Back in the summer of 2014, it felt like everyone in Chicago was paying attention to what 13 kids from Morgan Park were accomplishing on a baseball diamond 600 miles away in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. As the all-Black Jackie Robinson West team advanced through the Little League World Series, the city was all in, including a watch party that shut down State Street and, ultimately, a parade befitting the Cubs or Sox to celebrate the team’s U.S. championship.

Kevin Shaw was among the enthralled. With an up-close view of the team’s run while covering the games for ESPN, “I was totally on the bandwagon,” says the Emmy-winning cinematographer and producer. Shaw, who grew up in Calumet Heights, captures the triumph in his new documentary, One Golden Summer. 

At least that’s the first half of the film, which combines old footage with present-day interviews of players, parents, coaches, and media personalities. Summer’s second half covers territory less golden: In February 2015, Little League stripped Jackie Robinson West of its title for violating residency requirements. The film offers no easy answers about who’s to blame. Shaw directs his focus elsewhere, to “the bond and brotherhood that developed [among team members] during that time, that still exists,” and to the toll the controversy took on the youth, who suddenly went from being invited to the White House and meeting Barack Obama to being ostracized as cheaters.

The film also counteracts the media’s lazy narrative of a team made up of poor Black kids from violence-plagued neighborhoods. “They were coming from middle-class families,” says Shaw. “I wanted to peel back the curtain of that kind of stereotype.” As local sports radio host Laurence W. Holmes says in the film, “We don’t see an image of Black boys smiling a lot. Black boys spend a majority of life being looked at as a threat. Here you had this outpouring of joy.” Even if short-lived.

One Golden Summer premieres at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 15 at the Music Box Theatre.