The world of sports has given us a number of great stories over the years and many of them have stemmed from great rivalries. ESPN Films’ Yankees-Dodgers: An Uncivil War takes a closer look at two of the best teams of the 1970s and mergest their story into one.
The very first thing that needs to be mentioned regarding this new documentary is the apparent fabrication of this rivalry. Yankees-Red Sox? Of course. Dodgers-Giant? Definitely. But Yankees-Dodgers is not a rivalry that comes to mind for most baseball fans. Yes, there is history, with the Dodgers formerly calling Brooklyn their home and facing off with their crosstown foe, but this documentary takes place about 20 years after the team moved across the country. None of the players involved had anything to do with the actual rivalry between these two teams.
And for those who aren’t necessarily baseball fans, the Yankees are an American League team while the Dodgers are in the National League. At the time, this meant that the only time these two teams would see each other, was in the World Series. Granted, that did occur a few times, but it’s still hard to form a rivalry when you only face the other team a handful of times each year and one team’s standing during the regular season is unaffected by the other.
Now that that’s taken care of, this documentary essentially takes two fascinating stories of two very good baseball teams and merges them into one. There were a lot of big personalities on both of these teams and they had some things to say. For anyone who remembers watching these teams play in the late 70s, this is going to shed some light on a lot of memorable moments.
As a Yankees fan, there may be some bias at play here, but the Yankees side of this story seemed a bit more exciting throughout this doc. That was due in large part to the big personalities of legendary player Reggie Jackson, iconic team owner George Steinbrenner and brilliant manager Billy Martin. The constant infighting between these three, and occasionally some other members of the team, made these segments very fun to watch.
That’s not to say that the Dodgers side of the story wasn’t also very interesting. While the team didn’t quite have the big memorable stars with boisterous attitudes, there was plenty of drama in this clubhouse as well. Of course, when you put these successful young athletes in Hollywood, that’s also going to create some interesting dynamics, so there’s plenty of story to be told here as well.
The only other issue with this new documentary is that is seems to downplay the Dodgers stroy a bit, and it does so with the music choices. That may seem like an odd observation, but it can be a bit jarring going from the intensity and drama of the Yankees story, with music to mach, and jumping into what would be equally as dramatic but with a playful, surfer score. Music isn’t typically something that is noticed in a documentary, but it stands out in a few moments in this one, and not in a good way.
Overall, Yankees-Dodgers: An Uncivil War feels like two very good sports documentaries that were forced into one. Both of these teams are part of one of the great rivalries in sports, but they’re not with each other. Perhaps some who watched these teams in the 70s feel differently, but again, it’s hard to consider two teams rivals when they rarely play each other. Still, this is a very interesting and exciting watch for baseball fans, especially fans of these two teams.
Yankees-Dodgers: An Uncivil War will debut Tuesday, September 27 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN and will be made available on ESPN+ immediately after its premiere.