# Breaking news: Bill Buckner was wearing a cubs batting glove during infamous error



## such sweet thunder (May 30, 2002)

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/061018&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1


So consider the case of one William Joseph Buckner, who almost two decades ago (the precise anniversary is Wednesday, Oct. 25) bent over to field a grounder hit by Mookie Wilson. We all know what happened after that -- you've seen the video a few jillion times, you've read about the scapegoating, and the subsequent reaction to the scapegoating. After 20 years of scrutiny under the electron microscope of modern media, the Buckner play has been dissected so thoroughly that you pretty well know everything about it.

Well, almost everything.

It's not often that a new chapter can be added to a story that's been told so many times, especially two decades down the road. But that's what Uni Watch has for you today -- a bona fide addition to the historical record of the most infamous error in World Series history, courtesy of a sharp-eyed photo editor and a 12-year-old kid, both of whom spotted what a generation of baseball historians had missed. And this new find goes a long way toward explaining what happened on the field that night at Shea Stadium.

The tale begins with ESPN.com photo czar Sean Hintz, who was recently cropping and sizing a photo for an article about the Buckner play's 20th anniversary. The best-known photos of the incident are probably this one and this one, but Hintz chose to use the following Associated Press photo, which ran with this story:










As you can see, it shows Billy Buck walking off the field after his historic miscue, and he has removed his first baseman's mitt from his right hand.

"I'd worked with that photo maybe half a dozen times in the past," Hintz says. "It's definitely one of my go-to shots for that play." This time, though, for whatever reason, Hintz noticed that Buckner was wearing a batting glove under his mitt. Nothing unusual about that -- lots of first basemen do it. But Hintz, perhaps influenced by having worked on too many Uni Watch columns, was curious about what was printed on the glove. So he zoomed in on it. Then he zoomed some more.

Take a look at what he found:


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## BeZerker2008 (Jun 29, 2006)

*Re: Breaking news: Bill Buckner was wearing a cubs batting glove during infamous err*

That's funny. That photo did look like photoshoped but on seeing the actual article, dam. Poor piniella, and whoever the sap is that replaces him and so on and so on. The Cubs, I just don't see them getting out of this 'funk' that they've been in closing in on 100 years.


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## bullsville (Jan 23, 2005)

*Re: Breaking news: Bill Buckner was wearing a cubs batting glove during infamous err*

As much as I'd like to believe it, I say there is no way in hades that it's true.

It wouldn't have taken 20 years to come out if it was.

I'm looking at the photo in SST's post, which is about 2 inches by 4 inches MAX, and it looks like a Cubs logo, does anyone really believe that nobody looked into this earlier?

That being said, it's still pretty freaking funny to this Cubs fan, however...


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## Philomath (Jan 3, 2003)

*Re: Breaking news: Bill Buckner was wearing a cubs batting glove during infamous err*



BeZerker2008 said:


> The Cubs, I just don't see them getting out of this 'funk' that they've been in closing in on 100 years.


Give the Cubs some time, jeez. Everything's about instant gratification. The brain trust is just laying the groundwork, the plans are in motion... Now if it goes ANOTHER 100 years - well, you should still exhibit patience. Which is a virtue. Patience is.

Just because the expansion Marlins have won twice in the last 10 years, you think it's easy? It's all being worked out. It's like you think 100 years is a long time. In geological terms, it's not even worth mentioning. For example, if you compare eroding a feature like the grand canyon to coming out on top of a couple dozen baseball teams - now THAT takes a long time. So, let's keep perspective.


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## Cyanobacteria (Jun 25, 2002)

*Re: Breaking news: Bill Buckner was wearing a cubs batting glove during infamous err*



Philomath said:


> Give the Cubs some time, jeez. Everything's about instant gratification. The brain trust is just laying the groundwork, the plans are in motion... Now if it goes ANOTHER 100 years - well, you should still exhibit patience. Which is a virtue. Patience is.
> 
> Just because the expansion Marlins have won twice in the last 10 years, you think it's easy? It's all being worked out. It's like you think 100 years is a long time. In geological terms, it's not even worth mentioning. For example, if you compare eroding a feature like the grand canyon to coming out on top of a couple dozen baseball teams - now THAT takes a long time. So, let's keep perspective.



Geologist's note: The Grand Canyon didn't even take that long to be carved, geologically speaking. A few million years sounds about right. Now deposition of all those layers that are being exposed, _that_ took a long time. So give the Cubs a few million years before you dismiss them out of hand.


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