No, not the music video from The Simpsons, but one of their excellent “30 for 30” documentary films.
Catching Hell, which also tells the story of Bill Buckner’s ill-timed error in game Six of the 1986 World Series, airs tomorrow on ESPN at 8 p.m. EST. It is one of the entries in the Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival, which begins Sept. 30.
From the website:
In the eighth inning of Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field, Cubs fans had every reason to believe they would finally host a World Series for the first time since 1945. With their ace pitcher going strong, the Cubs led the Marlins 3-0, only five outs short of a pennant. And then the sky fell. Or a foul ball fell from the sky, tearing the cosmic fabric, when a home team fan, Steve Bartman, reaching for a foul pop fly, tipped the ball away from the outstretched glove of leaping Cubs left fielder Moises Alou, who seemed certain to make a spectacular catch.
As the TV cameras focused on the isolated fan, frozen in his seat and staring straight ahead as if in a trance, Cubs fans felt the familiar sense of doom and dread, one that quickly turned to anger as the Marlins then staged a lightning eight-run rally. Even though sure-handed shortstop Alex Gonzalez booted a routine inning-ending double-play ball and the Cubs still had a Game 7 left to try to win it and the mild-mannered Bartman made a sincere public apology, the fans focused their disappointment and rage on Bartman. He fulfilled the ancient need for a scapegoat to explain the inexplicable to Chicago — why, on the threshold of victory, the door was once more slammed in its face, capping a near-century of losing and frustration.
In a shift from addressing social big-picture topics such as the Enron scandal, the fall of Eliot Spitzer and the detainment of innocent political prisoners, Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney explores the unsettling phenomena of scapegoating in sports with intimate looks at Bartman and Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. The parallel stories are told in a suspense-filled style, made particularly chilling for Bartman. With never-before-seen footage of Game 6 from inside the stands of Wrigley Field, we see, step by step, how the Friendly Confines turned into a dark place as Cubs fans tried to hold Bartman to account for their collective nightmare.
is available on Amazon.com,
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