Up For Grabs

Director: Michael Wranovics

On the same day that the U.S. sent troops into Afghanistan to officially begin the way on terror, a much smaller battle began brewing when San Francisco Giants player Barry Bonds hit his record setting 73rd homerun at Pac Bell Park. What should’ve been a joyous celebration turns into the ultimate test of sportsmanship and greed when one man is videotaped seemingly catching the ball and another man ends up with it after the crowd goes wild while trying to become the newest millionaire in San Francisco. This simple misunderstanding is blown way out of proportion when varying witness accounts are revealed and the would-be ball catcher sues the man who picked it up. Ridiculous, funny, shocking and true—the film chronicles the goings on and media circus surrounding the Bonds ball in this involving little documentary that should provoke a heated debated among sports fans as we scratch our heads wondering just how we got so greedy so fast when, in flashbacks, we see the nineteen-year-old Brooklyn boy who caught Roger Maris’s legendary ball 61 simply offer to give it back to the player. An entertaining film that will also appeal to law students and legal junkies as a large portion of the documentary deals with property law and the question of pre-property, in the case of the man who began to catch the Bonds ball. Wranovics’s sports documentary is available for rental from Netflix.