The story of Steve Bartman is well known among anyone who is a fan of baseball. This incident only proved once again to fans of the Chicago Cubs that they are in fact cursed.  Alex Gibney’s documentary “Catching Hell” was shown as part of ESPN’s film series.  The ESPN documentary’s are always fascinating and this one was no different.  This film showed the meaning of the word scapegoat and how easy it is to get caught up in the idea of such a thing.  While Bartman is not alone in taking the blame for the curse of an entire team, he is arguably the most innocent.  While most scapegoats come in the form of a player, Bartman was merely a fan who took the blame harder and with more ferociousness than any player ever has or ever will.

Alex Gibney did an excellent job of giving us a documentary that did exactly what a documentary  is supposed to do. It showed what happened, gave insights from everyone they could possibly find who was involved, ranging from the people sitting right next to him, to Moises Alou, but didn’t give us an opinion on one side or the other.  What it did show us was how the media loves to find scapegoats.  Alex Gibney states in a radio interview that he grew up in Boston and from there we are shown the story of Billy Buckner.  While Buckner’s story is similar in a lot of ways to Bartman it lacks relevance.  I see what Gibney was going for, in that the media and all of Redsox nation completely turned against Billy Buckner despite of his outstanding career.  I also understand that Gibney was trying to show how if the Cubs would just finally win a World Series this whole Bartman fiasco would be over, just like it was in 2007 for Buckner when the Redsox won one for the second time.  While I get what Gibney was trying to show, it still doesn’t compare to the story of Bartman because Bartman was a fan not a player.  Buckner was hated by Redsox fans, and took his baseball career to different cities, Bartman was a cubs fan whose own peers completely turned against him.

After all the people they interviewed I was really hoping that they would possibly get a chance to have Bartman speak for himself, but they didn’t.  Bartman is still extremely reclusive, and I can’t really blame him.  Even though he never spoke for himself, Gibney did an excellent job of giving you an idea of who Steve Bartman was as a person.  For example, the stock footage they had of the little league team Bartman was a coach of, speaking to the news and telling them that they give him their full support and know he would never do anything to intentionally hurt his beloved Cubs.  The tears of the security guard who escorted Bartman out of Wrigley Field truly say it all.  She could tell he was genuinely sorry and felt horrible for what he had done and felt he was completely innocent in his actions.

What you take away from this documentary is that scapegoats satisfy peoples natural desire to find something or someone to blame.  The scapegoat is innocent and people easily forget that because they cast all their blame upon it.  Bartman was one of a dozen fans who were reaching for that foul ball, and he happened to be the one to grab it.  Maybe someday we will remember that it was Alex Gonzalez who bobbled a tailor made double play right after the incident with Bartman, but that just isn’t the way Cubs fans will remember it.  Sadly for Bartman he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and now he will probably never been seen again, because lets face it, the Cubs are cursed.