"Catching Hell" 30 for 30

[jjgott]

Anyone else catch this last night? Thought it was a great look at the dark side of fandom. While I am generally quite happy to see the Cubs suffer, you can't help but feel for Bartman after watching it.

[PrinceEatMeat]

Yeah, I watched it. Very good. Interesting stuff.

[paul253]

I didn't see it but the one thing that always gets me is that Moises Alou was a terrible outfielder. I didn't think he was going to catch that ball. I know he was upset and all but (maybe he did but I don't remember it) after the game he should have accepted blame for it. Maybe Cubs fans wouldn't have believed him, but he essentially ruined this guys life by not admitting that he probably wouldn't have caught the ball anyway. And then of course Chicago imploded. The game was not Bartman's fault.

[dadofandrew]

Anyone with a pair of eyes could see Alou was not going to be close to the ball, which Moises admitted years later. And if Bartman doesn't touch it, 2-3 others would have.

 

It was much ado about nothing. The old media just kept running with it, and fans intent on finding a reason for giving up all those runs found it easier to point fingers.

[jjgott]

The interesting thing is in the doc, Alou seems to say that he would've catch the ball. Plus in the interview he tries to compare himself to Buckner which I don't really see. Unless I haven't heard something, I don't see how that play has affected him to the same degree and Buckner/Bartman.

[Patrick425]

paul253[/b]]I didn't see it but the one thing that always gets me is that Moises Alou was a terrible outfielder. I didn't think he was going to catch that ball. I know he was upset and all but (maybe he did but I don't remember it) after the game he should have accepted blame for it. Maybe Cubs fans wouldn't have believed him, but he essentially ruined this guys life by not admitting that he probably wouldn't have caught the ball anyway. And then of course Chicago imploded. The game was not Bartman's fault.

 

Someone at work was telling me about this doc today. I missed it last night, but I'm going to be sure to catch it next time it's on.

 

So, I'm not sure exactly what they said about Alou and what he said afterwards, but I could swear that a day or two later he came out with a kind of Rodney King "Can't we all just get along" type statement where he was telling people that he over reacted to the situation and that the people of Chicago should not blame Bartman.

[radman12484]

Alou said he remembered that play that he did everything right going up for the ball, so he would of caught it. No matter how you look at this, you gotta feel for the guy now. If even he's still a Cubs fan, he wouldn't be able to go to any games at Wrigley.

[FoxyFoxes]

I watched it and I too feel for the guy . Also had a nightmare last night that we had a "Bartman" incident in the playoffs......http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Patrick425]

I can see wear reaching over a barrier or fence towards a ball that is in the air might be a natural instinctive move. However, I will never understand the people that lean over the railing and interfere on a fair ground ball down the line. I still can not get over how often that happens. It angers me every time.

[PrinceEatMeat]

They showed in the documentary that Alou would've caught the ball. Took everything out except Alou and the ball. Ball was headed right into Alou's glove. Nonetheless this happens all the time. Tons of others went for the ball. Just like on Buckner's, he was the scapegoat. A lot more led to that loss.

[trwi7]

FoxyFoxes wrote:

---

Also had a nightmare last night that we had a "Bartman" incident in the playoffs......http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

Complete with our shortstop botching an easy double play ball? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[FoxyFoxes]

No....it was Casey making the error. Didn't they always say if you dream something on Tuesday it was bound to come true. Dang.....

[dadofandrew]

You know what the funny thing is? I wouldn't have caught it, anyway.--Moises Alou, 2008.

 

He later said he did not recall saying that. Never looked close to me.

[owbc]

It is interesting that this documentary came out now--it had been rumored for awhile and I was excited at first because I figured they finally had secured a Bartman interview and he was going to break his silence. But...two hours later, nothing. Two hours with nothing new except a new camera angle. It was entertaining, and scary with the Brewers headed to October, but nothing new.

 

The Buckner perspective was much more interesting--although once again, old news. Especially intriguing was Buckner's comment that he needed to forgive the media in order to move on with his life. Then, at the end of the film, ESPN basically made a personal plea to Steve Bartman to grant them an interview.

 

From my perspective, the theme of the film was a glorified interview request. First, they reminded Bartman that he is well aware of his position in history--and right now, it isn't good. Buckner represents the parallel universe, and the story with Buckner ends up happy, he comes out of hiding, everyone forgives, and people move on. The whole theme of the thing was to get the audience to sympathize with Bartman--or in my view, for ESPN, as representation of the media, to appear sorry and sympathetic.

 

The other prevailing theme was that sports culture is still extremely enthralled with Bartman. ESPN clearly put quite a bit of money and effort into this film because they knew it would draw ratings. And they are right, the "mystery" of Bartman's legacy still pervades Chicago. Especially Chicago sports writers. And they all believe that Bartman is going to talk eventually and its going to be a huge story.

 

Bartman's not interested in money, and I'm sure ESPN has repeatedly offered him cash to talk. But since Bartman isn't interested, ESPN decided to spend the cash to appeal to Bartman's inner feelings, his supposed desire to return his life to normal, to be forgiven. In the end, the film admits that Bartman will probably not talk until the Cubs break the curse. But if he ever decides to, he knows who to call first.

