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Anyone who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s knew the sports exploits of New York Mets greats Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden. But more of us learned far more about their unfortunate exploits battling addiction off the field over the past 30 years than their success on it. On July 14 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN, the newest 30 for 30 premieres: Doc & Darryl, from producers and directors Judd Apatow (Trainwreck) and Michael Bonfiglio (30 for 30: You Don’t Know Bo), featuring the two ballplayers talking about their lives, careers and the constant struggle of addiction.
Daily Brief‘s Andrew Greene talked with Michael about his relationship to the story, addiction, and for a guy who’s not a sports fan, what keeps bringing him back to sports?
What was your connection to this story before the documentary?
I’m a child of the ‘80s so I was aware of them as players. I’m not a big sports fan, so I mostly knew them later in their careers as punchlines on David Letterman. My experience with them was more about how they had fallen so far and all of the outrageous and terrible behavior off the field that they became so notorious for later in their careers. That’s where my brain went to immediately, moreso than their incredible heroics on the field, when Judd suggested the topic.
As not a big sports guy, what draws you to these stories? Why do you think addiction and sports go hand in hand?
There’s something about the backdrop of sports. It’s such an unreal world. The outcomes of games, everything is riding on them, there’s so much pressure and its taken incredibly seriously by not only the athletes, but by the fans, and it’s something that in reality doesn’t really affect the world or your day to day life. It’s a very interesting arena, pardon the pun, in which the stakes are incredibly high, but just in our minds.
In terms of addictions and sports, sports is a very unique career, because it’s so precarious. Injuries can happen, you can hit a slump, and all of a sudden you’re just not good anymore. On top of that, you only have a short shelf life. Even the best of the best, by the time you’re 40, you’re done. There are very few careers like that. It’s extremely high stakes, and capricious in terms of whether or not one succeeds.
Over your career, you’ve produced and directed a couple films on addiction. What attracts you to the subject matter?
All of us have been touched by addiction in one way or another, whether it’s ourselves or people that we know and care about. It’s a subject that is not talked about enough in honest ways. Anybody who’s watched someone they care about struggle with addiction knows it’s incredibly frustrating, difficult, and you go through such a range of emotions in dealing with it and there are no easy answers. With this film, which is so much about addiction, Judd and I were interested in creating a portrait that was honest and accurate about the issue.
What underreported Doc and Darryl stories did you want to show?
One of the myths with these guys, and sort of the conventional wisdom, was two young guys come to New York City, it’s a crazy place, they’re drawn to the spotlight, they’re given power and celebrity, spending tons of money, and they just go nuts. In reality, the roots of their addictions are in their childhoods. It goes back way before they ever got to New York. I think the pressure of the media and the microscope they were under in New York coupled with all of the tremendous temptations and opportunities certainly didn’t help. But it wasn’t just because they ended up in New York City on a crazy team in the ‘80s. These guys were going to struggle with addiction regardless of where they ended up in the world.
When you met them, what surprised you?
I was surprised by the frankness in which they were willing to discuss some of the darkest parts of their life. They were willing to talk about some things that most of us would find incredibly embarrassing and would want to bury and just forget they ever happened. Doc and Darryl were incredibly brave.
Was it hard to get Doc and Darryl to do the documentary?
Judd and I, from the get go, we wanted to get them together, because that was something we’d never seen. These guys have both been talking to the press for over 30 years. There’s not a lot of new stories that this film breaks and we were never interested in that; we were trying to understand these guys as people and what was their relationship really like? Did they have a relationship? We’d never seen them sit and talk to one another.
Over the years, if you follow them closely, there’s been a lot of back-biting and rumors about their relationship, but nobody had ever sat them down together to talk, and we were really surprised by how that went. Some things that had been in the air between them for 30 years, they never talked about. They did talk about some of those things when we filmed them. I think it was cathartic for them. They both said publicly having that conversation has brought them closer together.
I loved seeing their meet-up at an old-fashioned diner in Queens. Why was that choice made?
We wanted a place that felt comfortable and natural. We didn’t want to have them in a studio to play up the production. We wanted something that hinted at the past. The diner has a bit of a throwback feel. It’s in Queens not too far from where Shea Stadium was, where so many of the things we associate with these guys happened. It just felt cinematic. It just felt right.
Doc and Darryl have been connected since they both debuted. Are they frustrated by the constant comparisons?
I think they probably go back and forth on whether they embrace that connection or not. It’s gotta be difficult to always be compared with another person. We were researching and looking at newspaper and magazine articles and even when these guys weren’t playing on teams together anymore, when one would be mentioned, you’d always see the other’s name. It’s got to be frustrating as an individual trying to live life and taken only on your own terms, to be constantly compared to a person who isn’t you. I think it’s been frustrating over the years but it’s gone on for so long they’ve grown to accept it.
One thing I hope the film does is make us question why we connect to these guys. On the surface, there are a lot of valid reasons why you might: they were both drafted right out of high school by the Mets, they’ll always be associated with that team and with New York, they won back-to-back Rookies of the Year, they were on that incredible ‘86 World Series winning team, they both had their off-field troubles, they both ended up on the Yankees, they both ended up in the same prison, literally the same prison, and the same rehabs at times. They’ve walked these parallel roads, yet I think when you see the film, you understand that they’re completely different people. Their personalities are different, their backgrounds are different. They’re utterly unlike one another to the point where I think had they not been teammates, they would never be in each other’s lives. Yet now they’re connected forever. I hope the film allows people to question that.
I think that’s the biggest takeaway.
Everybody thought they were best friends. But they weren’t. They’d never been. They’re like family. But you don’t pick your family.
Obviously, addiction never ends, and especially in Doc’s case, he’s been struggling very recently. How concerned were you by dredging this up?
One of the difficult things about documentary filmmaking is that you unquestionably will affect the lives of the people you’re making the film about. I’m not especially worried that either of them, by dredging up the past in this film, that that’s dangerous for either of these guys. If they were unaccustomed to being in the spotlight, or this was the first time they ever talked about these things publicly, I might be a bit more concerned. Our hope is that by becoming a bit closer and reconnecting through the film, that they will be in each other’s lives to support one another a bit more than they have been in the past.
ESPN’s 30 for 30: Doc & Darryl premieres July 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
[All images courtesy of ESPN, credit: Michael Bonfiglio]
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