One Golden Summer (dir. Kevin Shaw)

By: Adam Freed

Is there anything better than playing sports with friends at the age of 12?  Long before the pressures of scholarship offers and NIL deals, the exuberance of youth sports offers a distilled joy, seldom found in adult life.  This purified positive energy was apparent in Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West little league baseball team that took the Little League World Series, and the nation by storm in 2014.  A collection of the city’s best and brightest young players captured the hearts of the baseball world a little over a decade ago as they played an energetic and impassioned brand of America’s pastime that left an indelible impression on the sport.  Director Kevin Shaw bottles the unforgettable and controversial story of the tiny team with a massive heart in his fascinating documentary One Golden Summer.   

Long after the parades and trophy celebrations had ended for the JRW baseball team, whispers grew into rumors pertaining to the boundary-based eligibility of some of the team’s players.  These rumors called into question the legitimacy of what the team of African American young men had accomplished on the emerald infields of Omaha in the summer of 2014.  Lost in  the whirlwind of controversy was the accomplishment of the team who enthralled the nation en route to an American Little League title.  In hindsight, regrets abound surrounding the ultimate outcome of the Jackie Robinson West Little League national champions, but those are scars to be worn by adults, not the children who represented themselves and their community with class and grace far beyond their years.  

Kevin Shaw’s documentary transcends the murky world of youth sports and becomes a fascinating anthropological exploration of the way that society views “otherness” and the 21st century implications of “in-group” and “out-group” social behavior.  Shaw’s film is at its most fascinating as it unearths media coverage of the JRW baseball team, most of which was nothing more than evidence of the condescending head patting at the root of the white savior complex.  The more hideous angle on the memorable story is one that is informed by overt race-based hatred masked as “tradition” in which the idea that a team of young black men could possibly rise to the peak of a pyramid long dominated by white faces.  Regardless of which interpretation of the 2014 Jackie Robinson West team one may hold, what those 13 young men accomplished between the white foul lines of little league fields from Chicago to Omaha cannot be erased, regardless of what record books or Little League World Series Museums may allow patrons to remember.  The same can be said for Kevin Shaw’s remarkable work of documentary filmmaking.  Titles, trophies and controversy aside, Shaw’s film gives permanence to a story of tremendous accomplishment, one that now stands forever in the annals of film history.

Target Score: 9/10  With his emotionally evocative sociological documentary, One Golden Summer, Director Kevin Shaw creates a film that shines a light on America in its purest and most vile forms. 

One Golden Summer is included in Movie Archer's coverage of the 61st Chicago International Film Festival.