033 October Error transcript (Bill Buckner)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Amit: This is Famous and Gravy, a podcast about quality of life as we see it one dead celebrity at a time. You can also play our mobile quiz app at Dead or live app.com.

Michael: This person died 2019, age 69. He was born in Vallejo, California. His father died when he was a teenager, and his mother was a stenographer for that California Highway Patrol.

Friend: A golden boy, huh? California.

Michael: In the late sixties. He played for Tommy Lasorda, attended the University of Southern California, and then spent a full season with the Dodgers in 1971.

Friend: George Brett.

Michael: Not George Brett, but thank you for guessing a baseball player. When he retired, he moved with his family to a ranch in Meridian, Idaho.

Friend: I thought this was supposed to get easier. No, I don't. Don Drysdale?

Michael: Not Don Drysdale. He had a 300 bating average in seven seasons, amassing 2,715 hits and 174 home runs during his two decades in the major leagues.

Friend: I got baseball player, but nobody like stands out for me there. I think I need at least a position if I'm gonna get this.

Michael: He played with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1974 World Series, which the team lost to the Oakland Athletics in five games.

Friend: Wait, so he is a Dodgers of Steve Garvey? He's alive.

Michael: It's not Steve Garvey, but we're honing in. All right. His long solid career was overshadowed by a crushing error that cost the Boston Red Sox game six of the 1986 World Series against the Mets.

Friend: So I'm from Boston. I remember the first time I ever put my middle finger up in front of my mother. I was so upset. Bill Buckner. Bill Buckner.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Bill Buckner.

The dreams are that you're gonna have a great series and win and, uh, the nightmares are that you're gonna let the winning run, uh, score on a ground ball through your legs.

So, Oh, good. You know, little roller up

win.

Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: and on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and reviewed their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, Would I want that life today?

Bill Buckner died 2019, age 69. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Bill Buckner, an outfielder and first baseman whose long solid career was overshadowed by a crushing error that cost the Boston Red Sox game. Six of the 1986 World Series against the Mets who went on to win the championship and seven died on Monday.

He was 69. Ah, the first line of Bill Buckner's obituary,

that sums up everything, um, that. The fact that they have to reference this one play after this long successful career is the entire reason we're doing this show. Yeah, I like that. They said overshadowed, which implies an injustice was done. Yeah. I actually really, really like that.

They threw in the Mets one in game

seven. That was the thing I wanted to talk about too. That kind of stands out. Game six, the 86 World Series against the Mets, who went on to win the championship in seven. They were reporting on a sports score from. 35 years ago, and I think they

Amit: wanted to make sure that history doesn't remember.

That Bill Buckner lost the World Series for the Red Sox. There was another game after that. Yeah. Here we sit 36 years later and probably a lot of people think that was the end of the

Michael: World Series, so, Okay. I think we have to pause here and explain cuz there is a story. Yeah, there is a portion of the audience that.

They hear the name Bill Buckner and they're like, Oh, alright, you guys are doing Buckner. That's funny. And then there's another portion of the audience that's like, I have no idea who this person is. So the first line of the obituary gets at the story pretty good. There is a crushing error that cost the Boston Red Sox Game six of the World Series A.

There's still a tremendous amount of context missing from this obituary cuz you just can't do it

Amit: justice. Yes. Unless you've seen it or were a part of it or somehow know the history of

Michael: baseball at that time. And that's the thing you say history of baseball, it's almost like. Maybe one of the biggest sports stories of all time, right?

If you look at the great franchise stories, there is no example of a more long suffering franchise than the Boston Red Sox.

Amit: They won the World Series in 1918 with Babe Ruth. The next year they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Yep. And never won the World Series again. They called that The Curse of the Bambino, right?

The Bambino being Babe Ruth. That was the reason for their

Michael: suffering. So in that 86 year history, This moment when Bill Buckner is at the center of this era may be the single lowest point in that 86 year long story. Yes, this is the fourth time they've made it to the World Series. They've been there in 46, 67, and 75.

Suffered, crushing defeats in all of those World Series appearances. 1986. All right, now the World Series. The Red Sox win the first two games against the favorite Mets at Sha The Mets come back, win games three and four at Fenway. Bruce Hearst notches his second victory of the series in Wins. Game five that sets the stage with the Red Sox.

Up three games to two entering game six. At Chase Stadium, the Red Sox are winning. If they win game six, they win the World Series. They are up in the bottom of the 10th, five to three. There are two outs, so they only need one more out. The Mets get a couple of bass hits, they bring it to five four. They call in a new pitcher.

There's a wild pitch. Suddenly the game is tied, and then Moy Wilson. Is at bat and he hits a ground ball to the first baseman. Built. Today's dead celebrity. Today's dead celebrity. The ball shockingly goes through his legs, Folks. Unbelievable.

Nobody Out A Single by Carter, a single by Mitchell, a single by Reignite, a wild pitch, an error by Buckner. In the ninth for the Mets, they've won the game six to five and we shall play here tomorrow night. Then the Mets win game seven and the Boston Red Sox are crushed once again. But at a sort of like new level of being crushed and.

Bill Buckner becomes the center of the story. He is crucified. He is crucified. And in fact, there are some sample articles and headlines that I pulled in the days and weeks following game six, just to give you an idea of what it was like. So here's one quote. Bill Buckner has just limp off the field carrying the weight of the world on his back.

He can ice those aching ankles all night so he can play in game seven of the World Series tonight, but there isn't enough ice to freeze the pain in his heart. Here's another quote, The Ghost of World Series Past of Seven Game Losses in 1946 and 67 and 75. Wrapped their cold fingers around the Red Sox throats Saturday night and choked the life out of what the people of Boston had been calling quote, the possible dream.

Here's a quote from Buckner himself. After the Mets have won the World Series Monday I agreed to do an interview for the NBC Nightly News, and all the guys kept asking me was, How can you look at yourself in the mirror? How can you face your teammates? Hey Boston, hold your head up. You gave it your best shot and came up.

