The Beaning
2017 · 9m · United States
Directed by Sean McCoy
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, dark, provocative
An experimental documentary explores a sinister theory: that Cleveland player Ray Chapman's 1920 death by beanball was a Satanic sacrifice that launched the Yankees dynasty.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
This is exactly the kind of premise that makes people go 'wait, WHAT?'—taking a 1920s baseball death and treating it as occult conspiracy with complete deadpan conviction. Most scouts would laugh it off; McCoy leans into the absurdity hard enough that it becomes genuinely unsettling, which is the whole point.
The experimental documentary form here walks a careful line between satire and formal inquiry, though the execution occasionally sacrifices rigor for provocation—the archival footage and voice-over operate in interesting tension, but the film's self-aware absurdism keeps it from the sustained conviction that would elevate it into essential work.
The masterstroke is the deadpan narration that never winks at the camera—McCoy commits completely to the Satanic conspiracy framework, and that tonal choice, maintained across nine minutes with zero irony signals, transforms what could've been a gimmick into something genuinely uncanny and weird.