In ‘One Golden Summer,’ director Kevin Shaw probes the Jackie Robinson West Little League controversy

If you were living in Chicago in 2014, it was hard to ignore the buzz surrounding Jackie Robinson West, the first all-Black team to win the Little League U.S. Baseball Championship.

Fans celebrated the victory on State Street, which was shut down for a massive watch party. Days later, the South Side team was honored with a parade and rally at Millennium Park. Then came the call from President Barack Obama, who invited the young athletes to the White House.

“You made Chicago proud,” Obama told them.

But if you check the Little League records or search the World of Little League Museum, there’s no trace of their achievement. That’s because the team was stripped of its national title after it was accused of using ineligible players from outside residential boundaries.

Now, the saga will be revisited in Chicago filmmaker Kevin Shaw’s highly anticipated documentary, “One Golden Summer,” which opens the Chicago International Film Festival with a sold-out screening Oct. 15. An Oct. 18 showing at the Chicago History Museum still has tickets available, but an Oct. 26 showing at the Logan Center for the Arts is sold out.

In an era of hyperfocus on youth sports, the film examines all sides of the controversy through interviews with the team’s coaches and players, as well as parents, reporters and polarizing figure Chris Janes, the Evergreen Park Little League coach who brought the boundary issue to the Little League Baseball organization. It also tracks lawsuits involving the players’ families, coaches, Little League Baseball, Jackie Robinson West Little League Inc. and others.

Beyond such details, the film also addresses complex issues of racial bias and ethics in youth sports.

Shaw said he was particularly interested in evaluating media coverage of the events and challenging viewers' notions of the people involved — especially the athletes, who are now adults.

“I really wanted to hear from the young men because they were 12 or 13 years old when this happened,” said Shaw, 51, who grew up in Calumet Heights and now lives in Bolingbrook. “They needed to have that period of maturing to come to grips and figure out some of those feelings. And they never had the opportunity to express that in a public setting. So I wanted to give them that opportunity to shed some light on what happened.”

Shaw interviewed six former players: DJ Butler, Trè Hondras, Josh Houston, Marquis Jackson, Pierce Jones and Darion Radcliff. The young men reminisce about their brotherhood, relive the joy of winning and grapple with the impact of the vitriol they encountered once they were disqualified.

And journalists, including retired Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, discuss the portrayal of the Jackie Robinson West team in the media. They say the players’ journey was unfairly portrayed as a “rags-to-riches” story because they were from the South Side.

“We were part of the problem,” Mitchell says in the film, referencing a broad community of journalists across media outlets. “Nobody looked at the story and said, ‘These are middle class kids.’ You have families that are taking care of their children, that care about their after-school activities. They’re mentoring these kids. … They’re doing everything that they’re supposed to do for their children. That’s not how it came across.”

Misguided perceptions of the athletes and their families also informed reactions once the team lost its title, Shaw said.

“People obviously began to think the worst of that group of folks immediately,” he said. “And I think the negative stereotypes of Black people came to the forefront. They're like, ‘Of course, they cheated.’ Not all the families knew what was going on.”

The documentary shows how the trauma of the events disrupted some of the players' daily lives.

“That's the real tragedy of it all — that these kids were just out there doing what they love, playing a game and thinking everything was cool,” Shaw said. “And here they are being punished for something that was kind of out of their control. And having to walk with that stigma of being known as a cheater, that's not easy. And when you see where they are now, they were able to rise above that.”

Shaw said he was passionate about documenting the story because he could relate to the young men.

“I was a young Black kid that came from the South Side of Chicago,” he said. “I see myself in those guys.”

Unlike the Jackie Robinson West players, baseball was Shaw’s worst sport growing up. Instead, he gravitated toward sports journalism, working in production at ESPN for several years. He later transitioned to film.

Some of his projects include “The Street Stops Here,” a documentary about Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley, and “Let the Little Light Shine,” a documentary about the near-closure of National Teachers Academy, an elementary school serving mostly Black students in the South Loop.

The award-winning director said he never imagined he’d have a film at the Chicago International Film Festival, let alone open the event.

“It's amazing,” he said. “I can't say that my dream has been realized. I just never even thought it was possible.”