One of the most entertaining performances of the year? Kevin Millar in The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox. The quintessential clubhouse player deserves a category of his own at The Emmys. He’s one of the key storytellers in director Colin Barnicle‘s highly entertaining Netflix miniseries, which covers Red Sox history as well as their historic playoff comeback against the New York Yankees.
The doc isn’t only a great trip down memory lane, but a behind-the-scenes look at the men behind the legends and the truth underneath the myths. A study of the stories we tell ourselves as sports fans, too. It’s exciting work from Barnicle, who recently spoke with Immersive about crafting The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox.
When did you realize Kevin Millar was more or less gonna be the star of this show?
I had worked in the clubhouse before. He wasn’t with the team when I was there, but I was aware of how good he was. We got to his house early and chatted with him for, I dunno, two or three hours before, and then I had talked to him on the phone a bunch. I was like, oh, this is going to be good. And then we did the interview for four or five hours. As he would say, a dude, he’s the man.
What was the main story you wanted to tell? How’d you want Kevin to help tell it?
We always thought the story was about how the Red Sox changed who they were, their culture and everything. We looked at it from ownership, baseball operations, front office and clubhouse, and we thought Kevin was the guy who really changed the culture of the clubhouse. He was kind of the instigator to everybody coming together.
So we thought he, in terms of main characters, Theo Epstein, John Henry, and Tom Werner up at the top, that we were looking at them like, okay, what did you do to change the Red Sox culture? It was really the question of, how do you get down three and still think you’re coming back? That came from somewhere. How did you change the fatalism of this franchise?
When you started it, obviously there were myths about the series. Any legends you wanted to dispel?
I wanted to dispel the idea that the Red Sox and Yankees were a rivalry. I grew up outside Boston. I’m a Red Sox fan. You’re kind of like, oh yeah, it is a rivalry. And then you’re like, no, it’s not. It’s 26 to nothing. That’s a blowout. It’s not even close to a rivalry. It’s more caustic and bitter from one side, the Boston side, than it is from the Yankee side.
The Yankee side is more loud and intimidating; the Boston side is more caustic and bitter. To me, it was the idea that as fans, you don’t like the other team. Red Sox fans don’t like Yankees fans, but it wasn’t like that for the players. I was really concentrated and concerned on, when did it become personal for these guys from Texas or California or Washington, Colorado? They’re not from Boston. They’re here on two year contracts. They don’t hate the Yankees. The assumption was always like, oh, they hated the Yankees too. And I was like, no, no. Started somewhere for them where it became a little more personal.
And it seems in that 2003 season, that’s when it started to become a little bit more personal to each player until they’re literally fighting on the field in the next season.
In dispelling myths, one of the great moments is Curt Schilling denying the curse. How’d you react to his line?
“They weren’t talented enough.” Yeah, no, it’s partially true, but it’s partially Curt Schilling’s confidence in himself that he’s bringing some talent there. But it’s also why maybe there was some tension in that clubhouse in the pitching staff with Pedro and Curt. Maybe it was why there was some tension with Nomar being there. These guys were Hall of Fame resume players, Nomar and Pedro.
Nomar especially was the icon of all New England. Pedro pitched every fifth day, but Nomar played every day. To this day, he’s the greatest shortstop ever in Red Sox history. I think when somebody says it’s a thing of talent, it kind of exemplifies what was going on with the Red Sox for the first 80 years, too. That ownership wasn’t doing enough to really get over the hump on all levels.
Ownership didn’t integrate until 1959. They were the last team to do that. They didn’t sign any big free agents until 2000 when they finally signed Manny Ramirez. They’re just not doing anything to excite the fanbase other than giving them hot dogs. The general manager, he’s not making every trade deadline every winter. It was like, oh, we’re not going to get this guy. No, that’s out of our league.
In the clubhouse too, you had talent but you were missing. It was all based around one or two stars, like a basketball team. It wasn’t really filled out. So, there’s a lot of truth to Curt’s statement about the Red Sox past. It’s indicative of maybe why some things weren’t getting off to the right foot in 2004.