[dadofandrew]

Bill Buckner had a spectacular career, fell just short of HoF worthy. It was a shame that he was made out to be a bad player. Guys make errors all the time. Some hurt, some don't. You can't pick and choose. In all my years of softball, I never once made an error that led to a bunch of runs being scored. I played on lots of bad teams that gave up 8 runs in an inning with 2-3 errors committed.

 

Just good luck for me, bad luck for Mr. Buckner.

[ilovebeer]

It is on again tomorrow night, I have my dvr set up to tape it.

[GAME05]

didn't see it, but i feel bad for Bartman. made a catch that 90% of any fan would have made. and by all accounts, he's a pretty big Cubs fan.

 

read an article some time ago from a reporter that tracked him down in a parking lot. i guess he still lives in works in Chicago. it stinks that he really has to live his live almost undercover now and probably can't say his real name to too many people. does what any fan would do but now he's a pariah.

[tristarscoop]

Kind of disappointed that they spent so much time on Buckner and Boston. I mean, there are parallels, but I feel like they were just filling time because they didn't have enough to fill a whole film with Bartman.

 

Also, its all kind of meta to have this movie with a major theme about an obsessed media and sports culture. Like others have said, it felt like a request to Bartman, making the filmmaker as responsible for the problem as anyone else.

[LouisEly]

I think perhaps the main point of the film was expressed very well - character is revealed by adversity. They commented at the end - very astutely and IMO very accurately - that the entity who handled this situation with the most class was Bartman. If you think about the "character is revealed by adversity" theme, what does that say about the Cubs fans and the city of Chicago?

 

The fact that a fan base and a city blame 100 years of futility on a goat and a guy who tried to catch a foul ball hit at him, and assume that the ball was going to be caught by a guy who peed on his hands, is pathetic.

[yoshii8]

I love sports, and the Brewers, but I can't ever imagine having hatred for someone who did what Bartman did. Like others mentioned, if he didn't catch it, 3 or 4 others would've. In the end its just a game.

[nate82]

Every time I see that play I don't see how Alou could have caught that ball. It looks as though Alou was short on his jump and he jumped way to early to even be able to catch that ball. The ball would have hit the railing just to the left of Bartman so I still can not see how Alou would have caught that ball.

[AdvantageSchneider]

It is interesting that this documentary came out now--it had been rumored for awhile and I was excited at first because I figured they finally had secured a Bartman interview and he was going to break his silence. But...two hours later, nothing. Two hours with nothing new except a new camera angle. It was entertaining, and scary with the Brewers headed to October, but nothing new.

 

Bartman's not interested in money, and I'm sure ESPN has repeatedly offered him cash to talk. But since Bartman isn't interested, ESPN decided to spend the cash to appeal to Bartman's inner feelings, his supposed desire to return his life to normal, to be forgiven. In the end, the film admits that Bartman will probably not talk until the Cubs break the curse. But if he ever decides to, he knows who to call first.

+1 on all of that. I was pretty disappointed. I don't remember hearing about how they snuck him out of the stadium, so I felt that was somewhat interesting. But all the rest was pretty meh.

Tieing it in with Buckner was kind of weak IMO. They hired a Red Sox fan to do the documentary so of course there has to be a Red Sox tie in. They couldn't find a Cubs fan to do it?

 

[PrinceEatMeat]

Like they said in the movie, I think Alou's reaction really fueled the fire. If he didn't flip out and then comment after the game about for sure catching it, I don't think it would've gotten overblown like it did.

[Schlitz001]

Like they said in the movie, I think Alou's reaction really fueled the fire. If he didn't flip out and then comment after the game about for sure catching it, I don't think it would've gotten overblown like it did.

This was the only thing new that I got out of the documentary. I always knew that Alou acted upset, but I never thought about what might have happened had he not been so upset immediately after the play. If Alou had just walked away casually as if it were completely natural for a fan to grab for a fly ball, then the replay wouldn't have been played over and over again and the game probably would have fallen more on the Cubs as a team, if not Gonzalez. For the record I think Alou would have made the catch.

[Braminano]

This was supposed to be part of the "30 for 30" series, but as the air date approached, the director Alex Gibney said he needed more time. When he was given that extra year, I expected this movie to be a home run. I thought "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Taxi to the Dark Side" were fantastic films by Gibney and didn't see how he could not deliver on this.

 

In my opinion, this was really lousy. There was an HBO documentary about the Cubs a few years ago that covered most of the same Bartman ground and even gave more context for some of the people in this film (for example, the guy who you kept seeing clips of from the bleachers had recorded the whole season and was supposedly going to get a deal for all his footage had they gone to the World Series). Really the only new information was the detail about how Bartman got out of Wrigley Field. It was a very repetitive documentary and all the Red Sox/Buckner stuff was really forced. Also, while it works in some context, this was a documentary that wasn't really connected to the filmmaker at all, so it was pointless for him to include footage of himself on the radio when the only reason he was there was because he was making a movie about the subject. For him to get that extra year and not get Bartman to do an interview is an absolute failure.