Silly Little Game

30 for 30: Silly Little Game (2010)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The latest entry in ESPN's series takes a look at the men (and one woman) who helped start what would eventually become a $2-billion dollar industry. Avid baseball fans dreamed of what it would be like running your own team so they came up with what we'd eventually call Fantasy Baseball. This documentary is pretty good at giving us the events of how everything went down but in the end, for me, there just wasn't enough of a story here to really warrant a documentary. Actually, the story is worthy of a documentary but the subject just seems a bit too light for the 30 FOR 30 series, which has turned out to pretty good episodes. This one here is mildly entertaining but nothing else. The biggest problem I had with the show was show we got rather silly re-enactments. These were meant to be somewhat funny but not once did I laugh. I thought they were way too silly, although perhaps they did this to fit in with the title. The fact that these group of people never made a dime off of this is pretty unique but adding them to the Baseball Hall of Fame might not be a bad idea as one of the men interviewed suggested.

Rotisserie Baseball is not the sort of topic you'd expect from a "30 for 30" documentary. After all, no real athletes are involved--just a bunch of folks at home pretending to be owners of their own ball team. However, I am thrilled at this episode for two main reasons. First, it explained how the game worked--and I had no idea. Second, it was VERY silly and light-hearted and never took itself very seriously. In fact, it's one of the best of the "30 for 30" films because it's so much fun. Using amazingly cool graphics, wonderful recreations (I loved the one where the founders of Rotisserie Baseball are all dressed like Colonial founding fathers) and its ability to laugh at itself--it's a truly wonderful film from start to finish.

Although some of them have only been "so-so" this series of ESPN films has thrown up some good ones and Silly Little Game is one of them as it informs and educations as it entertains. For me my first contact with fantasy sports was the mid-90's TV show Fantasy Football with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel and for quite a while I thought they had invented it. They had special guests each week and it was a comedy show with Statto the stats guy keeping us up on that side – typically for the target audience it was presented from a "flat" in a studio and Statto was always in his dressing gown. Soon after I spotted that the newspapers were all launching their own leagues (this was pre-internet) and soon many in my school were doing it.

For a few years I loved it but never gave it a thought as to where it came from. This film tackles this potentially dry subject (after all it is loads of numbers written on paper) and shows us the origin of the sport and also fills in the viewer on the passion involved and why it can be addictive to the point of being all consuming. It does this by mixing interviews with re-enactments and this is a great call because the two mix very well together. From the talking heads we get genuine memories and insight while from the recreations (or re-imaginings) we get a comic slant put on things and it adds colour to the telling.

The film's hardest part for me was that none of the guys that came up with global crazy worth billions got a red cent for their creative work. The possibilities seemed to only come to them as it started to get out of hand – and it all happened so fast that they couldn't grab it. The film deals with this well but doesn't push it – which is fair enough because they are all likable people and I preferred not to have this downer pushed onto me at the end of an otherwise upbeat and cheerful film.

Overall this is a great little bit of sports history – not something for the record books but, like so much that is great in sports, it is a personal story that is special and memorable. The filmmakers do a great job in presenting it in a way that works in regards engaging the viewer, informing the viewer and entertaining the viewer.

This was a truly great film. I have watched most of ESPN's 30 for 30 series and this was a standout. Tackling a tough subject matter like Fantasy sports (perhaps one of the most visually uninteresting topics known to man), the film merged hyper-stylized interviews, archival, stop motion animation and hilarious (and Fantastic) recreations to create a fun romp, that tells the largely unknown tale of this game's founding, and makes for a truly unique viewing experience.

I only wish that the film were longer and were able to go into even more about what Fantasy has become and where it will go, but the filmmakers crafted the film around the "Founding Fathers" and it comes full circle when we see Dan Okrent (the creator) still playing his game.

A very well done and creative documentary.