30 for 30: Jordan Rides the Bus (2010)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
After winning his third NBA championship, Michael Jordan's life would take a dark turn when his father was murdered. In this documentary we learn that his father always wanted him to be a baseball player so the already legendary Jordan retired from the NBA and tried to make it as a Chicago White Sox. What happened has the most famous person in the world going down to the minor leagues where he struggled and was a constant target of jokes but soon his numbers started to rise. I think anyone old enough to remember this event will know all the jokes, mysteries and all around chaos that was going on when rumors broke out that Jordan was going to retire. I was only 13-years-old at the time but I remember most of the details quite vividly and I think the majority of people looked at Jordan as a fool for walking away from basketball. This documentary doesn't shy away from that opinion but at the same time it tries to look at the event from a different side as we see a man simply trying to fulfill a wish of his dead father. Shelton makes a great case for why Jordan just wanted away from the NBA pressures and threw himself into a small-league baseball where he could get away from everything but then again he apparently didn't consider what was going to happen when he made this decision. The media and fans hunted him down and turned in the biggest attendance records no matter where he played. I think the documentary does a very good job at showing what all was going on in Jordan's life and how this trip to the minors made him a stronger person. We get interviews with several people from Jordan's life including Phil Jackson who talks about what management asked him to do when they learned that he was going to retire. I think what would have made the film even more interesting would have had those who played with Jordan express their thoughts and opinions on the summer. We do get to hear from a couple of the players and managers but it would have been interesting seeing all of these events from their eyes.