A buck short, a buck short,

Amit: a buck short. People just remember. That. Yeah. As the reason that the Red Sox lost the World Series, Although there were plenty of errors before that, there was lots of arguments to be made that even if he made that put out, it wouldn't have ended anything.

Michael: It's like the Zapruder film, like this gets dissected by a thousand different angles of what exactly happened.

How did this happen? It's over analyzed to death and also,

Amit: There was the prophecy, which

Michael: is astonishing, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, I can't believe we haven't even mentioned that. I mean, that's the thing, and it's so hard to do justice, to like this entire story, this story, the entire story that 17 days before, you know, the World Series is like, yeah.

The dream is that you're gonna knock one out of the park and the nightmare is that a ball's gonna go between your legs. You know, on a ground out. Yeah. Which is exactly what happened. The nightmare. Yeah. I mean it, it does feel to the fan base and to people who follow sports, like something supernatural is involved, like the things that conspire in this moment to make it, you know, so dramatic and so 86 years, you have to be aware of a decades long story to interpret, you know, this one baseball era.

Okay, so let's get back to the first line of the obituary. Long solid career overshadowed by a crushing error. The socks lose in game seven, the guy dies.

Amit: It's kind of funny because they're also saying, uh, we're gonna go ahead and continue to overshadow this long story career by highlighting this one moment in the first line of the obituary because you have to Culture created this monster Yeah.

Of

Michael: a story. Yeah. I got my score. I think it's a 10. Outta 10. It's perfect. A little bit has been my evolution on what the first line of the obituary should be. There are times when I wanted to encompass the entire story of an individual. There are other times where it should be like, what is the single most important or memorable thing about them.

You know, they do say long, solid career. Here and overshadowed by this one moment that you and I are gonna talk about what that means. I, I, I cannot find fault with this.

Amit: Yeah. So I'm, I'm not gonna agree with you fully. I do like that they pointed out that there was a game seven after Bill Buckner's error in game six.

Yeah. That was a classy thing to do. However, I think. There was an opportunity that was missed to change the narrative of the overshadowing so they could have perhaps said, Whose long career was unfairly overshadowed by this one error?

Michael: Yes, I agree with you, but I'm not sure it's their call to make.

Amit: I unfortunately think you're right, but as I like did all the research over the last few weeks preparing for this episode, I was very emotional.

Yeah. On just how unfair this story is and I guess I'm looking for redeemers out there, but I just kind of wanted a hero to shine and come out and do it. Who may be unfairly. Yeah. Someone that's just like willing to throw away their career. Jerry McGuire style. Yeah. And just say, This is it. I'm putting an end to the Buckner story.

I'm just gonna live with that fiction and I'm only giving it a. Seven.

Michael: Wow. You're talking at three points for not sort

Amit: of, They pulled at some heartstrings for me over this last

Michael: week. Okay. Well I stand by my 10. Okay. I think they did their job here. I just want to ask, like you have been wanting to do this episode

Amit: Yes.

For a very long time. I guess why it was so interesting to me is that we're gonna approach the VanDerBeek, we're gonna talk about somebody who's a professional athlete, which is something that is, you know, every child, uh, aspires to be Yeah. But is reduced to one single thing and. Awful thing. Yeah. To me, that's a huge lingering question when you get to whether you would

Michael: want that life or not.

I do think our show is a different take on a biography that so many biographies are, what was this person's impact? What did they mean? How do we, you know, understand their place in history? And I do think that what we are doing here is what would it have been like to have been them. Yeah. And that is a provocative question when it comes to Bill

Amit: Buckman.

I think this is kind of our reverse Neil Armstrong episode. So Neil Armstrong is all about one moment of achieving landmark history. Mm-hmm. of having the entire world focused on him in a good way.

Michael: And this is the opposite. Yeah. No, this is about a gaff and this is about an infamous gaff, uh, category. Two, five things I love about you.

Here are almond and I work together, is come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. Okay? I'm gonna

Amit: say, Excellence against all odds. Okay. His father died when he was a teenager. Yeah. Do you know how he died? No. His father killed himself. Oh.

When he was 14 years old. Jesus. His father didn't, I didn't say that. Yeah. Yeah. His fa It was showed up in one of the documentaries. That I saw, and you can see Bill get, you know, emotional, pretty emotional about it. His father was an alcoholic, was a rough man. And you just stop the narrative there and you can have a very jacked up life of anybody.

Yeah. To go on and become a supreme athlete is, Beyond Remarkable. Yeah. And that was his outlet to dealing with that toughness of his childhood was sports, and he was exceptional at both baseball and football. I saw that in junior year of high school, he bated a 6 67. So that means every two out of three at bats, he got a hit.

Wow. I mean, that is insane. Yeah, those are like beyond video game numbers. So you remove this one moment in history and the things that he amassed over that time. He had a batting title, meaning you have the highest batting average in the league. He led the league in doubles once he finished his career with over 2,700 hits, He actually has some amazing fielding awards, which is the irony of this whole thing.

He broke the record for assist. Basically making it out if a ground ball has hit you at first base or a fly ball and he still holds it at number

Michael: two. So I mean long and storied career here. You removed this moment and he had a great career as a professional athlete. Absolutely. How did you put it? This thing?

Number one, What was your last I said excellence against all odds. It's not hard to sign off on that. I love that. Uh, excellence against all odd. Can I take number two? Yes. When he moved away from Boston in the nineties, because the heat had gotten so tremendous, his son was being bullied, he's getting, you know, cheered on the streets.

I mean, it sounds like his life was made to be a living hell. He moved to Idaho, so I wrote, moved to Idaho to live on a ranch. This is kind of a total tangent. I love Idaho . I think Idaho is the single most underrated state. There's some weird cultural shit there. I mean, there's like neoNazis in the hills, but in terms of scenic beauty and in terms of like geologic wonders, I fucking love Idaho.

