"Catching Hell"

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

If you had a chance to check out the ESPN documentary "Catching Hell," you might have seen a couple of my photos!

The show is about Bill Buckner and Steve Bartman, and their fates. The producers found some photos on the blog from a trip to see the Mets and Cubs where my buddy and I were reenacting the moment after the game, and asked to use the photos. I shot one of a goofball Cubs fan sitting in the seat. I get a listing in the credits, which is nice.

It was a good documentary, maybe a little long. Never get tired of watching the 1986 Mets win the series!

[Frayed Knot]

Meant to record that and forgot.
I'm sure they'll replay it.

[Guest themetfairy]

WTG michigan - that's excellent!

[Guest attgig]

that's pretty cool. definitely tape that and keep it in your collection.

congrats!

[bmfc1]

Congrats MGIM. You can see his real name in the credits under (I think) "Photographs and Stills."

It's a good movie that would have been better if it didn't incorporate so much about Buckner and '86. Don't get me wrong: I'm always ready to see replays from '86 but I thought that the point of the movie was Bartman. The Director made it into an examination of scapegoating in baseball and related Buckner to Bartman. I think that the movie would have been better if it started after the first twenty minutes and ended ten minutes earlier.

[G-Fafif]

bmfc1 wrote: I think that the movie would have been better if it started after the first twenty minutes and ended ten minutes earlier.

Pretty much describes the 2011 Red Sox season.

[G-Fafif]

Very good movie in the middle (especially the story of how Bartman was ferried out of Wrigley). Sort of pointless at the beginning and end with all the myopic Red Sox stuff. Congratulations to the filmmaker for knowing where to go for appropriate imagery.

[Frayed Knot]

Congrats MGIM. You can see his real name in the credits under (I think) "Photographs and Stills." It's a good movie that would have been better if it didn't incorporate so much about Buckner and '86. Don't get me wrong: I'm always ready to see replays from '86 but I thought that the point of the movie was Bartman. The Director made it into an examination of scapegoating in baseball and related Buckner to Bartman. I think that the movie would have been better if it started after the first twenty minutes and ended ten minutes earlier.

Me version DID end ten minutes early thanks to whatever running before it going overtime and therefore cutting off the end on my DVR but it doesn't sound like I missed much.

The director made it clear from the beginning that he was a Red Sox fan growing up which I believe makes him genetically obligated to relate all things to the Sawx.
Note also that he satisfied the contractually mandated clause that requires Denis Leary quotes to be inserted into any Sox-related film.

[bmfc1]

It makes me sad to think that Bartman isn't able to watch his team at Wrigley any more.

[G-Fafif]

It makes me sad to think there are White Sox fans in Chicago who don't exist in movies like this one.

But yeah, Steve couldn't come off looking better, and Cubs fans who aren't him couldn't come off looking worse.

[Frayed Knot]

Definitely more than a few glass-bowls there, especially that one guy who came down to harass Bartman and eventually got tossed out of the stadium for his troubles.
I like how he admitted to the cameras that, yeah, he had been tossed out of Wrigley "two or three times" prior to that, saying it with an attitude that implied only a small handful of stadium ejections was pretty much par for the course (and even that's assuming he wasn't under-selling it and was already into double-digits by that point).

[Guest Edgy DC]

You get tossed from a stadium more than once, you belong on a banned list, with your poster on the wall at the turnstiles and everything.

[stevejrogers]

bmfc1 wrote: It's a good movie that would have been better if it didn't incorporate so much about Buckner and '86. Don't get me wrong: I'm always ready to see replays from '86 but I thought that the point of the movie was Bartman. The Director made it into an examination of scapegoating in baseball and related Buckner to Bartman. I think that the movie would have been better if it started after the first twenty minutes and ended ten minutes earlier.

Interesting points. Did the film make at least it a point to differentiate the fact that Buckner at least had a decent enough name for himself in the game prior to Game 6 while Bartman essentially got the wrong kind of Andy Warhol time?

IOW would it be more comparable if Stapleton was the "goat" of Game 6, or if someone of some modicum of fame, either nationally or locally for Chicago was in that seat (why they'd be in that section I don't know).

To that end, was Leon Durham ever brought up? Seems like his through the wickets error in the 1984 NLCS has gotten lost in the narrative of the 1984 Cubs. At least on the national level where Garvey's homer is spotlighted more when talking about that NLCS.

[Frayed Knot]

Instead of focusing the story on just Bartman, the film linked him with not just Bucknor, but also Durham, and the Ruth sale, and black-cats, and billy-goats, and every other quasi-related topic that could possibly by construed as a "curse" on the two franchises.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Last night I saw the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Bill Buckner. Mookie made a cameo appearance, but had no lines.

[bmfc1]

SteveJRogers wrote: ... Did the film make at least it a point to differentiate the fact that Buckner at least had a decent enough name for himself in the game prior to Game 6 while Bartman essentially got the wrong kind of Andy Warhol time? ... To that end, was Leon Durham ever brought up? Seems like his through the wickets error in the 1984 NLCS has gotten lost in the narrative of the 1984 Cubs. At least on the national level where Garvey's homer is spotlighted more when talking about that NLCS.

Distinguished--slightly (I think just slightly, if at all) in that Buckner is a professional player used to be in the spotlight while Bartman was not. I didn't like even the attempt at the connection because the Bartman story was interesting enough without attempting to make a "big picture" point.

Durham--yes, because Buckner was traded from Chicago to Boston so that Durham could play and the narrative pointed out the irony.

[ashie62]

Edgy DC wrote: You get tossed from a stadium more than once, you belong on a banned list, with your poster on the wall at the turnstiles and everything.

I've had that happen, after about 2 years they forget...Meadowlands.

GREAT JOB MGIM

[G-Fafif]

The amateur psychology stuff was forced into a compelling story of how that night unfolded and what its aftermath was. The director did some artful filmmaking but his narrative (and a ton of widely known background) got in the way.

Still worthwhile when ESPN reairs, especially in the offseason.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Thanks, guys! What's kind of funny is that I'm a writer, yet my photos have been published in (a really awesome) book, used as a book cover and now in a documentary.

But my writing, well ....