OT: "Catching Hell" 30 for 30
 

Tonight is the debut broadcast of "Catching Hell", the 30 for 30 documentary on ESPN. I have been anxiously waiting to watch it. It is about the Steve Bartman incident. 8est/7central. I hope that they interview Bartman, as this would be the best time for him to tell his side of the story.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoumAUfwnI8

He won,t be interviewed for the show according to a review I read. Since I am not a Cubs fan I haven,t really formed an opinion as to whether he should be a sympathetic figure or not. It should be a great show as ESPN usually does a nice job on these. CN

Of course he should be a sympathetic figure..he did what just about any fan in the world would do and he wasn't the only Cubs fan grabbing for that ball...He's been offered all kinds of stuff to become a fan of other teams and has declined. It's absolutely sickening the way he's been treated and it really made me start rooting against the Cubs..a team which I used to pull for regularly. Bartman didn't make Gonzalez commit an error..he didn't make Prior suck.

Agree, and he hasn't been around since 1908 (or whenever) for that matter either.

He is nothing more than a scapegoat for a team that failed to deliver..nothing more...nothing less.

This poor guy is employed where I work and has even had reporters stalking him in our parking lot asking him for comments. They really need to leave this guy alone.

As lifelong Chicagoan and Cubs fan this will be bittersweet to watch, Cubs had plenty of chances to win that series after the bartman play.

But yes we are looking for any reason to blame some curse and not the owner/GM/coaches/players.

As we say around here, "next year is our year for sure."

I hate to tell you but it won't be next year either...

I'm sure he's really looking forward to this 30-30 episode to bring the incident to the cub fans eyes again, especially after another stellar season on their part.... and even worse, Zambrano was on my fantasy baseball team

I'm a huge Cubs fan and will definitely try to watch this. I never "blamed" Bartman and I feel very sorry for him. It was just instinct, and as a previous poster said, lots of other people were reaching, too. That being said, I'm convinced that Alou would have caught that ball. He had it measured perfectly and it was definitely in reach. And after that, things just snowballed. (As they always seem to do with the Cubs.)

People say, well, these guys are professional athletes and they shouldn't believe in curses and all that. And that they should've just put the Bartman thing out of their head and moved on. To that I say, bull#@%. They're human. And when something goes wrong in such a pressure-packed situation, and with the Cubs history, I really think it starts getting in some of the players' heads. They start thinking, "Uh-oh. What's going to go wrong next?" Then they're distracted, and more bad stuff happens. And the snowball starts rolling.

Anyway, just a little rant from a miserable Cubs fan (I think that's redundant).

Cheers.
Rob

That poor guy. Anyone that blames him for anything needs to get a life.

He's no Bill Buckner but pretty close.

Has Bill Buckner been somewhat forgiven for his "sins" now that the Sox won a World Series.

I would hope so, but think the stubborn fans will never forgive him and the newer generation is over it as they don't remember and now could care less since the curse has been broken. Time seems to heal old wounds, and Buckner always had a great attitude about it even though it hurt him a lot. When his wife said a fan walked up all crazy eyed and said to him "why don't you just kill yourself" and was completely serious you realize how insane the world can be and what a target a scapegoat becomes, and the worst part is the stigma will never go away and that is all people remember. It is funny how many Turkey sandwiches are named "Billy Buckner" and many people still drop the ole 'Billy F-ng Buckner' bomb.....

I don’t remember all the details, but after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 they brought Buckner back and introduced him to the crowd. He got one of the greatest ovations ever, and I think it brought him to tears. I would say he has been forgiven.

Did you have a chance to see him on Curb Your Enthusiasm a few weeks ago?
Was really good I thought.

Totally agree. 95% of the fans would have done the same thing. To blame it all on him is seriously messed up. Poor guy.

That being said, I'm not a cubs fan! Maybe if this happened to my beloved Yankees, I'd have a different point of view.

I'm with the rest here. Bartman didn't do a darn thing wrong. I still remember watching the play, and I thought Moises' little tantrum exacerbated the anti-Bartman sentiment. In retrospect, I think that kind of shows how my beloved Cubbies felt about the game. After the "incident" we were still up, our stud was on the hill, and we were at home. The attitude should have been, "no worries, we got this" instead it was "omigod, now what?!". Winners win, we Cr@pped the bed.

I'm really looking forward to this documentary.

I agree completely.

I think after the game Alou even said Bartman did what any fan would want to do.

Good show
 

I liked the show a lot. I feel very bad for the way the fans and the media treated him afterward.

Tony

Bartman sure does have alot of class about him.

Could not agree more.

I was in high school when it happened, and remember it vividly...

