In Going, Going, Gone: The Magic of the Home Run, Roy Wood Jr. explores legendary blasts with MLB stars in this fun, star-packed baseball doc on Roku.

The 48-minute documentary special’s release is appropriately timed with the 2025 Home Run Derby taking place in just over a week. Some of the most iconic home runs and calls in MLB history are included—among them, Jack Buck’s famous 1985 NLCS Game 5 call as Ozzie Smith “corked it into deep right” and sent St. Louis into a frenzy with a walk-off win.

To set the tone, the filmmakers open with a bit from Wood Jr.’s stand-up set about baseball and the home run. From there, his journey takes him to Cooperstown to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, where Ford Frick Award winner Bob Costas is (hilariously) manning the information booth and ends up giving a personal tour. Is this what Frick Award winners do after retiring from the broadcast booth? I kid, I kid.

The story of the home run, as Costas explains, starts with Babe Ruth—but the legend of the long ball goes well beyond the sport’s power hitters. While many of baseball’s greatest sluggers—steroids era included—have plaques in Cooperstown, some of the most unforgettable postseason homers came off the bats of players who aren’t in the Hall of Fame. Among Costas’s top picks:

• Derek Jeter – 2001 World Series Game 4
• Bernie Carbo – 1975 World Series Game 6
• Ozzie Smith – 1985 NLCS Game 5
• Bucky Dent – 1978 AL East Tiebreaker
• Bill Mazeroski – 1960 World Series Game 7
• Aaron Boone – 2003 ALCS Game 7
• Kirk Gibson – 1988 World Series Game 1
• Joe Carter – 1993 World Series Game 6

No look at the home run is complete without the 1961 chase between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Maris set the single-season record with 61, while Mantle finished with 54. Aaron Judge broke Maris’s mark in 2022 with 62, and many—taking the steroid era into account—consider that the “true” Major League record. The 1998 chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa helped bring fans back to baseball, but the truth about performance-enhancing drugs can’t be ignored. The same goes for Barry Bonds. […]

For the rest of my review, please head over to Dugout Dirt.

DIRECTOR: Andrew Brenner
HOST/NARRATOR: Roy Wood Jr.
FEATURING: Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Jazz Chisholm, Pete Alonso, Teoscar Hernandez, Albert Pujols, Chris Berman, Bob Costas

The Roku Channel released Going, Going, Gone: The Magic of the Home Run on July 6, 2025. Grade: 3.5/5

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