The Return of The Chicagoist Reader Meet-Up
Cubs Combat Casino
Notre Dame Fan Takes It Too Far, Allegedly Punches Clausen
County Sales Tax Rollback Vetoed - Here We Go Again
PHOTOS: Peaches And Amanda Blank At Metro
Almost six years later and the bespectacled, headphoned pariah of Cubs baseball (though unfairly so) will once again be trudged up courtesy of ESPN. The World Wide Leader is in the midst of putting together its "30 for 30" campaign, featuring 30 sports-related documentaries to celebrate the network's 30 years on air. And one of those documentaries will focus on the beleaguered Bartman. The doc was written and directed by Alex Gibney who earned accolades for his Oscar-nominated doc "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." NBC 5 reports, "The sports channel said that Gibney’s documentary will attempt to answer the question: Can Bartman ever forgive Chicago?" A more salient question would be: can Chicago ever forgive Alex Gonzalez for having a lead glove and Moises Alou for a bit of over-reacting?
ESPN Making Documentary On Bartman
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebookComments (22) [rss]
Post a comment (Comment Policy)
Tips
Contribute
Latest Tip:
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at the Red Orchid Theatre--it made Crains
[more]
ESPN: STFU about Bartman already
Exactly. Let the poor guy live his life.
All ESPN is doing is make it seem like Cubs fans blame Bartman, which we don't. Not to mention it wasn't even Bartman who tipped the ball, it was the guy next to him.
Easy to blame the guy. Better targets:
-Dusty Baker for not going to the bullpen earlier - Prior was clear gassed.
-The team for losing the next game.
G-damn NO:
Can Chicago ever forgive Alex Gonzalez for having a lead glove?
I hope that Bartman, many years from now, makes a fking fortune telling his side of this story.
Can Bartman ever forgive Chicago?
Whoa...slow the fuck down ESPN. I got no problem with the guy. Never have, never will. WTF is up with lumping the entire citizenry with a few of narrow-minded jamokes who probably still blame a goat for all of their problems too. Granted, I'm a Sox fan, but if he had screwed with a fly ball that cost the Sox the title in 05, I might be pissed for a while but I think i'm smart enough to get over it. And truth be told, there were a bunch of hands sticking out reaching for that ball. He was just the unlucky one to be sitting closes too it. People seem to forget that.
But thanks for the lazy journalism anyway, Espy...
Oh, and fuck Moises Alou too.
still don't understand the need to listen to the game on headphones when you are sitting basically on the field.
but enough ESPN, your relevancy is fading fast
Because you want to hear the the extra details that you either can't see or aren't privvy to...why the manager was tossed out, what the batter and the plate umpire are arguing about and whether the ball was even close to a strike, how close that guys foot was to first base if you're seated out in the bleachers... It's more a side product of a generation that has grown up with tv sports and is used to having all of this additional information with our games. Some people need that additional "voice" or input while watching the game. I understand it. I don't do it personally, but it's no different than the guys in those old black and white footage listing to a game on a transistor radio while sitting in the stands.
Or maybe Bartman was listening to WFMT and not even aware of what was REALLY going on on the field.
Credit where its due, Bartman has turned down a lot of money over the years, including 25 grand last year to sign one autograph at some memorabilia show.
Look at some of the wads of mucus who would murder their siblings on reality tv shows for that kind of money. The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time and has been stand-up about it from the get go. Let him be.
And as a Sox fan, I love him. :)
I am not blaming Bartman for anything but I have to repeat what everyone that follows baseball has been saying for years: He should have gotten out of the f****** way! He didn't cause them to lose and he had nothing to do with anything else that happened, but everyone needs to understand that when you are at a baseball game, you need to pay attention to what is going on. Unless you are in the bleachers at Wrigley - just get drunk and take your top off already.
so, if an apparent foul ball right out you, you're supposed to try to not catch it? I call bullshit on that. It's not like he was hanging down into the field while his drunk buddy was holding his legs. Bartman did nothing wrong nor nothing anyone else would have done.
if alou had not acted like a whiny bitch, bartman would have never been singled out and that play would have been long forgotten 5 minutes later.
