On Tuesday evening, DICK’s Sporting Goods’ new content and production studio, “Cookie Jar & A Dream Studios,” made its official debut with the premiere of Big Dreams: The Little League World Series 2024, a 51-minute documentary about the annual magic that occurs in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
The early screening was hosted at The Walt Disney Company’s New York City headquarters, with Álex Rodríguez and ESPN MLB Analyst Tim Kurkjian among the marquee attendees.
After the documentary, Kurkjian held a Q&A with Rodríguez and Emmy Award-winning director Rudy Valdez, who had this to say about the tournament:
“When you sit there and you watch a game and you watch a tournament like this unfold, you see these magical moments of a kid losing, and a coach lifting their chin up and saying, ‘We get to get up again tomorrow and fight,’
“I’ll never forget that. Watching it day in and day out is phenomenal.”
Valdez’s team explored the personalities and stories of teams that had ventured from all over the planet to experience the thrill of Williamsport. Kurkjian, in his opening remarks, likened the LLWS to baseball heaven meeting the county fair.
Of all the stories highlighted in the documentary — such as the championship-winning team from Lake Mary, Florida, the humility of a Japanese group which was admittedly not the strongest there, and a Hinsdale, Illinois squad which had been through everything on its journey there — none stood out more than the boys from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
One of their coaches, Ricardo “Ricky” Benavides Jr., had passed away in November of 2023. The team honored him with a No. 90 jersey reading “Benavides” on the back. Benavides’ father, Ricardo Sr., was in attendance in Williamsport, too.
While the Mexicans did not hoist the trophy at the end, they had the most touching and tear-jerking storyline of a documentary filled with sentimentality.
