When the final out of the season for the Boston Red Sox sailed into Ceddanne Rafaela’s glove, it effectively put an end to the Netflix documentary project on the team as well.
Throughout the 2024 season, beginning in spring training, a Netflix crew filmed the team behind the scenes at Fenway Park and on the road, with cameras in the dugout in-game as well as in the trainer’s room, the weight room and manager’s office, places that are generally off-limits to traditional media. The documentary crew visited Red Sox minor-league affiliates, shadowed Red Sox executives and followed players and coaches at various locations away from the ballpark. Beat writers, including me, were also interviewed at various points during the season.
Now, it’s a waiting game to see the final product, which is expected to air over eight, hour-long episodes sometime in March or April. The series’ producer, Greg Whiteley, was behind recent hit documentaries “Last Chance U” and “Cheer,” but this is the first time Netflix has done a series on Major League Baseball.
“I think it took time for us to kind of get used to having cameras around on a consistent basis, but then it just becomes kind of something that’s off in the corner and you’re not really paying attention to,” starter Nick Pivetta said. “So I think the experience overall has been very good. I think that we’ve had our boundaries and they’ve respected our boundaries at certain times. And it’s been a good, working relationship.”
MLB first broached the idea of a Netflix documentary crew following one of its teams in 2021, but it took a while to sort out what that concept would look like, the logistics for the project and which team (or teams) to feature. Initially, the Red Sox were among a handful of teams in the mix.
In 2023, when Netflix narrowed its focus to the Red Sox, film executives met on multiple occasions with Red Sox executives, coaches and players to lay out how the project would unfold. Players ultimately had the final say and took a team vote, approving of the in-season filming project for the following year. Change is bound to happen in professional sports, of course, and ultimately many of those players who voted on the project, as well as the team’s chief executive at the time Chaim Bloom, were no longer with the club when filming began earlier this year.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming into the season,” said Tyler O’Neill, who signed with the club last winter. “It was something that the players last year kind of got together on. That’s something that I was thrown into.”
By and large, members of the 2024 team said the production became a part of the background as the season wore on. Initially, there were awkward moments with boom mics and an extra set of cameras hovering around frequently. But many players and coaches said they grew comfortable enough with the crew to set boundaries.
“A lot of guys stepped up and were willing to do it and understood what it was for, trying to grow our game,” reliever Chris Martin said. “I think they did a pretty good job of staying out of the way. I don’t think it was much of a distraction.”
Several players, such as Garrett Whitlock, Liam Hendriks and Triston Casas, allowed the crew to follow them away from the ballpark to their homes, a restaurant, visiting a hospital or behind the scenes during their lengthy rehab processes. Other players, like Martin and Pivetta, told the crew they weren’t comfortable with that kind of access.
Casas, naturally, embraced the spotlight.
“I’ve always wanted my own personal camera crew, so this is something that I’m actually enjoying,” Casas said. “I try to give them all the time that I can.”
In spring training, the crew spent time at Whitlock’s home where Connor Wong, Tanner Houck and Richard Fitts also stayed when the team was in Fort Myers, Fla. The crew was on hand for a nighttime fishing trip with Wong, Kutter Crawford, Martin and Jarren Duran. Much of the filming was done at the ballpark, but part of the project was to show players’ lives outside of baseball.
“I guess they probably haven’t been in the way as much as I had anticipated,” reliever Josh Winckowski said. “(They) would make you say ‘no’ a couple more times than maybe some people would have wanted. But I think everybody, generally, was alright with it. I think (the crew) kind of had a good feel when moments were maybe a little tense. I think overall both sides gave and took a little bit.”
There were plenty of times the crew was in manager Alex Cora’s office for difficult conversations with players or executives, but there were other times Cora told the crew he felt the team needed a break.
While MLB and the Red Sox agreed to the project and had some agency in asking Whiteley and his crew to give them space on certain days, they have little say on what will be shown in the final product or how the team will be portrayed, which naturally has caused some anxiety.
“There’s been a lot of people, a lot of cameras in places there usually aren’t,” O’Neill said. “Even after games, just trying to like, wind down and still having to be subject to the camera’s eye was something to get used to, for sure. So it’s been a long year in that regard, not like keeping a guard up, but you always have to have some kind of layer hanging around there.”
O’Neill said he appreciated the idea of the project, but did feel it was a distraction at times.
“Just having the camera right by (Cora) during the whole game, especially the big important games, maybe (you’re) not 100 percent comfortable, sharing some stuff,” he said. “So it’s definitely an adjustment. And there were times where it’s been uncomfortable, of course. But that’s what the Red Sox wanted initially and the players from last year. So it is what it is.”
There were always bound to be uncomfortable moments, as the aim of the project is to show how a team navigates good stretches and bad, how teammates overcome inevitable squabbles in the midst of a long season and how young players grow and mature — or maybe don’t. Done well, the project won’t gloss over any of the difficult situations that arose this season for the team.
“A lot of people, even in the athlete community, don’t fully understand what it’s like to play 162 games, it’s unlike anything in professional sports,” Red Sox chief marketing officer Adam Grossman told The Athletic earlier this year when filming began. “That’s one piece, and then the other piece is that there are people behind these uniforms. They’ve got interests and thoughts, there’s an endurance test that they go through (in season) and there’s a whole world out there that may not be on display in the same way they think that it should.”
That said, it would be impossible to capture the entire season in eight episodes and while Netflix was around a majority of the season, Whiteley and his crew were not with the team every single day.
They filmed almost all of spring training as they got acquainted with the players and the rhythms of the team and were also around much of the first half, particularly at home, with a few road trips mixed in from April through July. But with budget issues in the second half, the Netflix cameras were noticeably absent, missing an important road trip right after the All-Star break to Los Angeles and Colorado. They were also gone for much of August outside of a couple of games, including the day Duran issued his apology for directing a homophobic slur at a fan. The crew returned to a near-daily presence in September as the team made a last-ditch effort to grab a wild-card spot.
“I expressed I was disappointed at one point because, as you know, it’s from February all the way to the end,” Cora said. “And if you’re going to be part of this family, you’re part of the family. After the All-Star break, I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ But they explained to me, and it was like, ‘OK, you guys are back. We want you back.’”
There will be plenty of inside baseball moments with multiple players and coaches mic’d up each game. The series is sure to reveal some interesting in-game conversations and decisions. At the same time, the project isn’t tied to the arc of the club’s wins and losses, but aims to show a casual fan or even a global audience unfamiliar with baseball what it is like inside the grind of a lengthy season.
“There’s probably gonna be one or two or three things that you’re like, ‘Yeah, I wish that wasn’t in there,’ but that’s how it is and that’s OK,” Grossman said. “The goal is not to be perfect, the goal is to be human. And the imperfections are part of that.”
(Photo of the crew filming at the end of a game in New York in July: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
