FanHouse SteveBartman

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

So I was on vacation last week. Anyway, I got home to the horror of this: "ESPN Orders Documentary On Cubs Scapegoat Steve Bartman." As if I wasn't in a bad enough mood returning home and having to get back to real life.

You see, the name Steve Bartman conjures a slew of emotions in me. Any time I hear his name, I find that I can simplify all these thoughts into three simple complaints about how this entire "situation" aggravates me.

Could this week get any better for the Chicago Cubs? I mean, they got the snot beat out of them by the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs, getting swept for the second straight year. It was a devastating blow to Cubs fans all over, as I have a few friends who have slipped into catatonic states over it. It's even caused some to put their loyalty up for auction.

Of course, if whoring yourself out isn't your style, you could always just do what everybody else is and blame Kosuke Fukudome. It can't be that the Dodgers were just the better team, after all, there has to be something to blame. Whether it's a player, a goat, a black cat, or Steve Bartman. Well, I have some news for you Cubs fans out there that you might find a bit shocking. It's not a curse or any other stupid reason why you haven't won a title in one hundred years. There's something far more powerful at work here.

God hates you. Seriously. He hates you and your team with a passion. Don't believe me? Check this out.

Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol suffered minor injuries in a car accident early Tuesday in the Dominican Republic.

A truck hit a car carrying Marmol, a cousin and a friend in his hometown of Bonao near 2 a.m. The All-Star right-hander had just arrived in the Caribbean nation after the Cubs were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.

Oh, how generous of you, selected Cubs fans. After merely five years, you've decided to "forgive" Steve Bartman for totally ruining your life with his precocious grabby hands in 2003. Thank goodness you've come finally around to this momentous decision.

Unfortunately, you're way too late.

See, most Cubs fans, the reasonable ones, forgave that poor little turtlenecked guy years ago. Some (like me) did so immediately after the game. Some did so immediately after the play. Anyone able to process cogent thought and reason would have either admitted a) This is baseball, and, while disappointing, not that big of a deal; b) This is a big deal, but it's not Steve Bartman's fault; or c) This is a big deal, but the Cubs lost the game, and curses don't exist.

To forgive the guy now, after he can't reveal his whereabouts, after he got death threats and whatever else goes along with his whole fable, is incredibly disingenuous. If I were Steve Bartman, I wouldn't want Cubs fans' hollow "forgiveness" any more than I would want to sit down the left field line at Wrigley on Thursday. If you couldn't spare empathy for the guy in 2003, you shouldn't spare any for him in 2008. Just keep his name out your mouth, and drink your beer. Do they still say that at Wrigley?

Dan Uggla has struggled during the second half of the season. Since the infamous All-Star game where Uggla struck out three times and made three errors, Uggla has been awful, sporting a line of .189/.298/.336. The All-Star game may or may not have led to Uggla's struggles, but Uggla's struggles have led to him being benched on Sunday by Fredi Gonzalez.

"Some guys go through rough spots in the season," Gonzalez said. "He's going through one now. He's a big part of our offense."

"We need him to get back on track if we're going to win," Marlins outfielder Luis Gonzalez said. "He's huge for us."

Uggla says he has no explanation for his struggles. He scoffs at the amateur psychologists' belief that his performance in the All-Star Game - three strikeouts and three errors - plays a factor.

"That was over as soon as the game was over," he said.

But that hasn't stopped opposing fans from taunting him ... especially one group that's been particularly scorned by Marlins in the past.

As Brinson told you about yesterday, the unfairly vilified Steve Bartman was offered $25,000 by an online sports memorabilia site to sign a picture of him interfering with a foul ball in the 2003 NLCS at Wrigley Field. All Steve would have had to do was show up at a sports collectible convention in Rosemont, Illinois, sign the picture, and cash the check.

Unfortunately there's one factor that Sportsbuy.com didn't take into consideration before making this offer, and that's that Steve Bartman cannot be bought! He doesn't need your stinking money.