Yeah, like I. Fell in love with my wife in a hot spring in Idaho. Oh really? Yeah, in college. Okay. Uh, some of my greatest camping trips are there and, and the landscape. People think potatoes when they think Idaho. Nobody seems to realize just how incredible is. I love that that's where he went to. Live out, you know, the second half of his life.

Once things got too bad, takes his whole family there and has a good life. Yeah.

Amit: I'm gonna shoehorn one of mine in there cuz it, it fits with Idaho. Okay. Was the mustache. Ah, man,

Michael: that was my next one. All time mustache. Okay, so this goes, but we

Amit: can, let's just agree on it as a number three, . How does that fit with Idaho?

Because it just, you, you see these images of him in Idaho riding the horse with the hat? Yeah. And the mustache is just perfect. I mean, it looks like 1940s. Like John Wayne movie, It's an all time mustache. It is an all time mustache, which was careered. Yeah. Like I challenge you to find any image of Bill Buckner without the mustache.

So it's such a baseball mustache here It is. The total baseball mustache. Yes. Yeah.

Michael: All right, great. I love that. Number three. I was gonna mention that too. So, I'll let you take number four

Amit: again from the Idaho story. Great businessman. Oh, when he moved to Idaho after 1993, he became a real estate land developer and he said he made more money doing that than he ever did playing professional baseball.

He developed subdivisions and retail lots. Like one interview I saw him doing, he was working on a deal with Albertsons. Yeah, but he apparently crush. Out there. Really. And he was also coaching little league. Yeah. And he did some back and forth, even professional hitting coaching while he was living this real estate, land development life in Idaho.

But it looks like he crushed it. Yeah. And so kudos

Michael: to you, Bill The life in Idaho, the images you see does look pretty desirable. Looks pretty great. Yeah. I'm gonna propose this. Number five. I wrote Forced into Becoming a Model of Grace. Okay? Yeah. Yep. Are those the right words? And is that. . I think it's true.

So let's talk about this. Okay, so the decades pent up cultural emotion in the Boston sports scene comes crashing down on his head. And I don't even think he, he realizes that for a while. I mean, he gives a post game locker room interview where it's like, it's unfortunate to happen, but that's baseball.

All I say is, uh, I never played in the seventh Game of World Series and I get to play one now. I hate to say it's because I missed a ground ball, but that's the way

Amit: it goes. Well, I think it took even a few days for it to become catastrophic cuz they had to lose the whole series. Right. And then, you know, the media basically decided to make this, the scapegoat and fans signed off

Michael: on it.

And then, You know, as time passes it gets worse and worse and I, this was the hardest thing for me to sort of get sunlight into, like, what did it feel like in 1987 and 88 and 89 to be Bill Buckner? There's a lot of people saying how bad it was for him, but I wanted to try and bring it to life. The best evidence for me is how when he's in Boston in the early nineties, after he is retired from baseball, His kids start getting bullied.

His four year old even like it's one thing to get people on the street yelling at you. It's another thing. To have your kids be a target, Why was the heat so heavy on him? One, there's the Boston sports culture and this decades long tortured fan base. I think there's also something about his name that invites ridicule.

The name Buckner. Yeah, I was talking, It does, I think I told you. I have a friend who's, you know, older and who's a lifelong Giants fan, and he remembers when Buckner was playing with the Dodgers and was in the outfield, Fuck you Buckner like, And it was just like, and he said it was actually just really fun to yell at fuck Buck.

Like it just like there's something about the. Continents in that name , that add to this sort of like scapegoating that happens to him. It also just

Amit: sounds like a fumble. There's like an amania in in the name Buckner.

Michael: Yeah, and I mean, the thing is to go back to the game in the moment itself. So first of all, he was battling injuries and it's not clear that he should have been playing first base.

And I think that there had been somebody else who was playing first base.

Amit: This was game six in games one, two, and five. They pulled him off the bag in the later innings because he had been hobbled by

Michael: injuries. And then the Mets had already tied the game. Yes. Like it had, He made the. Best case scenario, they go to extra innings.

Yes. Right. Or they go to inning 11 and the next batter was

Amit: Howard Johnson for the

Michael: Mets, who was one of their better players. Right. So obviously, I mean, anybody looking at this, who doesn't even know baseball can say, A team is responsible for losing a game. Not one man, not one error. Right. Yet somehow he gets scapegoated.

Yes. Like totally scapegoated. So to go back to my thing, number five, forced into becoming a model of grace. I mean, let's, let's talk about how he dealt with this.

Amit: Yes. I mean, I think immediately from that very night in the locker room, when you see the reporters interview him, he said, Yeah, I made an. Yeah, you know, he owned up to it from the very first second.

He did not assign blame,

Michael: and I remember going into that locker room, Buckner answered every question, and there are a lot of times when we look at our athletes and we look at them and go, Man, is that heroic? Boy, they were unbelievable under pressure. I'll never forget in all the things that I've covered where you're as low as you could possibly be, but to sit there and answer the questions, That's what stands out to me about Bill Buckner.

That's admirable. I mean, to the extent that you want to have a conversation about one moment potentially destroying somebody's life, and how do we respond to that? This is part of what makes this so interesting is this is a metaphor for our deepest fears that we're gonna make some catastrophic mistake in public while all the cameras are on us.

Yes. You know, and, and then like, how would we deal with that, How he dealt with it. Incredible and deserves to be called out in the five things. So that's why I wanted to put this as my fifth thing. All right, let's recap. So number one, excellence against all odds. Number two, Idaho. Number three, Alta mustache.

Number four, Good business fan. Good business man. And number five, model of grace. Yes. All right. Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into somebody's mind and have a front row seat to their experiences.

The point is to imagine what memories or experiences might have been interesting. I think you and I are both avoiding. Game six in the World Series in our moment. Yes. Yeah.

Amit: So I'm gonna try to do what the obituary didn't, and I wanna talk about his career before that. Okay.

So 1974, Hank Aaron is making his run to Break Babe Ruth's home run record, right? Bill Buckner plays for the Dodgers at the time and he's an outfielder. Yeah. So you think about this now and you're like, Wow, this must be an incredible, exciting time in. The history of baseball and it was, it probably was the biggest moment in baseball in decades.