I don't think it's fair to blame Alou for his reaction -- five outs away from the World Series and a fan touches the ball you're about to catch for an out? (And I firmly believe he would have caught it.) I would have reacted similarly. Most people, regardless of temperament, would have reacted similarly. And everyone watching on TV, myself included, didn't need Alou to tell me that a fan just touched a fly ball that was still in play.
the ball you're about to catch
MAYBE about to catch.
And I firmly believe he would have caught it
I think this comment shows how much Cub fans do not know about baseball.
On the VERY NEXT PLAY the Cub Shortstop missed a ground ball that was hit right to him!
A ball that I firmly believe a 3rd grader could have fielded.
Yet, a Cubs fan comments about "I firmly believe....." he should have caught a ball that was hit in the stands?!?
That's not how the game works.
Enjoy the "atmosphere" and have some beers...but please Cub fans, don't try to talk about the game itself. The Cub Fan stereotype is fulfilled when you do.
I think this comment shows how much Cub fans do not know about baseball.
Is that a challenge? Bring it, chief. I'm serious. You want to throw down about baseball knowledge? Fucking bring it.
Sure I'll throw down some baseball knowledge with ya:
What do the New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs have in common?
Neither team has won a World Series in their "New" Stadium.
A better question would be if Bartman can forgive the national media that has been hounding him for six years. In conversations about the Cubs with actual fans his name has not come up in years.
To be honest, the thing that upsets me the most about the 2003 season 6 years later is not Bartman or A-Gon, but the way Dusty overused Wood and Prior down the stretch and the damage that did long-term.
I haven't heard the national media talk about Bartman in years. Where are you hearing this "hounding" you speak of? Not being a dick, I'm really curious.
There's no "hounding". That's how a media outlet creates a story. Set the stage (Bartman is still being hounded!), then find morons willing to get on camera and say they still are affected by that one play. Voila, instant hounding, just add laziness. I'm pretty sure that Bartman has been to several games since, maybe avoiding that section, but leave the hat and walkman at home and he's just any other fan sitting there.
Although when I look at that photo again, yeah, it does seem like he should have been a little more aware and pulled back a bit on trying to catch the ball. His hands are a little over the wall. You've got great seats at a playoff game and you're not congnizant of the situation? I know it can happen to (almost) anybody, but geez...
Well ESPN always goes back to him, sending people out once in a while for an interview. When the Cubs have been in the playoffs for the last couple of years they always mention bartman and the goat and blah blah blah in their little intro pieces. Bartman comes up with the rest of the crap that the national media lazily churns out when talking about the cubs. I'm not saying that every cubs highlight on sports center starts off "Well the Cubs, who lost game 6 of the NLCS because of Steve Bartman, pounded the Astros for a second straight day, this time 12-3". but it gets dusted off and trotted out a few times a year.
A more salient question would be: can Chicago ever forgive Alex Gonzalez for having a lead glove and Moises Alou for a bit of over-reacting?
You're missing the point. The documentary is not about us, it's about Steve Bartman.
No one calls it the Gonzalez play or the Alou play, they call it the Bartman play. The guy's whole life was ruined because he made a mistake that everyone around him was also trying to make. He received dozens of death threats, for God's sake. It's easy for us to talk about his situation because none of us are pariahs.
Considering he's shrewdly kept a low profile ever since it happened means this is a journalistic stone unturned. Asking whether he can forgive Chicago is a good question.
And at any rate, I always blamed Dusty Baker. What he should have done was get Matt Clement up in the bullpen and then call the whole team to the mound and calm them down -- it was still 3-0! Instead, he did nothing but mutter about the incident while his players on the field melted down. That was a textbook example of terrible leadership.
We will sadly see Mr. Bartman chiseled into Cubs history for years to come, as his "participation" plays into the continuing legend of those cursed Cubs. The only thing that will make everyone forget Mr. Bartman is a World Series victory.