As a kid that loved the rivalry and idolized many of these players, it was great seeing the humans behind the icons, just these really personal moments. When did you have that experience working on the show?
Yeah, a lot of it was that way. My thought when making it was, I don’t know anything about Premier League soccer, but I would watch a series on Liverpool if the characters brought me through each moment. I wouldn’t even have to know what each moment on the field was, as long as I cared about the characters taking me through it.
They all had this immense self-doubt on whether they could do something. Like, John Henry hiring Theo, he’s 28, not the guy you wanted. And I’m like, “Did you pop the champagne with him?” And he’s like, “No.” Theo is worried about, “I’m doing this analytics thing, nobody else is doing this. I’m aware of being from Boston, I’m going to get crushed if I fail.” And then you have guys like Kevin Millar, who’s out of the game. He’s gone, his career is over, he’s going to Japan. David Ortiz, he’s not rostered on any major league team. They pick him up for scraps.
This idea of having to work through your own self-doubt to try to get somewhere you want to be, it is completely relatable. I’m doing it right now trying to make a doc series. When we started filming most of the interviews, it was supposed to be two episodes and 45 minutes each episode.
Nick and I, my brother, were like, we should double it just because we liked this story. Netflix thankfully went along with it. It’s a big sale for that one. Hey, do you mind if we double it and hit the time date? But you’re working through like, oh my God, can we do this? It’s the same feelings anybody has when they’re trying to do something they’ve never done before.
Was there just wealth of behind-the-scenes footage readily available or did you have to chase down a lot of shots?
Some of it was chasing it down. Some of it was, I knew some of the players who had little camcorders back then, so we got some of the footage that way. Other footage was just Nick and I, we would walk around the ballpark during games in April and talk to employees leaving Fenway. It’s like working in the Vatican. You never leave. They’re all still there. “Do you have any pictures or stories?”
And then Major League Baseball was a really good partner. They had a bunch of footage, not only the games, but sometimes it would be something like where we bought all the Red Sox guides dating back to 1980. We read through ’em and would be like, okay, there’s one line in here that could lead to a piece of footage. We would email them and they would look for it. Then a week later they’d be like, we found it.
Talking to players around the 20th anniversary of the comeback victory, how did you find time and memory affected how they would tell these stories?
So they had the 20th anniversary, when Tim Wakefield passed, all these guys who had been all over the place, very close, but all over the place came together. Even leading up to opening day of this year, they were all talking and reminiscing a lot more, hanging out, a lot more than they would’ve.
I think that really helped in terms of not just their recollections, but their emotional recollections during this process that they understood, oh, yeah, that was special and it was significant in our lives is insignificant to Boston, obviously, but important to us as friends almost. So, it really brought that sense of being emotionally present. You can remember everything, but you could care about nothing. But they remembered a lot more and they cared a lot more.
Manny Ramirez, I had no idea he wasn’t always pleased about being a Red Sox player. What was your take on his role on the team?
Manny is the old adage, “Manny being Manny,” but I think Manny was never a vocal team leader. Everybody knew who he was. He was mercurial, sometimes he was great, sometimes he was happy, sometimes he was down and sad. There was a line we had to cut. Kevin Millar was like, “Theo Epstein owes me babysitting money for what I did with Manny. Every road trip at 9:00 AM, I’d go to his room and we would look at magazines of pickup trucks, and then we would go work out. Look at me. I hate working out.” And then they would go to the ballpark.
Manny, he was with the then Cleveland Indians, now Cleveland Guardians, and he loved it there, but he got a boatload of money to come to Boston. As soon as he got here, he went, “Maybe not the best idea,” and he couldn’t get off that footing.
But obviously, people bought into this quirkiness that he had. The Red Sox have always had some quirky player. Whether it be Bill Spaceman Lee or one of those guys where you’re just like, oh yeah, he’s our quirky player for this decade.
Is there something about Boston in particular that attracts those players?