Yeah. There was a lot more to the story though. And Hank Aaron, a black man when you're only decades after integration of And

Michael: Jackie Robinson, the sport. Yeah. He was getting

Amit: threatened. An insane amount leading up to Breaking Babe Bruce's record. So some of the things I read, he received more mail period than anyone else in the United States that year.

These are all death threats. Okay. Okay. The writer for the Atlanta Journal said that they had a prewritten obituary at the time for Hank Aaron in case he gets murdered. Wow. Hank Aaron slept at the stadium with security detail during this run up. To breaking the record because there was just so many people out there to get him.

Yeah, Babe Ruth's widow made like a public plea to say, Let this go. Like Babe Ruth would want this to happen. So though, when behold, here comes home, run number seven 15, the Braves against the Dodgers, and in 1974 on April 8th, who. Hank Aaron hit his home run towards it is Bill Buckner, so that ball sails over Bill Buckner's head and is about to land in the bullpen to be a home run.

Bill Buckner, there's a clip of this on YouTube and we will show notes. It he literally. Climbs the fence and half of his body like tilts over in trying to catch that home run one

Michael: ball. In no strikes, Aaron waiting the outfield deep and straight away fast.

What is, what is remarkable

Amit: about it? Number one, Bill Buckner was the last person to lay eyes on this ball before it went in and became a home run. That is history. That itself is a milkovich moment. Hmm. Secondly, he tried his damnedest to catch that ball. He was playing the game. And what you do to play the game is you make a play as hard as you can and you bust your ass to do it.

But then to also have the goal to climb the fence and still try to rob the home run makes it a. Maich moment. Yeah,

Michael: I love it. All right. I'm Maich. Okay. All right. I think you know what, This is season eight of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Bill Buckner has a, what is actually a really famous cameo. So the story in the episode is Larry is playing on a softball team.

And he gets distracted during a key moment in the game. The ball goes between his legs. Yes. You got, Here it comes. What the fuck? What you me? Unbelievable. Fucking buck it. Sorry. So then later on in the episode, Larry's been asked to get a signed ball of Moy Wilson, who is the favorite player of one of his friends.

And he goes and he goes, Moy is doing a signing. And he goes to the signing with Moy Wilson. And there's Moy Wilson. With Bill Buckner signing autographs together. Yes.

Amit: Co-signing pictures of that play in 1986.

Michael: Right. The way the story goes in the episode, I mean, they walk out together. Larry gets to know Bill Buckner a little bit.

People are gearing him in the streets. Uh, later they are witness to a fire in an apartment building. This woman who is very desperate, throws a baby out the window and. Bounces and off the fire, what do you call that? The fire, The trampoline thing. The trampoline thing that the firemen have. And Bill Buckner makes an incredible catch to save the baby.

And he's hoisted on people's shoulders and he's cheered and there's, it's this kind of incredible redemption, like my life, Oh my God.

My Milkovich is actually a little bit more specific. Larry David said there is a version of this script where Buckner drops the baby. Yes. Buckner had to know there was this alternative ending to this episode where he drops the baby now. And Larry David said he's really glad he went with the, the version where Buckner catches the baby because he said it made him emotional.

It's redemptive, even though it's more hilarious. To have him drop the baby. Yes. Here's why it's a malcovich moment. One, I think that the willingness to go on that show play yourself, confront these demons and have a kind of like catharsis through fiction is incredible. But then that it was even proposed well, does he drop or catch the baby?

Says something about how this moment is even today being understood and because there's a little bit of a how we understand entertainment overall happening in this moment, that what happened in 1986 was real life playing out, even though sports is an entertainment product. And then Curb your enthusiasm is script.

That we like, get a chance to rewrite history or at least rewrite somebody's story through fiction and how, how that would've felt for him. So I wanna know, I wanna be behind the eyes. I

Amit: was so

Michael: desperate to do that show. I love that episode. He, he didn't want to do it at first. I really had to stay on the phone with him and, uh, he had to think about it.

And then his daughter was, was an actress. Mm-hmm. . And I said, Well, you know, we could put your daughter on the show. And I think when I offered that the quid pro quo, the

Amit: quid pro quo, So you pro quote him. I quote him. Yeah. . Yeah. He is taking as much as he can. Like he's aware at this point that the narrative is never gonna change.

He knows he's not gonna rewrite the narrative. And this just goes back to the grace. The fact that he just did it for his daughter is, I don't know, speaks

Michael: volumes. It does. All right, let's pause. Tennis player, Billy Jean King, not alive. The rules are simple. She is still with us as of this recorded. Isn't that great?

Like a couple years ago. Here we go. Ralph Nader. That's a hard one. Dead or alive? Uh, Ralph Nader. Is

Amit: alive.

Michael: Correct. Ralph Nader is 88 years old and still going. Test your knowledge. Dead or alive? app.com.

Hey, Famous and Gravy listeners. There's a podcast I want to tell you about called Dismembering Horror. It's hosted by Ryan McDuffy and Tim Aslan, and on each show they choose a horror film and they break down what did and didn't work. There's something about a horror movie where there's always something to talk about.

It's a unique format where you really learn a lot about filmmaking, and it sort of just captures the spirit of what it's like to walk out of a horror movie and sit around having drinks with your friends and breaking it down. I was actually on a recent episode and had a ton of fun talking to these guys, so Dismembering Horror with Ryan McDuffy and Tim Aslan.

Highly recommend. Category four, Love and marriage. How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Okay, this is in a way kind of simple, one marriage to Jody. 1980 to 2019. Bill was 31 or so. They had three children, two daughters, and one son. The son is a baseball player.

Did he make it to the pros?

Amit: I

Michael: know he played college. He played at UT for Longhorns. Oh really? Yeah. I saw he played, uh, briefly for the Cubs. That wasn't clear to me if that was a farm team or if he actually made it to the pros. We mentioned bullying of his son was a major reason that they moved out of Boston.

