ben Affleck has tapped into this vein of Gen X nostalgia with the new movie Air, based on the story of how underdog Nike came to sign Jordan before the start of his NBA rookie season in 1984.
The film is an entertaining confection, with recognizable music, fashion, and other cultural artifacts that create the film’s unmistakable mid-eighties vibe.
In a cast that features Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Damon Wayans, and Affleck, the standout is Viola Davis as Jordan’s mother.
Who plays the man himself, you ask? Well, in a choice reminiscent of the 2010 documentary Jordan on the Bus, MJ barely appears in Air other than in archival footage.
Considering Jordan’s image has appeared on so many bedroom walls around the world, perhaps it was simply time to meet the people who helped put him there.
…Documentary I Watched This Week
Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker (2023) — Directed by Alex Gibney
Streaming on Apple TV+
The first tennis match I can remember watching was the 1985 Wimbledon gentlemen’s final. I was 6 years old. The person who won it, Boris Becker, was 17. That day, I flopped around like a Muppet on the carpet of our family room, just as Becker was doing on the grass of Centre Court.
Turns out, our maturity level was about equal back then, too. But we’ll get to that.
I didn’t grow up a Becker guy, but I appreciated the German’s game and charisma. And I was always intrigued by the people in his box, namely his spectacularly-mustached manager Ion Tiriac and his wife Barbara, who I’m sure was the first German person of color I’d ever seen.
Later in Becker’s career, it was pretty cool when he won our little ATP Tour event in New Haven (though it was cooler when Andre Agassi won it a year later).
Our paths even crossed once in the early-2000s, when he was a guest on a show I was working on at Wimbledon.
All of which is to say that I spent plenty of time thinking about Boris Becker in the first half of my life. The past 20 years? Not so much.
That’s where Alex Gibney’s new two-part documentary comes in, to tell the Becker story in full.
Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker is a fairly typical sports doc in that it tells the story of a genius athlete who was a complete mess off the court. But what makes Becker’s story atypical among his peers is that he actually went to prison in 2022.
Was he too trusting? Too naive? Or is he a liar who should bear the full responsibility of his actions? By the end of the film, I don’t think even Gibney knows.
But the tennis, man. The tennis was glorious.
Thanks, Dan. As always, engaging and wise. But I wonder where Michael Jordan hangs his photo of the two of you.