Bartman friend Frank Murtha says that Bartman won't accept an offer of $25,000. For the money, all Bartman would have to do is attend the National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont and autograph a photograph taken of when he tipped a foul ball that seemed destined for Cubs' outfielder Moises Alou's glove during a 2003 playoff game with the Florida Marlins.

Bartman has declined all offers to appear or make money off his brush with fame.

I don't know if I'd call it a brush with fame as much as a brush with infamy, but to each his own I suppose. Can't we just leave this guy alone, though? It's been five years since it happened, and the Cubs kind of have other more important things going on at the moment. Considering that Bartman completely dropped off the face of the earth after that fateful night in October 2003, and has done a very good job of staying there, I think it's pretty obvious he doesn't want to be pigeonholed with this the rest of his life. It wasn't even his fault the Cubs lost that NLCS anyway.

So let's just leave him be, okay?

There's not need to bore you with the Steve Bartman story -- he came, he reached, the Cubs choked, we all moved on (except Cubs fans, they stink at moving on; see above). But there was a fascinating little twist to his plot of eternal terror today, as the Orlando Sentinel reports that he got offered $25,000.00 to de-hermitize himself and sign a single autograph.

SportsBuy.com and the National Sports Collectors Convention are offering $25,000 -- a briefcase with 250 $100 bills inside -- to infamous Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman if he comes out of hiding attends the show and signs a single autograph.

[...]To collect the cash, all Bartman has to do is show up at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., at 1 p.m. on July 31, prove his identity and sign a photograph of the infamous play. It will then be auctioned on the Web site with the proceeds going to a Chicago-based charity, according to a news release for the publicity stunt event.

Three thoughts. First of all, Chris Olds, slow your roll on the strikethrough. (And yeah, I'm totally guilty of it myself, but it actually needs to be funny the objects should be more diametrically opposed.)

It was just a few months ago that Moises Alou (supposedly!) exonerated Cubs Nü-Goat Steve Bartman for "ruining" the Cubs "World Series." It's one of the more stupid ongoing Cubs traditions, this Bartman nonsense, but hey, us Cubs fans are stupid. Just ask Marty Brennaman.

Anyway, Alou said then that Bartman wasn't to blame for the missed out, that Alou wouldn't have caught the ball anyway. Now he says he never said that. Nice:

"I don't remember that. If I said that, I was probably joking to make [Bartman] feel better. But I don't remember saying that."

Well, how nice of you, Moises. Do us one last polite favor, if you would: Go away. No one in their right mind should care about the Bartman play anymore -- especially Mike Downey, whose bizarre inquest ended up with Alou's backtrack in today's Chicago Tribune. Least of all Alou. As 'Duk notes, it doesn't matter whose fault it was, because the Cubs didn't get five outs and they lost and the series was over the next night and a bunch of people (including me) cried and oh my God why are we even talking about this. The Cubs are the best team in baseball. In June. For the first time since 1908.

Just. Shut. Up.

There's been quite an uproar amongst Cubs fans in Chicago the last few days over the comments that Reds announcer Marty Brennaman made about Cubs fans being "the most obnoxious in baseball." As should be expected, Cubs fans have cursed Brennaman's name between sips of Old Style and not paying attention to the game they're watching.

Well, calling Cubs fans obnoxious just wasn't enough for Marty, because he felt the need to go on local radio in Chicago on Friday and talk about them some more. (Last item)

After Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman suggested that frustrated Chicago Cubs fans throwing baseballs on their home field "makes you want to see the Cubs lose," he expanded on those thoughts Friday on Chicago's ESPN Radio 1000: "I understand all these fans are all upset. Half of them are probably brain-dead to begin with."

Considering that the Reds have to come back to Wrigley two more times for serieseses in July and August, I'm not sure this is the smartest thing he could do. I mean, who is to say that those drunken, obnoxious, brain dead Cubs fans won't break into the Reds broadcasting booth and throw him to the seats below?