And then we already mentioned that there was a kind of quid pro quo in him supporting his daughter. So I think that there's like some signs that he stuck up for his kids. Yeah, there's also to get back to the marriage, cuz I was really curious about her and I couldn't find a ton, but there is one ESPN Short where she's interviewed pretty extensively and there's some telling.

Pieces in that she uses the word we in a way that like really signals solidarity. Yes. It's like this is what we went through and this is, She also has, I think, a very telling moment. You mentioned a second ago forgiveness when Buckner returns to Boston in 2008. This is after the soxs of when their second

Amit: oral series.

The thing

Michael: that upset me going back there was seen signs in the stand that said you're forgiven. We forgive you because the truth is we don't need forgiveness and we didn't go there seeking forgiveness because we have nothing to be forgiven for. We needed to forgive, and I think we

Amit: have. She seemed like a badass.

I really loved her like the way that she talked about these instances. She always just seems to stride to the defense of us as a family unit and really just putting him on a pedestal of being an honorable man and a great father and putting every decision made at what is best for

Michael: the family. Yeah, my.

On the little I got was great marriage, looks like a great family. They're in Idaho. Pretty cool. I

Amit: wanna say something, I don't know if this belongs right here, but about that moment of the 2008 first pitch, so the press conference, that was afterwards, they asked him, you know, did you have any doubts about doing this?

He makes this point saying that like, Well, what did you have to do? To get here. Yeah. And he chokes up and tears up. This is a 60 year old man. Yeah. And says like, All

Michael: right. I, I, I really had to forgive the, the, not, not the, not the fans of boss and just per se, but I, I, I would, I would have to say in my, my heart, I had to forgive the media.

uh uh, you know, ba for what? You know, they put me and my family through, I'm over that. But that's hard to do. It's hard to do. It took, what, 20 years or 21

Amit: years, And it was in that moment that I really realized like how terrible. This whole thing was, yeah, to me, that spoke everything about how awful

Michael: it must have been.

So, high scores for family life, for Bill Buckner. Really high marks. Category five net worth. I saw 8 million. Does that seem a little low to you?

Amit: No, I don't think so. They said that he made about 3 million throughout his whole, um, baseball playing career. Okay. He said he made more as a land developer. He said he made enough money doing the Muey Wilson autographs to send his kids to college.

Yeah. It's pretty solid. But these were before the big salary days. Yeah. Like that by Malcovich moment that Hank. Aaron home run. He said that that ball initially, the actual ball that landed, uh, sold I think for $30,000. Oh,

Michael: I bet it goes for a lot more these days.

Amit: Oh, it must be near a million. Yeah. But he said that he didn't even make $30,000 that year.

Michael: Uh, so this was before you made that kind of money in sports? Yes. And certainly before there were endorsements the way we've had them, you know, from the 1980s onward. Yeah.

Amit: And here's another funny statistic about ball values, is the bill buck. Ball has been sold around a few times. One of the first to buy it was Charlie Sheen.

I saw the, who paid $93,000 for it, and Bill Buckner made a comment, was like, If I knew that ball was worth the a hundred thousand dollars, I would've just turned around and grabbed. Yeah, shit. But let's, let's go back to the 8 million it seems like. Quality of Lifewise in terms of wealth and luxury seemed pretty

Michael: good.

Yeah, I like a pretty good number. 8 million is a very comfortable and great number to me. Yes.

Amit: An interesting thing is baseball salaries are all public, right? Yeah. What people make and his salary gradually went down every year after that 86 World

Michael: Series. Yeah. All right. Uh, next category Simpson Cite Live or Halls of Fame.

This is a category, is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances as well as impersonations. So shockingly on snl, I saw nothing, Saw nothing. I really looked for this. Really, Um, I would have thought there had been like a, at

Amit: least something in

Michael: weekend update. Exactly. A weekend update joke.

The one interesting note that I heard was that when the Mets actually. The series in 1986. It was one of the few times, and maybe the only time that they ran a taped version at Saturday Night Live. It was not live that year. Well, they had to

Amit: cancel the actual showing of that night of October 26th that he made the error.

Is that what happened? Okay. I think so because it ran

Michael: so late. Okay, I see. So anyway, the game interferes with Saturday Night Live, but I didn't see any mission or impersonation of Buckner, which sort of surprised me. On the Simpsons. Similarly, I didn't see a lot, I found one very obscure reference. There's an episode where Bart is prescribed something called Focusin.

It's sort of a joke on Ritalin. Okay. Um, and he starts exhibiting a lot of unusual behavior. He's like a lot nicer to his parents, and he gets Marge a gift. And Homer says, Did I get a garden bar? It says, No, but here's a book called Chicken Soup for the Loser that gave Bill Buckner the courage to open up a chain of laundromats.

It's the only reference I saw to Bill Buckner in all of the Simpsons. It's the sort of throwaway joke. So that's it that I saw in The Simpsons. And then in terms of Halls, I never saw him on our Senti Hall, unsurprisingly. And he got a few votes for the baseball Hall of Fame, but did not make it in. Yeah.

And

Amit: there is that question of, you know, it had there not been that play and had his career been as storied as it was before, yeah, he probably would've been on that trajectory.

Michael: I think that this actually. Tracks. I think that if you know baseball, you know the name Bill Buck. And if you don't, you may not have ever heard it.

This is a different kind of celebrity. It's

Amit: slightly different. I think you're not gonna know it, but I think you've heard it without realizing it. That's true. As a reference that you just didn't even know. So some of the other examples, in addition to the Simpson Saturday Night Live and snl. There was an episode of Boy Meets World in 1999 where his father is, is like speaking on career day, and he's very embarrassed about his father's job being a grocer.

And so the kid goes to the lunchroom and is talking to his friend and he says, Do you remember that guy that made the error in the World Series? Against the Mets and let the ball go through his legs. And his friend says Yes, and he goes, I would rather be his son. That's how embarrassed I

Michael: am. I mean, that is how his name gets used is as a punchline.