I remember my dad turning to my brother and I, saying, in an earnest and almost comforting manner "You know that they're going to lose, right?" I suppose I should also mention that he said this the pitch before Castillo's foul ball. As I was saying "Oh come on! I can't believe the Cubs are going to go to the World Series!" with a smile on my face, the Bartman incident was just about to commence. After, I just looked over to my dad and noticed a look of serenity as to communicate that 40 years of being a Cubs fan had prepared him for this seemingly unpredictable moment.

The real issue was Gonzalez's boot. I feel awful for Bartman, and for the 3 chairs/1 controller I annihilated.


Oh, and one problem I've always had is the "any other fan would have done the same thing". I have been to countless baseball games, and have never lunged at any foul ball, never reached for one, I simply stay there completely focused on the game. I don't care about catching a foul ball. I can say with full certainty that I would have been pushing people away from the ball. That having been said, I still do not fault Bartman. I simply chalk it up to the fact that the Cubss will never win the World Series. The means by which they do not win are irrelevant. People are different, personalities are different.

Had I been there, I, and I know many of you would have as well, would have been standing up for him, and would not have taken part in what soon became a lynch-mob. Absolutely pathetic, seeing those animals throw beer on the guy, actually detailing how Bartman should have been killed. If you watched the show, did you hear the guy that said "Put a 12 gauge in his mouth and pull the trigger!" ????????????????? Who are these people?


Anyways, it was a great documentary!

Did this only air on Eastern Time? I was really looking forward to it but poker and Sports Center are on out here on the West coast.

It aired on Central time as well.

Whoops, I mean did it only air at 8 PM Eastern Time across the country rather than playing at 8 PM in each time zone. Seems like that's the case to me.

Correct. It aired at 5pm local time here in WA. I've got it on my DVR, need to watch it!

Tabe

After watching it, I kind of hate him even more now and Ill tell you why.

If he would just use what happened to make money off of it and put it in peoples faces to say, you stupid people just made me rich because you blame me? people would see what they created and let it go.

By him not talking and writing books or interviews, he remains a ghost.

A ghost with a label the fans have branded him with as The guy who started the turn of events. It was after that moment people started using him as the scapegoat, and why not? He's a ghost.

Great Show! They spent the first 15/20 minutes on Buckner, drawing parallels between the two. Everyone on the show was sympathetic towards Bartman except for maybe one. IMO, the documentary pointed the blame squarely on the media to which they did not deny. Great show unless your a Cubs because it has to bring back some bad memories. :eek:

alou and aramis booking plane tix back to the DR even before game 7 started...classic! yea let's blame the guy trying to catch a foul ball instead.

+1

No way, how can you blame the players, mgmt, or organization ? Plain and simple it is all Bartmans fault along with all the other Cub fans.

Hoping this replays tonight.


Bucky Dent is sort of the anti-Bartman. Everyone knows Reggie Jackson won that game against the Red Sox but no one seems to care.

The show is scheduled to be re-broadcast tonight, on ESPN2,
at 11:00 p.m., EST.

Thanks for the heads up on that.

As for Bartman, recalling watching the game on TV and seeing the replay ad nauseum for days and days after the debacle, it’s clear he deflected the ball before Alou could make the catch. Whether Alou could have made the catch had Bartman not touched the ball is debatable. I will say however in my 45 years of watching MLB games, I’ve seen countless times where savvier fans on front rows of the stands deliberately make space for their hometown players on similar types of plays.

However, to put the blame on Bartman for what occurred during the rest of that inning is absurd. The Marlins went on to score 8 runs that inning with the Cub’s Alex Gonzalez flubbing one the easiest ground outs and possibly a double play. In addition Sosa missed the cut-off man forcing the Cubs to intentionally walk a batter, and Prior admitted hanging a curve ball on a key hit and one could go on and on.

If Bartman did anything, he inadvertently triggered the most catastrophic display of absence of mettle in a group of professional baseball players. In short, the Cubs from that point on allowed themselves to self destruct and beat themselves and have no one else to blame but themselves for being so mentally and emotionally fragile.

Didn't Alou admit a few years ago that he the ball would have been unplayable either way?

As to the whole Buckner thing, it bewildered me on some levels. Yes, his error let in the winning run. However, the much bigger goat in my opinion was the relief pitcher Stanley who WILD PITCHED in the tying run. As far as I'm concerned, it was at that moment when the wheels fell off. Furthermore, the manager McNamera totally screwed the pooch by having Buckner in the game, who was totally damaged goods, in what was an obvious defensive substitution situation.

If looking for a fall guy, I'd rate Buckner a distant third.