I have an 11-year-old son who will pivot our conversation from baseball practice to Fortnite with no warning, so I know a little something about incongruous jump-cuts. Even with that experience, I was not prepared for the jarring shifts from B-roll footage of Wrigley Field in 2019 to images of Sammy Sosa smashing home runs over chain-link fencing 21 years earlier. Nor was I prepared for just how little a documentary sold as the story of the ’98 home run race would actually stay true to that idea.
Like a routine dental cleaning that results in a filling, Long Gone Summer was appointment viewing I wish I’d have rescheduled.