Yes, totally is. The Urban Dictionary

Amit: thing. It was in rounders speaking of a John Malkovich movie. Yeah. This is one of the oddest that I came across. So in 2008, the economic meltdown mm-hmm. that we have. Alan Greenspan, chair of the Federal Reserve said that he made three Buckner. That year. . Wow. There is a bridge in Massachusetts that um, kind of resembles a pair of legs and you drive under it and it's called, it's nicknamed the Buckner Bridge.

I've heard of that. There's all sorts of these things. You can go on Twitter right now and just search the name Bill Buckner and at least five to 10 times a day somebody is making some remark. Yeah, I mean it's how someone

Michael: made a Buckner. I mean it's interesting cuz it's got a massive inside joke quality to it.

Right. And I think it gets back to the name itself has a kind of. Punchline element to it. Buckner. Yeah. You

Amit: know, but I think this is one instance that, you know, they say NPR is good pr. This is one of disagreement.

Michael: I could not agree more with that. All right. Category seven over under, In this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy for a year.

Somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds, and as a measure of grace. Man, born in 1949 in the us, a life expectancy 73.2 years. Bogner died at 69, so he's under and died of Lilly body dementia, which I didn't know much about. This is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's.

Amit: Pretty similar in symptoms to Parkinson's.

Michael: Yeah, that's what it sounds like. So the family said long suffering when they issued statements after his death. They didn't say when he was diagnosed, so, That appearance on curb is 2010 or 11, something like that. Yes. I didn't see any pictures, videos, anything from 2011 to 2019 when he died.

So I think that there's a pretty big question mark about the final years about how much suffering there was. Correct. And 60 nine's young.

Amit: Six nine's very young. Especially for an athlete. Yeah. And who was fit? I mean that the man, even when he was 60 something years old doing Curb Your Enthusiasm. He looked good.

Very much so. Uh, you know, we talked about Casey case in, in episode 10, and that was Louis body dementia and those were terrible final years. Yeah. So I don't know. And the thing is, is that the Buckner family just needs so much privacy, which is why we don't have tremendous insight, but I speculate it was an

Michael: awful end.

So here's where I think we're at so far in this episode. You look at the knowable information about the guy, everything points to a very desirable life. There are. Now, I think two things that would make this life undesirable. One is having to deal with the reality of this moment, which we'll continue to talk about.

The other is the nature of his death, that he died fairly young and that he died from a degenerative. Disease where, you know, he, he's robbed of his faculties, he's robbed of his ability to think. It affects the brain, Lewy body dementia in a way that can lead to shaking like Parkinson's. Yep. And, and third,

Amit: I, I think you also need to say losing your father as a

Michael: teenager.

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I, This is getting to be a real bummer when we get the end of this category, but I think we gotta get through the life and this is the death. Yeah. Okay. Let's pause for a word from our sponsor.

Amit: Michael, Are you. Pro que ?

Michael: No sir. I am antique. What does it mean to be antique? That means relating to or dealing in antiques or rare books, which is why I am antique. Oh,

Amit: cuz you like collecting rare books. Absolutely. And where do you find them? You just go to flea markets and scavenging internet.

Michael: Absolutely not. I go to Half Price Books. They have all kinds of, both new and used books. It's not like you're only getting the old stuff at Half Price books. They also have new, fresh books. You know, write it right off, right off, right out of the oven. Including bestsellers. Including bestsellers. Right off the press.

Right off the

Amit: Press, Half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used book seller with 120 stores in 19 states. Half

Michael: Price Books is also online@hp.com.

The first of the introspective categories is Man in the Mirror. What did they think about their own reflection? This is one of those instances

Amit: that we actually have a direct quote. Oh, do we? So this is what I found. It says that Payne, Mr. Buckner, that he needed a public pardon in, and this is his quote.

When I looked at myself in the mirror, I perceived it differently. It's like getting accused of stealing something you didn't. So basically what I gather from that is he looks in the mirror and he holds his head high. He looked genuinely like a self affirmed happy person.

Michael: I mostly agree with that, although I do think that there is some evidence to the contrary, but I think we're both agreeing.

But if we're gonna

Amit: paint a broad stroke, I'm gonna say yes. Yes,

Michael: I agree. Andy held is that high. I agree with that as well. All right, next category. Outgoing message, like man in the mirror. We wanna know how they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine. And would they have left it, uh, on their outgoing voicemail?

I think he liked it. I gotta say I like it. It's a nice one. I like it. It's, It's a little like thick mouth kind of jock ishness to it. Yeah. You know? But I enjoyed listening to it and I think he's pretty self-assured with it. I don't think he's saying yes to a ton of interviews, but to the second part of the question, I don't think he's ashamed to be Bill Buckner.

Right. And so I think it would've recorded his own outgoing voicemail.

Amit: Yeah. I think if you're calling for an Ohio Land deal, you're gonna get a, Hi, you've reached Bill. Please leave a

Michael: message. I agree with that. Okay, next category regrets, public or private. What we really wanna know is what, if anything, kept this person awake at night?

You know, it's funny, I have nothing written down here other than that kept this person awake at night question, which is kind of obvious. Sure. The question here is, how often is he replaying this moment in his

Amit: mind to me that that could be more of a good dream, bad dream? I think it is. I don't

Michael: think it's a regret, which is why I didn't put it in my regrets.

I did find a couple of regrets. So you found something. Okay.

Amit: What do you, So one, I did say that he didn't turn around and pick up the. Instead, Charlie Sheen paid a hundred thousand dollars for it. Yeah, that's definitely one. Another thing he said is that right before they moved to Idaho, shortly before they moved, he was in Pawtucket in Rhode Island at one of the Red Sox Minor League parks.

And somebody makes the same joke that, uh, Hey y'all, I would ask for an autograph, but you would drop it. And he just, He went back and grabbed the guy by the collar and almost knocked him out. He didn't? Yeah.

Michael: And he said, I thank God I didn't punch him out. He said he even regretted going that far though.