Marty's comments also force me to do something that, as a White Sox fan, I should never be forced to do: defend Cubs fans. Listen, Marty. I know there are a lot of dumb Cubs fans. I'm friends with a few, but get the hell over it already. There are a lot of dumb sports fans in every city in this country. Hell, there are just a lot of dumb people in this country period.

The reason the Cubs never win has nothing to do with their fans. Everybody knows it's that billy goat's fault..and that damn black cat's fault....and Steve Bartman...and the fact they just suck. Throwing baseballs on a field never cost them a game, let alone a World Series. Sorry, No Photos

Little did we know five years later we'd still be talking about Steve Bartman. (Actually, of course we should know this. It is just another part of the Cubs mystique or charm or curses or whatever you feel it fits into. At this point -- and as a White Sox fan it deeply pains me to say this -- it would almost (operative world: almost ) be better if the Cubs won the World Series to finally put all this trivial crap about why they didn't win all these years to bed once and for all.)

BUT ANYWAY, there was Bugs and Cranks' fake interview with the guy today. And Moises Alou was recently prompted about the that fateful eight inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. The details:

"Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, 'Bartman! Bartman!' I feel really bad for the kid," Alou told Associated Press columnist Jim Litke.

"You know what the funny thing is?" he added a moment later. "I wouldn't have caught it, anyway."

That stands in stark contrast to Alou's reaction at the time. After the play, he jumped up and down with his arms outstretched.

UPDATE: Hey, did you know that today is April Fool's Day? Because I sure didn't before I wrote this post up! Turns out it's an April Fool's joke, and I am playing the part of your April Fool.

You remember Steve Bartman, don't you? If you're a Cubs fan you probably just responded with "Do I!?" before picking your computer up and throwing it out the window. Bartman, of course, is the infamous fan who "interfered" with a foul ball that started another epic Cubs collapse in game six of the 2003 NLCS, and was then made a scapegoat for the Cubs blowing the series by Cubs fans everywhere.

Ever since that incident, Bartman has escaped back into the real world and gone about his life in relative anonymity, which is why it's a bit of a coup that Bugs & Cranks' Cameron Martin was able to score an interview with the Cubs fan. One of the things we find out about Bartman in the interview? Turns out, he's still going to Cubs games. Cubs playoff games.

Steve Bartman: ...I was last at Wrigley for Game 3 of last year's playoff series versus the Diamondbacks.

Cameron Martin: What? Geez, that's bold. I mean, well, OK, forget how I think people would typically treat you. Tell me yourself. Did people recognize you? Say anything? Threaten you?

Steve Bartman: Since 2003 I've had my share of near scrapes and screaming matches, I'm not going to lie to you. Without the support of my friends and family, I probably wouldn't have gotten through it too well. Nobody recognized me at Game 3, and no, I wasn't wearing a disguise. And no, I wasn't wearing that same outfit (from the 2003 playoff game). Even if people had recognized (me)...listen, it was just a baseball game. I mean, don't get me wrong. I was sick to my stomach for weeks after that. But at some point you have to let it go. And I have. And that's what I tell anyone who meets me and says, "Geez, you fool! What were you thinking?" Man, that was the whole point: I wasn't thinking! which is what I said in that statement after the game. I mean, did I feel responsible? Sure, I did. But do I feel like I personally cost the Cubs their chance to make the World Series? I know Cubs fans would love for me to say yes, but the truth is, I don't. I'll probably get blasted for saying that, but that's that.

Bartman is right, he didn't cost the Cubs the World Series. He didn't boot that easy ground ball right afterwards, Alex Gonzalez did. He didn't leave Mark Prior in too long, Dusty Baker did. He also wasn't in attendance for game 7, so he couldn't lose that one for the Cubs either. Overall, it's a pretty good interview and I recommend reading it if you have the time.