Netflix’s look back at ‘The Comeback’ nothing less than pitch perfect retelling of Red Sox history
The three-part, roughly three-hour docuseries will be out on Wednesday.
“The Comeback: The 2004 Boston Red Sox,” the three-part, roughly three-hour Netflix docuseries on the most improbable redemption story in the history of American team sports, is pitch perfect.
So perfect, so well-done, in fact, that during backstory and the build up to the Red Sox’ historic rally from a three-games-to-none deficit against the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series, you’ll almost certainly catch your anxious inner voice saying, “Thank goodness I already know the ending.”
“The Comeback” is directed by Colin Barnicle, a lifelong Red Sox fan who, along with his brother, Nick, attended Game 7 of that ALCS. Nick Barnicle is among the executive producers on the series, which also was produced by Meadowlark Media.
It quickly becomes apparent watching the series — the first part a history lesson, the second focuses on the heartbreak of 2003, and the third on the delayed magic of 2004 — that the Barnicles’ investment as genuine fans lends authenticity to the project far more than, oh, what happened with a certain recent Kraft Media Group production.
They get every beat just right. The aching pain before the joy, the tension and sadness before, as a candid and often hilarious Theo Epstein calls it, the catharsis.
I could have done without the fan in the first episode who feels like a composite of the most obnoxious “Felger and Mazz” callers while retracing Bucky Bleeping Dent and A Little Roller Up Along First.
But the stage-setting via the Red Sox’ archive of devastations is wholly necessary, because it makes their ultimate redemption all the sweeter.
We need to be taken back to all of it in order to fully savor — and practically relive — what it felt like when the Red Sox overcame everything. Their heavy history, ghosts, their own self-doubts, and those damned Yankees.
That especially holds true when it comes to 2003, and the Game 7 loss to the Yankees, when, as you may recall, Grady Little (still defiant) was the only person in the entire Western Hemisphere that didn’t notice Pedro Martinez’s gas tank was below empty in the eighth inning.
That season was the ignition point in the rivalry for the players. When their loathing for each other as opponents finally equaled the fanbases’ long-established loathing for each other.
When the Sox lost Game 7 on Aaron Boone’s 11th-inning walk-off home run, Epstein’s blunt explanation of the mood captured how we all felt.
“You just can’t believe it’s over,” he said, “and those [expletives] did it again.”
Know this, too. If any indifference to the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry — or to the faux-competitive Red Sox themselves — in recent years has settled in, this is certain to stir up that dormant loathing for everything pinstriped. Up to and including a comically smug A-Rod, not to mention Derek Jeter, who always had a fist-pump ready for the Fox cameras when a break inevitably went his way.
Until, deep into that October 20 seasons ago, when suddenly they didn’t.
Listen to “The Curse Breakers”
This special podcast miniseries revisits the 2004 Red Sox, a team of misfits and underdogs known as the “Idiots” — who defied the odds to break the curse that had loomed over Fenway Park for 86 years. With insights from Dan Shaughnessy, Stan Grossfeld, Terry Francona, Johnny Damon, and Kevin Millar, go behind the scenes of one of the greatest sports stories ever told.
Listen to “The Curse Breakers” below or on Apple, Spotify, or Amazon.
There isn’t much in “The Comeback” that we didn’t already know, save for suspicions of a covert operation by the Yankees before Game 2 of the 2004 ALCS, the details of which actually pair Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling in agreement.
But there is plenty of behind-the-scenes footage that feels fresh, and besides, so much of the fun in this is reliving what we do know.
Every significant Red Sox player other than Nomar Garciaparra (whom the Barnicle brothers tried to get multiple times) and Manny Ramirez is interviewed. Kevin Millar, as usual, keeps his words to a maximum, but he’s much more enjoyable here than he is, say, in NESN’s broadcast booth.
The series hits, with unyielding detail, all of the crucial moments up to and through October 2004: The bold hiring of the then-28-year-old Epstein as general manager in November 2002 (”I hadn’t led anything in my life,” he says. “I hadn’t managed a lemonade stand. Who the [expletive] is this kid to get the job?”) . . . David Ortiz’s metamorphosis from Minnesota Twins discard to Big Papi in the summer of ‘03 . . . the pursuit of A-Rod in the winter 2003, which enraged Garciaparra . . .
. . . and then, in such a fulfilling way, everything that had to go right to pull off the comeback against the Yankees. From Dave Roberts’s legendary steal in Game 4, to Papi’s back-to-back walk-off hits in Games 4 and 5, to Curt Schilling’s bloody sock and umpire Joe West getting a crucial call right in Game 6, to Johnny Damon’s pair of home runs in Game 7, including a tone-setting, this-time-it’s-different grand slam that should protect him for life from any vitriol for eventually joining the Yankees.
It’s fascinating to realize, with the benefit of time and distance, how the self-doubt morphed into an unshakeable confidence during the comeback. Manager Terry Francona, asked what he remembers about the team’s mood before Game 4, replies, “I remember we’re a bunch of crazy [expletives], but we believe in each other, and we’re not going to back down from anybody.”
But Derek Lowe, the starting pitcher for Game 4 by default more than any hope that he would come through, remembered it differently.
“The Yankees should be the most cocky team. They had just beat us, 19-8 [in Game 3], and you’ve got this clown going in Game 4,” Lowe said. “I was the last person [Francona could turn to]. It was, like, me or Bill from Aisle 12.”
Amid the laughs and the pure joy at the Red Sox’ ultimate redemption, “The Comeback” includes moments where you’re going to be defeated in any quest to hold back tears.
To see Jason Varitek wrap his arm around the late Tim Wakefield’s shoulders on the Yankee Stadium turf after Game 7 and say, “Look around. I want you to look around” . . . well, nothing captures the brotherhood and enduring bond of the 2004 Red Sox more than that.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch it again.
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