Yeah. I'm glad you brought that one up, that he lost his cool. Yeah, and I mean, I think, you know, like he's an athlete, He's a tough guy. He's a gruff guy, obviously. That's forgivable. Is that a regret? I mean, are you supposed to be a fucking zen master pacifist for the rest of your life? I mean, that's a lot to ask of somebody.

Amit: I think it was an accidental zen master in one specific category

Michael: of it. Yeah. But that's all I got for regrets. Um, I didn't see a whole hell of a lot else. Yeah. I

Amit: think the key here is he didn't regret the play.

Michael: Yeah. All right. Well, let's go on to the next category. Good dreams, bad dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather, does this person look haunted?

Do they have something in the eye that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, or unresolved trauma? Okay. I went bad and I do think this moment haunts him. I do think that when he's giving interviews for the media, I think he does a very good job of presenting a sense of peace and self-acceptance presenting.

I think this is in the Catching Hill documentary, the 30 for 30 that explores both Steve Bartman and. Bill Buckner, when he sort of says casually that he's seen the play over and over once or twice a week for the last 23 years. I mean, he sort of just like casually drops. Like if you live in a house that enjoys sports and you have ESPN on the background, you see this play over and over once or twice a week for 23 years.

Yes. He's been reminded of this over and over and over again. It's not just the interview inquiries and it's not just the people on the street saying, Hey, Buckner or whatever, and then he tells the story of. I decided to watch it and I realized that he was criticized for not having his glove on the ground.

The implication being the ball went under his glove. But he also, he says in, in the 30, for 30, I had a loose glove and it actually was on the ground and I could see it in this angle. And actually the ball goes to the side. It takes a sort of err balance or something, something funny happened. So he's, the way I heard it in the documentary was, I did the right thing in terms of being a ball player.

Yep. All right, so here's why I wanna draw attention to this moment, 23 years since the famous error. This to me is the strongest evidence that he's replaying this moment over and over in his mind. Yes. That he happens to see something different. That feels like wishful thinking to me. Or that if he came up with a story, he came up with a new story about it.

That is how we deal with our trauma. Right? I mean, that's what therapy is. Yeah. Right. It's having a new relationship with our past and with. Traumatic events and with the things that have caused us pain and, and figuring out a way to have self forgiveness, I think he does have some self forgiveness there.

And I think he's telling the interviewer in the 30 for 30 documentary, you know, everything was perfect, but because of that love being so loose, it closed automatically. And in reality it didn't make anything any better, whatever. But at, at least in my mind, uh, you know, I knew why Miss. And here he's kind of sort of trying to correct the record and he can't change what happened obviously.

But he's trying to look at it differently and, and tell a new story. That to me is pretty strong evidence that he's still wrestling with it. Yeah. And that he's got bad

Amit: dreams. Absolutely. And then the poor guy gets Lewy body dementia after. Supposedly getting peace with this

Michael: moment. Yeah, I'd like to think he gets some peace with Larry David.

I mean it is actually, there's a reason Larry David says that's such a Yeah, great episode. It is like to see Bill Buckner catch a baby from a burning building. Yeah. And have everybody like put him up on their shoulders. You really do feel like something is released there, you know? And that's what Larry David was going for.

And Larry,

Amit: there was also some nice moments in that episode where Larry David, like defends Bill Buckner.

Michael: Hey Buckner, you. Hey, have a nice day, fellas. Nice catch. . Jerk. Huh? Oh my God. How you put up with that? Hey, just get used to it. Fuck you partner. Hey,

Amit: through steak. Ah,

so

Michael: to you. Hey, don't worry about it, Laura.

You know you're gonna drive yourself crazy. Watching that episode was a delight. Yes, like it is. It is a great one. All right, second to last category, coffee cocktail, or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. Now, it may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun to partake.

Or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them that you are most curious about. . So he was a beer

Amit: drinker. Yeah. Like, you know, even you see these people that like made it out to Idaho to do it. I mean, he looks like, Seems

Michael: like a beer drinker. Yeah. He's the kind of guy you want to have a beer with.

So that's

Amit: what you didn't enjoy. But like, I think he's just gonna talk about like elk hunting and land developments.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, That might be a little bored. So I

Amit: think I'll go the cannabis. With Bill Buckner and it's gonna be about resilience. Yeah. Is what I want to hear about not only going all the way back to age 14, but going from this incredible moment in history and living this life of grace.

Where is that place in your mind where you find peace? That's what I want to hear

Michael: from. So I have the exact same substance for the exact same reason, with just a slight tweak to it. I'm not a hundred percent convinced he found inner peace, and I think it will remain unknowable. What it means to forgive. I mean, that's ultimately what this whole thing is about is.

Who needs forgiveness, and his wife called it out. Well, we forgive you Boston, but what does that exactly mean? Do you forgive God? Do you forgive the world? Do you forgive the institution of sports or the Boston Red Sox or the Boston Media, or the Boston fan base? Or

Amit: every person that's made a joke in

Michael: the right 34 years.

Yeah. There's a level at which the wrong that was done here that we can all agree was done here. You know, how do you attribute responsibility to that injustice? What does that look like internally, whether or not he achieved lasting piece, I mean, what exactly are we even talking about when we sort of set that standard?

I want to know about the process of forgiveness, that it's like this is never done. As something that you have to live with as part of your fate, and I think that because it's such a terrifying reality to imagine being him, I want to know what kind of insights might exist at the far ends of that.

Processing of what happened. I'd like to think that the more challenged you are and the further you have to go to achieve a groundedness and a forgiveness and a surrender and all of that, that the more pressure you have to respond to, the more insights there are to be had at the other end of it. Yeah.

But like you. I want the cannabis. Yeah.

Amit: I like your emphasis on forgiveness. I think that was better articulated than mine, but I think really that's the key of what we're after. How to

Michael: understand that. All right. I think we've done what we can to get here on it. Mm-hmm. , we're at the VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek in a very different sports environment.

