Castrodale: What really makes a scapegoat?

Why doesn't sacred Mariano get as much blame as Buckner and Bartman did

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Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner makes one of the most infamous errors in baseball history, letting the Mets score the winning run in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

OPINION

updated 1:52 p.m. ET Oct. 6, 2011

Jelisa Castrodale

?YOU BUCKNERED ME!? Yari shouts at Larry after he ? you guessed it ? misplays a gently-approaching grounder. ?YOU [EXPLETIVE] BUCKNERED IT! WHY IS BUCKNER ON MY TEAM?? The epithets were scripted, but that recent episode of Larry David?s Curb Your Enthusiasm hinged on the kind of history you wished came from an HBO writer?s meeting.

It?s never good when your last name becomes an action verb. It?s even worse when it might eventually get Roget-ed into a synonym for failure. Because of one ill-fated Saturday night in 1986, Bill Buckner?s entire career has been abridged to a single play, that ?little roller up along first? that somehow evaded every stitch of his outstretched glove. What could he do afterwards except drop his slender shoulders and watch, as the ball taunted his ruined ankles and slowly rolled into the collective psyche of an entire generation of Series-starved New Englanders?

There?s a certain level of wild-eyed insanity that goes into being an avid baseball fan. If perpetually suspended disbelief and unreasonable expectations were part of the Terms of Agreement, I?d still click ?Yes.? But the deeper we get into the postseason, the more references and reminders there are to the sport?s darkest moments, the kind of mistakes that would be awesome on America's Funniest Home Videos but not enjoyable during baseball's crunch time. Like any Buckner clip that doesn?t co-star Larry David. Or shots of Steve Bartman or Ralph Branca or Leon Durham or anyone else who might have been unfairly recast as a polyester-wearing public enemy.

How do you designate a scapegoat on a scorecard? Why do we blame one player for ruining a season, crushing him beneath the shards of our own expectations and the torn scraps of a box score that has the names of over a dozen of their often equally guilty teammates.

Last week, ESPN aired Catching Hell, a documentary that explored the origins of scapegoatery (thanks, Old Testament) while comparing Buckner and Bartman. No real conclusions were reached, other than the fact that the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field can get ugly real fast.

My opinions were the same after watching the show as before: that Buckner should have been known for being a tough out with a career .289 average and the most enduring mustache this side of Tom Selleck, instead of the 8th Blunder of the World.

Steve Bartman shouldn?t be known at all, not unless he ended up on a fashion blog with a black bar over his eyes and a lot of unanswered questions about his commitment to green turtlenecks.

The East Sussex-based Scapegoating Society (who must be too busy poking at people?s brains to learn HTML) define scapegoating as ?a routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and toward a target person. Angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected via inappropriate accusation toward others.?

I?m with them on the inappropriate part and, for me, I think the blame and the hostility sometimes comes from fear. You know, the fear that we would have done the exact same thing in that situation, that we?d be the one featured on dusty VHS tapes with the word ?Numbskull? in the title, that we would have also crumbled under the pressure. Maybe it?s because we know better than to compare ourselves to the hero, so we beat up on the loser instead.

Buckner?s glove didn?t doom Boston any more than Calvin Shiraldi?s shaky arm or Bob Stanley?s wild pitch. Bartman didn?t do more damage from Section 4, Row 8 than bobble-handed Alex Gonzales did on the infield dirt. In Catching Hell, Bob Costas gave a shot at rationalization.? ?The Buckner moment ends the game so it has the feeling of finality,? he said. ?And Buckner gets not just a disproportionate amount of the blame, he gets all the blame.?

Really, Bob? Because what would happen to a closer who?d blown saves in the 1997 ALDS, in back-to-back games in the 2004 ALCS, and who imploded in the ninth inning in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series?

If it?s Mariano Rivera ? and it was, in all four incidents ? absolutely nothing happens.

Handing out blame like it?s a postgame bottle of Gatorade (or in-game bottle of beer, if you?re John Lackey) isn?t going to stop. So, while there are still two League Championships and a World Series left to be played, I?m laying down scapegoating ground rules in case the next Tom Niedenfuer is warming up out there:

Reputation means nothing
If you screw up, you screw up, even if your name is Mariano Rivera. Or Babe Ruth, who forgot that he was built like the Kool-Aid Man and tried to steal second base during Game 7 of 1926 World Series. SPOILER ALERT: He was caught. Cardinals win, 3-2.

Blaming the manager is too easy
?We don?t believe in scapegoats,? Red Sox GM Theo Epstein said after the team?s apocalyptic collapse this season. ?Particularly blaming [Manager Terry Francona] for what happened in September. We all failed collectively.?

Of course, that was shortly before Francona packed up his Bigelow tea bags and left the clubhouse for the last time. Boston?s Famous Freedom Trail should be extended through Fenway Park, since that?s where several managers have been liberated from their jobs.?

Francona was a small part of the Sox?s September implosion. That wasn?t the case for his predecessor, Grady Little, who was pink slipped after their 2003 ALCS loss to the Yankees.? Little sent starter Pedro Martinez out for the eighth inning, when he lost a 5-2 lead. By the time he?d started icing his arm, Martinez had thrown 123 pitches, a number he?d only topped three times during the season, including a 130-pitch outing in an ALDS loss.?

Little became Boston?s pi?ata after Aaron Boone sent an under-knuckled Tim Wakefield floater over the Yankee Stadium wall. (Also, Thanksgiving 2003 was stocked with jokes like: Q: Why shouldn?t Grady Little cook the turkey? A: Because you know he?ll leave it in too long. PAUSE FOR RAUCOUS LAUGHTER).

The goat must end his team?s season
That postseason error or blown save or otherwise awful play has to happen in an elimination game. It can?t be a Game 6 mistake that could have been corrected the next day. That would have disqualified Buckner or Bartman or ? bless him ? Donnie Moore, who lost Game 5 of the 1986 ALDS and was booed for years afterward, even though the Angels played two more games. Moore didn?t get a shot at Larry David-scripted redemption; he took his life in 1989.

The loss must be a direct result of ONE player
Moore should have been able to forward some of those bad vibes to Mike Witt. Or Gary Lucas, who plunked the only batter he faced, putting the tying run on base for Moore to deal with.

But all other conditions have to apply here too; Dennis Eckersley can?t be goat-ed because it was Game 1 when he served an off-speed dessert to Kirk Gibson.

All blame must be boxed up forever after 10 years or the team?s next title, whichever comes first
Jose Mesa ? who blew a save in the 9th inning of 1997 World Series Game 7 ? could have gotten pelted with Progressive Field nachos until 2007, but that?s it.

If you?re double (or triple or sextuple) goated, you?re a goat for life
This may as well be called the Armando Benitez/Mitch Williams rule.

It took 25 years for Bill Buckner to feel welcome at Fenway Park again, which is why it was great to watch him lampoon himself with Larry David, but wait a second ? the Red Sox lost 18 of 24 games after that episode.

Hey, Scapegoat Society! Got room for one more member?

Jelisa Castrodale has learned a lot about life by making a mess of her own. Read more at jelisacastrodale.com , follow her on twitter at twitter.com/gordonshumway, or contact her at

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44802874/ns/sports-baseball/

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