Catching Hell

I have watched a few of the ESPN documentaries recently because a couple of good ones made me watch more and this one looked like it had potential. Sports is always filled with great stories and even though I am not a baseball fan I was aware of the two stories here. Funnily enough I was only aware of Buckner because of his recent role on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I was aware of Steve Bartman by deed rather than name, since the one-line summary of what he did essentially went around the western world as one of those "and finally" stories they like to close the news out with before chuckling and saying good night. That the film was written and directed by Gibney just made me more keen to see it because he had done very good work with Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side, so he is a guy who can make documentaries.

Sadly Catching Hell is not as good a documentary as it should have been because of how it sets out its stall but really fails to achieve its goal. The actual telling of the two sporting moments is well done; even those very familiar with both will find the retelling interesting because it is well structured and interesting. The focus on the Buckner incident is a good starting point and sets the theme of the scapegoat well before we go into the Bartman incident. The casual viewer will find much of interest here and indeed my girlfriend started watching this at one point without any knowledge of it and was quite held by the telling. However, where the film is weak is because it doesn't do anything beyond this telling, even though it is structured to do so and constantly sets itself up to do so.

The film is set-up with Gibney asking questions about why we always seem to have these scapegoats and what causes one specific moment to be blamed more than any other – after all, none of the games we look at here (or the many others you'll think of) are lost in just that one moment, so why? He looks briefly at the history of superstition around each club and he then moves on to look at each incident in terms of how it was handled by the media, the other professionals and the fans. However in none of these do we seem to go beyond just looking and in that we never go beyond the surface really. The questions Gibney asked at the start as his frame seem to be mostly absent from the rest of the film and it is a lesser beast for it. The role of the media in overdoing the talking points would have been a focal point I'd like to have seen chased, since this is where both incidents appear to have gone from frustration into hatred and being a focus for anger. Sadly, although Gibney gets some comments out of those speaking for the media, he really doesn't push it.

In the end what we are left with is a film that captures the two incidents and makes for an interesting sports film in that regard but really doesn't stand out as a good documentary simply because it doesn't question and probe in the way I felt it should have done. It captures events really well but it just doesn't explore them in a way that would have made for a better film.

I was pretty familiar with both of these stories, but this two-hour special was still very good and a real eye-opener in parts, particularly on Steve Bartman.

Basically, it's a story of injustice. It's about two men, one a ballplayer in Boston and another, a fan in Chicago, and how one incident unjustly ruined their lives. The ballplayer is Bill Buckner, who let a ground ball go through his legs which contributed - not cost - to his team losing the 1986 World Series to the New York Mets. Most people have seen lots of footage of the amazing comeback of the Mets in that series and know how the media (mainly) made Buckner the scapegoat.

The bulk of this ESPN story, however, deals with Bartman, the unlucky fan who did what everyone else does at a game: reached with outstretched arms for a foul ball. In a nutshell, the Cubs - whose fans were desperate for the team's first championship since 1908 - lost the game and went on to miss the World Series. They blamed it on this fan because the Cubs left fielder, Moises Alou, made a big stink about it on the field and it would have given the Cubs two outs in the eighth inning while they were holding a 3-0 lead. If they won, they would have advanced to the world series. The opponents, the Florida Marlins, went on to score eight runs in the inning, won the next game, as they won the World Series. Who did the Cubs fans blame? The shortstop who booted an easy double-play ball in the inning? The pitchers who gave up all the runs? Nooooo. They blamed Bartman, a nerdy-looking young man who just there rooting for his beloved Cubs like everyone else.

The shocking part of the story is the behind-the-scenes footage at the game, the stuff you didn't see in this 2003 playoff game. The abuse this young guy took was unbelievable. You have to see it and hear it to believe it. It's shocking and it's disgraceful. It's a wonder he made it out alive from Wrigley Field and still lives - although in a pretty secret world - in the Chicago area.

This is one of those stories that a review here doesn't do the story justice. You have to sit and watch "Catching Hell" to get the full impact. It left me speechless.

Every single "sports fan" taking part in this documentary was and is a dillusional idiot. So butthurt because a fan supposedly interfered with a ball when their team was up 3-0. Give me a break.

The oft-delayed "lost chapter" of ESPN's 30 for 30 series, this strives to be more than just a routine examination of the infamous Steve Bartman incident that may (or may not) have cost the Chicago Cubs a shot at the 2003 World Series. With the famously publicity-shy Bartman refusing to take part, the film instead leans on interviews with several of the fans to rub elbows with him that fateful evening and insightful confessionals from the announce crew that called the game, a good portion of the Cubs' starting lineup, the local news team that outed Bartman's identity to the public and several of the security guards that escorted him to safety as the situation escalated. Director Alex Gibney deserves credit for not only painting a broad, fair portrait of a chaotic, emotionally charged situation, but for rightly comparing it to other instances of misplaced blame and shameless scapegoating in pro sports and asking the difficult question of what exactly spins a knee-jerk reaction into a bonafide vendetta. Though the scrutiny of the Bartman play itself is a bit too intense at times, resulting in a run-time that's about 30 minutes too long, it accomplishes much more than a simple reenactment and should leave any serious sports fan wondering how many times they've reacted with the same brainless mob mentality over the years. Smart, challenging and honest; it's what any good documentary should strive to be.

Director Alex Gibney is a Boston Red Sox fan and recounts Bill Buckner in 1986. He sees similarity to scapegoating Steve Bartman. The Cubs are supposedly cursed since the Billy Goat in 1945. They haven't won the World Series since 1908 or been in one since 1945. It's October 14, 2003 Wrigley Field in Chicago. In the 8th inning of Game 6 of the NLCS, the Cubs are ahead 3–0 and up 3 games to 2. With 1 out, Steve Bartman reaches out for a foul ball deflecting it from outfielder Moisés Alou. It is a compelling sports story and a legendary scapegoat. It is crowd psychology and human nature. It's got great behind-the-scenes footage dissecting the incident from every angle. The main missing ingredient is Bartman himself. It is perfectly understandable but that would have make it the definitive word.