Said, I don't want your life. Do you want Bill Buckner's life? This is a fucking interesting question and I'm still 50 50, man, You just remove

Amit: this one moment. Yeah. You want to wonder from a Mr. Destiny's standpoint, how everything changes, but you can't. He was an incredible athlete, like I said, at the very, very beginning against terrible odds.

Yeah. His family life seems incredible, like the support and really just the, the mutual admiration that he seemed to have with his wife and the relationship with his own children seems

Michael: remarkable. Yeah. The fact that he stood

Amit: up and that the words honoring grace that you threw in. I mean the fact that he even lived,

Michael: honestly.

Right? I mean, you imagine what he went through and it's just not hard to imagine suicidal ideation. It's not hard to imagine substance abuse. It's not hard to imagine like acting out, right? I mean this is, This is a traumatic experience. It's usually as a result of trauma and that's

Amit: this. Yes. And that's the most he regrets is almost punching someone.

Yeah. He soared so far above what was set up for him. and found his way out. He found peace. He said he found forgiveness. There is so much evidence of how terrible

Michael: it was. So, but the question is never, when it gets to the Vander big, do we admire this person on that? No, we don't. Agreed. The question is, do you want this?

Like, would you take this?

Amit: So this is what I'm saying is I wanna be the type of person that could say, okay. I am admirable. Yeah. And I do have honor and I do have grace, and that's enough Yeah. For me to want this life. But I think what the truth of it, Michael, is I don't, because I don't think it's okay what they did to him, what we did to him, despite 20, 30 years of.

Nationwide bullying, but I think it's not okay, this culture of bullying born out of sports, specifically in this instance. But I think we're talking about a larger topic, and I don't wanna say I want that life because I don't want anyone out there to think it's okay that it's okay to dehumanize somebody and crucify them and reduce them away from being a human being.

That is the reason that I will. Say yes to wanting meal booker's life. I'm a no.

Michael: I try and imagine my greatest fears, certainly that something terrible will happen to me. One of my greatest fears is losing a child. Right? I think that's common for a lot of parents. Mm-hmm. . I also think that right up there is public humiliation.

So the question of the Vander beak here to me is a little bit like how much do you want to be challenged in life? I honestly don't know how to answer that. Not that much. I don't know how exactly there's a part of me that very much wants to be tested exactly as much as I'm able to respond to, but you don't know what you are able to respond to and what you're not.

Until you know that calamity befalls you. There's all kinds of questions you can ask about Bill Buckner. It had this happened 10 years earlier, you know, when he is not at the tail end of his career, but at the peak of his athletic ability, would it have been different? What if he didn't have kids? What if he wasn't married at that point?

And so part of me like is looking at this Vander big question on like, are you ready for it when it happens? You know? And I do think Bill Buckner does look like he was given what he needed. To continue to live a meaningful and fulfilling life afterwards. But would you want it in the first place? No, man, I don't.

I'd like to believe I'm resilient. I'd like to believe that I could live up to it, but I don't want my name being a fucking punchline. Yeah. I don't want anybody to have to be, But if given the choice of, would you take it or not? Despite how much I admire him and how much he responded, I'm a no too. I mean, the honest answer is I'm a no too.

Amit: Yeah. You still have to live all that out in the

Michael: present. I guess in looking at it, I'll tell you this, This is like the lesson for me here. I kind of wanna like bank enough wisdom. Yeah. If something, you know, similar to this were ever befall my fate.

Amit: Yeah. Maybe the case of Bill Buckner is that he is, he was sacrificed, but future generations will benefit if the right story is

Michael: told in the end.

It's really, it's amazing how like important. And unimportant. Certain elements of this story are right, it's sports. Ultimately it's entertainment. Ultimately, it's not important, but it's also reality and it's also like the meaning we infuse in the metaphors that surround. These stories and I, I'm not sure that will ever be corrected.

I think that there was an outpouring when he died and you go on the internet and you find, here's five reasons. Bill Buckner is not to be blamed, and so on and so forth. But I'm not sure anybody has really drawn attention to the deeper meaning of what it would have. Been to have been him and how he responded.

Correct.

Amit: I mean, if he's done anything, he made me feel remorseful over the last week. Yeah. A kid that was a baseball fan and that was rooting for the opposing team and, and probably made a few Buckner jokes in the decades that followed. Yeah. I feel remorseful as fuck for that

Michael: now. Dude. Dude, I gotta say I, I was, I've been thinking about my own.

Relationship to fandom, right? Like I grew up telling Aggie jokes. I see somebody wearing a University of Oklahoma jersey and I'm like, fuck that guy. Right? Yeah. And cuz I'm a Longhorns fan, we, we have this disproportionate relationship to what it means to root for a team. I don't

Amit: know, some of it is a little unhealthy,

Michael: you know?

Yes. And obviously, and there's no better case study than that, than Bill Buckner, you know? Mm-hmm. . All right. So we're both now, we're both, No.

Amit: God. But it doesn't feel good, doesn't it?

Michael: No, it doesn't. But the point is not just to answer the Vander Bake necessarily. The point is to talk it out and to extract the lessons and wisdom where you can.

And on that score, I think we did it. Yeah. Amit, you are Bill Buckner. You've died, you've gone to. Unitarian proxy for, uh, the afterlife. St. Peter, you're at the Partly Gates. The floor is yours.

Amit: All right. St. Peter. Unfortunately, you don't admit on statistics alone. If you did, I would be a shoe in. Instead, I'm here and I have to talk about the one thing again with you.

Here's why I should go in. I want people to know how well of a life I lived. Afterwards that I loved my family. I loved the life I created. I stayed in the game of baseball after that play. The world thought I was bearing myself, but I was not. I had dignity. Honor and grace, and I hope in the future I want them to look back at me and say, Still try and don't be afraid of getting buried.

Let me in.

Michael: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Famous and Gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends about us. Help spread the. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at Famous and Gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com.

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, Original theme music by Kevin Strang. Thanks for listening. See you next time.