I think it’s the pressure of the whole city. Fenway Park is the town hall for all New England. Everybody goes there to unburden themselves from all their troubles. It’s just a huge pressure point. You’re going to go one of two ways. You’re either going to clam up and get bitter, or you’re just going to say, “Screw it, I’m just going to be me and grow my hair out. I’m not going to care about anything. I’m not going to do anything that’s outside of what I really want to do.” So, it goes one of two ways.
Did you find a lot of Yankees players willing to talk?
No. Originally when we got on the project, we wanted to do a Yankees-Red Sox, 50-50 split. Nothing against the Yankees, nothing against the people who said no to us, but I do think that sometimes people don’t exactly want to talk about their worst moments as an organization. It’s a historic loss. It’s not like you have a lot of former Russian players who want to talk about getting beat by a college team in 1980.
I understood them not wanting to completely be on board with it. Some were, but yeah… I do think the whole “Yankees suck” thing, especially in the first two episodes, it’s like, the Yankees clearly don’t suck. They’ve won 26, we’ve won zero. It’s clear we might suck. The Red Sox might suck.
So, it’s more to show just the bitterness, the feeling of being second class or the little brother. You can never, ever overcome the Big Brother. That fatalistic type approach that all Boston fans had then was so permissive that they did believe that the Yankees sucked. Well, as Yankee fans, they were like, who are you?
You did land a great interview with Roger Clemens, though. What stood out while speaking with him?
A star in Boston and the star in New York, he saw both sides of it. He was there when the Red Sox weren’t exactly putting money into the team every year. They weren’t taking care of the park every year. And he saw it from the other side when he was on the Yankees and saw what they were doing. He was impressed. I think he was probably like, “Why didn’t they do that earlier?”
It’s interesting, for New Yorkers, to me, it’s part of your history. If I was a Yankee fan, and I’m not just saying this because I made the series, but I would want to watch it because it’s like, okay, what’s the perspective of the team that did beat us historically? Were we in their head at all?
As it turns out, you were completely in their head for every bat, every inning, every game. Even in the off season in the owner’s head, in the GM’s head, you were everywhere. It’s like finally the little brother gets big enough.
Any moments you had to cut from the series you really miss?
Oh, a ton. Kevin Millar has one called “Rally Karaoke guy.” He is in Dallas. They’re in Dallas in Arlington facing the Texas Rangers. Grady Little came in and sat the whole team down and said, “We have a real issue. It’s a legal issue here happening with the whole team. This is very serious. Everybody sit down.”
All 25 guys have to sit in a room. They’re like, oh, boy. Pedro was going for citizenship, so they thought that was about him. And they wheeled in this TV. Millar is sitting there next to Ortiz and Bill Mueller. They wheel in this TV. These two people dressed as FBI agents come in and stand next to the TV and they say, “We want you to watch this tape.”
It’s a newscaster on the news. She says, “We would like to have you help us identify this criminal. He’s been terrorizing the country. We’d like to roll the clip now.” They play a clip. “Born in the US” is playing, plus here’s a guy in super tight jeans. It’s very sketchy camerawork, like something out of The Blair Witch Project.
You don’t know what’s going on. And then the guy comes in to focus on his back and turns into tight jeans, tight shirt, headband. He starts pumping his fist to the song. Everybody in the room is like, “Who is this guy?” And he slowly turns around and… it’s an 18, 19-year-old Kevin Millar. It’s a tape that he had made in his bedroom.
Kevin told us, I didn’t know it was me for the first five, 10 seconds. I was looking around, who is this?” And then it became apparent it was him. Everybody’s laughing at him. He’s like, “I thought that was the end of it. A week later, next home stand I’m playing first base. We’re down three to two in the seventh inning. I start to hear ‘Born in the USA’ in the stadium. I slowly look up at the big board, and there I am, the same tape being played up on the big board. It was awful.”
We really wanted to get that in, but we couldn’t get the rights to be “Born in the USA.” It was like the whole budget.
