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Up for Grabs: Not The Jason Grabowski Story
2005-05-13 06:27
by Jon Weisman

Dodger Thoughts reader Brian Greene, known to you commenters as BigCPA, passed along the following note late Thursday:

Tonight I made it to a screening of a documentary called Up for Grabs.

It was made by a first-time filmmaker and Stanford alum named Michael Wranovics. He also has a doc in progress about the Stanford hoops team. Anyway, I strongly recommend the movie to you and your readers. It opens today (Friday) in a few L.A. locations. I'd call it a Christopher Guest mockumentary except involving real people.

The story really hit home for me since I nearly caught the "Spiezio ball" in Game 6 of the 2002 WS. I was pictured on the front page of the OC Register in full color- and I camcordered the entire scene. Almost my 15 minutes of fame- maybe 2 minutes.

Actually, I would have enjoyed going to the screening myself if it weren't, as they said in The Hudsucker Proxy, "you know, for kids." The following appeared in the other e-mail I received about the film, from Michael Lindenberger of Crooked Hook Productions:

How's it going? Thought I'd send an email your way because I'm a co-producer of Up for Grabs, a feature-length film about the fight over the Barry Bonds 73rd home run ball. "Barry Bonds: I hate that son of a bitch!" you say? Well, it's not really a film about Bonds. Actually, Up for Grabs is a comedic, satirical documentary that follows the whole case and pokes fun at it.

Alex Belth posted about the film as well on The Griddle.

So, I didn't see it, but there you have it. The documentary opens today.

Comments
2005-05-13 07:56:48
1.   Jim Hitchcock
Tough luck, BigCPA...you might have traded that
ball to Spiezio for one of his guitars.
2005-05-13 10:49:11
2.   bigcpa
Back story is I had Row A, Seat 1 in the RF corner. I get to the game and head for the first seat at the rail. Some big guy in a red Angels jacket says it's his seat. Turns out there was an AA and a BB in front of row A! So I had to settle for the third row. Well Mr. AA, Seat 1 ends up with the ball. But he didn't get in the paper so there.

Here's the OC Register front page for the curious. I'm the guy with the camcorder behind the guy taunting Reggie Sanders: http://tinyurl.com/b36g4

2005-05-13 11:00:04
3.   mcrawford
There's a camcorder in the picture? I don't see it. Are you the guy with the yellow hair? (Bleached?)
2005-05-13 11:10:51
4.   bigcpa
That's me but you have to view the pic full size to see the camcorder. Don't trust the color in that photo... the hair is plain old blonde.
2005-05-13 11:26:53
5.   mcrawford
Sweet. I don't know exactly why, but I love staring at crowd shots in a game. It's just interesting to see what each person was doing in that one instant when the photographer snapped the picture. Invariably there are some people cheering, some people looking the other way, some people look scared...I don't know, it's just fascinating.

The expression on the Sanders-taunter's face is classic. Made me laugh.

2005-05-13 11:49:56
6.   bigcpa
Back story #2... the Sanders Taunter guy proposed to his girlfriend in the 2nd inning. He paid for a plane to fly over the stadium with the proposal. I happened to have my camcorder so I taped the whole thing and exchanged info with him.

Monday morning I'm listening to Kevin & Bean and the guy calls up to tell the whole story. The capper is his mug front/center on the front page of the OC Register. It's 2 days later but I never heard about it being a Plaschke subscriber. So I call him to congratulate him on his 15 minutes and he says "you better grab a copy- you're in there too!" Crazy chain of events.

2005-05-13 14:36:34
7.   Langhorne
I heard an interview with the filmmaker a few days ago. It sounds like a very funny documentary. Of course, I liked 'Okie Noodling', a documentary about people who catch 60lb. catfish with their hands.
I wonder how valuble the Bond's ball would be if Todd McFarlane hadn't paid nearly $3 million for McGwire's #70.
2005-05-13 15:58:14
8.   Jim Hitchcock
Great story, Big...and the pic really brought the moment back to life. Wow.

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