…and now, the Oscar for best performance in a sports documentary…

And the winner is Derek Jeter in Derek Jeter 3K, the new HBO documentary that will premier tonight. Thanks to the guys over at RAB, River Avenue Blues, the Yankee blog, we get a look at an extended trailer for this documentary and from the very first moments, it is obviously a winner. This four minute clip has the following tidbits: Jeter’s November homerun, “The Flip’, Jeter’s dive into the stands against the Red Sox, Jeter holding a World Series Trophy, other MLB players gushing over Jeter, and Jeter’s 3000 base hit. The only things missing from this clip is his canonization by the pope and a bunch of thumbnails of the girls he has dated over his career ending with a shot of Ms. Lucky, Minka Kelly. Of course this last one could not happen as the documentary is only a hour long and just reviewing the thumbnails would take twice that long.

I kid but must admit I usually love these kind of documentaries. They are a way of summing up a career, putting a sports hero’s life into focus and reminding us about how lucky we have been. In Jeter’s case, we got a throwback to the Yogi and Mickey era when the Yankees were in the midst of glory days that can hardly be matched. Derek has 5 World Series rings and we have a trunk load of memories and good feelings and images we can never forget. It is almost like HBO got a legendary film maker like Glenn Bracken Evans, director of the Sarah Palin Epic “The Undefeated”, to make a positive movie and give it a baseball twist and this is what he came up with. Derek is seen in his entire splendor, without faults or flaws, just the way we most like our icons. Surely a match made in heaven.

(Minka is not wearing Yankee pinstripes here but they're good enough for me!)

Now, I don’t have cable so I do not get HBO but you can be sure I will find a way to see and study this documentary and put all of the things it espouses to good use. Derek is a true Yankee, with pinstripes running through his veins and comes wrapped in Yankee midnight blue. As best I can tell, the only thing we may want that didn’t make it into the documentary would be naked pictures of Minka. Oh well, nothing is perfect, except perhaps Derek…