How low can ESPN go?
Remember the days when it was actually fun to watch ESPN? Yeah, it’s getting harder and harder to remember the days when the 4-letter network focused on covering sporting events and provided decent highlights of what was going on nationally in sports. Now they are all about all of their brand and ‘TMZ-like’ stories about sports personalities.
So how low does it go in Bristol CT? Well it looks like the 4-letter is seeking lower depths with their new programming plans. 6 years after this happened, they have decided to do a documentary on Steve Bartman:
Steve Bartman, an accidental icon of Chicago Cubs futility, is getting thrust into the spotlight once more.
ESPN announced Wednesday that it has commissioned a one-hour documentary on Bartman, the Cubs fan whose attempt to catch a foul ball late in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship series was cast as some kind of catalyst in the long-hamstrung team’s eventual collapse that year.
The revisiting of the Bartman incident and a look at its ugly legacy by Alex Gibney, writer-director of the Oscar-nominated “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and the Academy Award-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side,” will be part of ESPN’s “30 for 30″ series.
The Bartman saga is a story that national media ESPN and FOX have turned to repeatedly the last 6 years, whenever the Cubs are involved in anything. They pull out and run the footage as often as they can when the Cubs are being covered or there is a story about the franchises futility. It really has become a story that they have decided to keep going. A legend they have decided to build. It’s rotten for Bartman. The guy wanted anonymity from the beginning and the 4-letter has never respected that.
So it’s not really a story. The 2003 NLCS collapse happened and it’s history now. It’s part of the shitty lore that the Cubs have. Most of us understand that poor Steve Bartman was blamed for something that was not his problem and never was. In most cases he would just be a footnote to this epic collapse. Still the 4-letter has decided to continue to bring up this story as often as they can. I really can’t understand it at this point. I will promise them this: I won’t be watching.
wpbc
jackfsu
jeremyt32
I can’t even remember the last time I watched the 4 letter.
Vehere
July 30, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I remember being really upset with Fox during that game for cutting back to Bartman again and again. It was almost like they wanted to fuck up that guy’s life.
If the Cubs brass had a shred of decency and class, they’d bury the hatchet with the guy formally. At the very least, it would marginalize the idiots who still choose to hate him into ‘horry kow’ territory.
Uncle Dave
July 30, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I remember when ESPN had rodeo on during the day, followed by funny car, followed by the previous night’s NHL game, followed by ONE SPORTS CENTER, followed by College Basketball.
They didn’t have a lot back in the day, and before the Sunday Night Game started midway through 1987, they had very little. NHL a couple years, NBA a couple years. Mainly it was just college sports and redneck stuff.
It’s a shame what happened to Bartman.
But the whore network is at it’s best.
JDNoce
July 30, 2009 at 10:37 pm
…and don’t forget the Aussie Rules Football.
Uncle Dave
July 31, 2009 at 10:54 am
Too bad baseball the game can’t be analyzed in any way. If only such a concept existed, perhaps Bartman could be left alone by the ratings seekers.
oog
July 31, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I think that the ugly response from the other “fans” – pelting Bartman with drinks and verbal abuse as security ushered him out of the ballbark – as well as Alou’s overreaction, are more responsible for creating the legacy than anything ESPN and FOX have done.
Place the blame where it deserves to be placed.
Timbo
August 1, 2009 at 11:15 am