Pretend you are Steve Bartman. You are a huge Cubs fan and have a chance to sit right down the left field line in the first row.
You are sitting there in the 8th inning as Marlins player Luis Castillo knocks one towards you.
The experience is surreal. You have a ball coming at you in the playoffs as the Cubs try to finally win the World Series, after nearly 100 years.
You want a piece of history.
Pretend you are Moises Alou. You are a Cubs fan favorite and play in left field.
Luis Castillo just hit a fly ball down the left field line and you are charging hard trying to get an important out late in the game.
You jump for the ball, open your glove, wait for the thump, then, nothing. A fan caught the ball instead of you.
Go back to Bartman.
You catch that very ball that you were going for and fight it away from all the others trying for the ball.
You are ecstatic.
You now have a piece of history. You are going to tell your kids and your grand-kids, hell, you are going to do everything possible to make sure you can tell you great-grand-kids about this very moment.
Then, the Marlins go on a run, and everybody blames you. You have to get escorted out of the game so that you can get home alive.
You look at yourself in the mirror as the person that single handily cost the Cubs the World Series.
Until earlier this week.
Moises Alou spoke about the incident in an Associated Press interview.
"Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, 'Bartman, Bartman,'" Alou said. "I feel really bad."
"You know what the funny thing is? I wouldn't have caught it anyway."
Cubs broadcaster Len Casper (who was the Marlins broadcaster during this game) agrees.
"I thought it was very questionable [that Alou could've caught it]."
So there you go. You can look at this story and laugh, right, Steve.
We can be buddies now right, I mean, after the healing period from all the stuff we did to you after the incident.
I apologize, and I hope that the rest of Chicago can apologize too.
I'm Joe W.
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6 months ago
I really enjoyed this article--
It's kind of funny Alou brought it up again after all this time. I don't know about the city of Chicago forgiving him-- many are still blaming a certain goat, but I will say that Bartman should be Alex Gonzalez's best friend. Sad that fans blame the goofy looking guy that was just doing what anyone else would do in the same situation over the guy getting paid top dollar only to flub a routine double play.
from 6 months ago
if you look at the picture, there are 3 other people going for it, he shouldn't take all the blame, it's not his fault
6 months ago
I feel really bad for Bartman because every single game I have ever gone to if there's a foul ball hit my general direction I try to catch it and so would anyone else. What if he doesn't try to catch it? He probably gets hit by the ball and nobody wants that.
I hated Bartman for weeks after that happened, but looking back I don't think there's anyone that could sit there and say, "There's no way I would have done that."
Side note, if you're putting the beginning of the story in present tense then it's accurate, but if not you say that its been 100 years since there last World Series win; when at the time it wasn't 100 years yet. Just throwing that out there.
from 6 months ago
"after nearly 100 years."
notice the "nearly" in there. that means not 100 years but close.
6 months ago
Same on Alou for not speaking up sooner. How can he make up for everything Bartman has been through? Death threats from all sides, hate mail, mockery on ESPN... he owes him something and it is a lot more than just an apology.
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