‘Believers: Boston Red Sox’ is nostalgia for a misery Red Sox fans can no longer have

ESPN’s 30 for 30: Four Days in October. 

Netflix’s The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox.

HBO’s Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino.

The Farrelly brothers’ romantic comedy, Fever Pitch. 

How many recountings on the 2004 American League Championship Series, where the Boston Red Sox overcame a 3-0 deficit to defeat the New York Yankees and eventually slay the Curse of the Bambino and win their first World Series in 86 years, do we need?

That was the question I asked myself as I sat down to watch Believers: Boston Red Sox, which debuted last week on the ESPN App for subscribers to an ESPN Unlimited plan (got that?).

Why, here in 2025, do we need to relive that fateful October once more? As the Red Sox have collected four World Series championships between 2004 and now, what am I to learn about their championship diaspora that once defined them? Am I really going to be able to feel the underdog twangs of one of the most valuable franchises in Major League Baseball?

What I came to realize by the time I’d watched all three episodes of the Ben Affleck-produced docuseries is that none of my questions were ultimately pertinent because Believers isn’t for me. It’s a Boston Red Sox docuseries made by Boston Red Sox fans for Boston Red Sox fans.

(I mean that literally. Affleck (as well as buddy Matt Damon) is synonymous with Boston Red Sox fandom, and Gotham Chopra, who co-directed alongside Lauren Fisher, is a self-described “diehard Sox fan.”)

While the aforementioned 2004 ALCS is the guts of the enterprise, Believers is ultimately a love letter to not just its subjects but to its viewers. The die-hard Bostonians who once lived and died on the dream of a championship that continually slipped out of their reach, but who now exist on the other side of victory. Red Sox fans no longer rage against the machine; they are the machine. This series gives them a chance to remember what it felt like.

It scratches the nostalgic itch for a misery they can’t feel anymore.

The series wisely wraps itself in a red and navy blue packaging that doesn’t allow for certain realities, such as the championship dominance of the Boston Celtics or the emerging New England Patriots dynasty that was already underway. Instead, it paints Bostonians as wistful romantics who wouldn’t know what a championship was or what one would even look like.

The first episode retraces the many heartbreaks of Red Sox fandom across the 20th and early 21st centuries, including Bucky F***ing Dent, Bill Buckner’s error, and Aaron F***ing Boone. The history of the franchise and Boston itself is presented by a who’s who of notable and unnotable Bostonians, including Affleck, Damon (natch), Katie Nolan, Bill Burr (also the narrator), Donnie Wahlberg, Maria Menounos, and Uzo Aduba.

The smartest thing the series does is to use Neil DeGrasse Tyson as the avatar for New York Yankees fans. Tyson’s smug self-satisfaction and the-fact-are-the-facts delivery encapsulate Yankees fandom perfectly (I say as a Mets fan). He knows how to weaponize his sense of certainty to perfection.

Whereas the first episode is more by-the-numbers, the second one is the most interesting, as it uses the ALCS and the Red Sox roster to delve into significant issues that have plagued not just the franchise but the city itself. Boston’s history of overt racism and class warfare, coupled with honest conversations about the team’s ownership, provides valuable context. It would have been easy to leave some of that on the cutting-room floor.

By the time the third episode rolls around, we’re deep into Boston’s thrilling comeback. Admittedly, I had forgotten just how wild each of Games 4, 5, and 6 in that series were. Eventually, and hopefully I’m not spoiling this for anyone, we do see the Red Sox advance to the World Series, which was unfortunately incredibly anticlimactic, as well as the cathartic celebrations.

The three-part series is a curiosity of choices. Stylistically, it’s a hodge-podge. Bill Burr’s narration at the top of each episode feels tacked on. While talking heads come and go, author Dennis Lehane and writer Devin Gordon end up as the de facto narrators, guiding us through most of each episode. The theme of fandom as a religion serves as the backbone of the chapter-like setup, which makes sense, but its relevance fluctuates.

As for the participating Red Sox players, it was surprising to see Curt Schilling receive as much face time as he did, especially given how his presence was seemingly cut out of ESPN’s Four Days in October, not to mention his adversarial relationship with the company. David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, and Bronson Arroyo all show up. While Ortiz receives a well-deserved spotlight and Pedro Martinez receives attention, one Red Sox star who often gets backburnered is Manny Ramirez. He doesn’t appear and receives little individual recognition.

For a docuseries with access to so much footage and numerous talking heads, the constant use of animation is somewhat jarring. Throughout the series, we’re treated to several cutesy animations or caricatures, such as a literal Green Monster, a Mariano Rivera field entrance, and a cartoon Babe Ruth. In almost every instance, it pulls you out of the experience, whereas real-life footage would have been more impactful.

However you might feel about Boston or the Red Sox, it’s hard not to get choked up when fans take turns talking about celebrating that championship with their long-suffering parents, as well as with dearly departed relatives who didn’t live long enough to enjoy it. Some things in sports are just universal.

“It’s never gonna be the same because there’s no story there anymore,” says Bill Burr, summing up the ethos of Red Sox fandom post-2004. “That lonely feeling of accomplishing a goal. My whole thing was focused on this, and then I just did it. Now what do I do? But… It’s way better than losing.”

That’s the struggle at the heart of being a Red Sox fan as well as the docuseries. In many ways, it was more enjoyable being miserable. It was certainly more poetic. And you don’t realize that until one day you wake up and you’re Neil DeGrasse Tyson, smugly chuckling into the camera.