Bronx Zoo '90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball Documentary Review

Bronx Zoo '90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball (2024)
Documentary - 3 episodes

Watch Bronx Zoo '90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball on Peacock
Based on: 'The Bronx Zoo Part 2' by Joel Sherman
Directed by: DJ Caruso
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer

Plot
Details the tumultuous 1990 New York Yankees season through firsthand accounts of those closest to the team.

Verdict
If you're a baseball fan, you'll enjoy this. Even if you don't like baseball, you might enjoy the drama and chaos. The Yankees are considered winners, but this documentary looks at one of their worst seasons; why and how it went wrong. This also shows us how the franchise turned it around a few years later. It's more salacious than uplifting. It wants to be a 30 for 30, but the story just isn't big enough.
It depends.

Review
Focusing on the Yankees seems like a bit of pandering. They're the most well known team worldwide, and this wants to focus on the failures before their championship dynasty years. That and everyone likes a scandal. This is basically a lower stakes 30 for 30. I knew some of this, but not the full extent.

The '90 Yankees season was a bomb waiting to explode, from criminal players, terrible contract negotiations, and slandering players. The team wanted to look like contenders by paying aging players with problems like Pascual Perez instead of signing fan favorite Don Mattingly. This is on top of George Steinbrenner's years long feud with star outfielder Davie Winfield. Steinbrenner was a micro-manager and impulsive, firing people at will. He put together a team that was terrible for the '90 season.

Stump Merrill, Mel Hall

The second episode focuses on Mel Hall. I had read about his crimes, but it's crazy that he has a fifteen year old girlfriend and moves into her parents home. He kicked the parents out of the primary bedroom and moved into that room with their daughter. I'm very curious how all that happened. Saying he's charismatic just isn't enough detail, but that's all we get. I have to wonder if the parents thought they hit the jackpot and just went with it. Mel Hall actually interviews for this documentary while still in prison. He admits no culpability, either due to denial or delusion.

Steinbrenner was ousted from managing the team for trying to get dirt on Dave Winfield from gambler and criminal Howie Spira. This documentary gives Spira a lot of time, and he claims Winfield is terrible and cheated him while embezzling money from charities. There's no reason to give this guy any credibility, and while Winfield only released a written statement stating as much, Spira's inclusion seems to be just baiting watchers.

Kevin Maas

A couple of bright spots in the '90 season was the showdown of two sport stars Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, though Deion was released at the end of the year by the Yankees and focused on football full time. Kevin Maas burst onto the scene as a home run slugging first basemen, but couldn't sustain his power and was released four years later.

The third and final episode focuses on the turnaround. With Steinbrenner out, Stick Michael created a foundation for a dominant late '90s Yankee run. His ability to scout players, led to the core four of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Andy Pettitte. The Yankees made it to the postseason in 1995, winning it all and upsetting the favorites the following year. That is what reignited the Yankees as a perennial contender and in a burgeoning social media market propelled them to the forefront of baseball.