Steve Bartman: Have Sports Fans Learned from Wrigley Field Debacle?

The biggest tragedy that happened at Wrigley Field during the 2003 National League Championship Series was the treatment of Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman, regardless of what some die-hard Cubs fans may say.

While everyone was quick to point the blame at Bartman after he apparently interfered with then-Cubs outfielder Moises Alou hoping to make a grab along the left field corner with the Cubs five outs away from going to the World Series,

What we should have really done is blamed ourselves. No one should have to go through what Bartman went through—who merely happened to be the one to make contact as one of the many fans who reached out for the foul ball in the eighth inning of Game 6.

After what happened in Wrigley Field, that day should have taught sports fans a lesson: again, that no fan should receive the kind of treatment and harassment Bartman did.

But you wonder if anyone got the message.

Bartman was pelted with drinks, peanuts and other debris and eventually had to be escorted from game from stadium security for his own protection—but later turned into a manhunt outside the stadium. Police were forced to sit and watch over his home following the death threats, and struggled mightily for a return to normalcy.

Remember Bill Buckner, the former Red Sox first baseman who let a ball go through his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series? Sure, he was forgiven to an extent, but it only happened because the Red Sox were finally able to capture two championships since.

If they hadn't, Buckner would still receive death threats to this day, let alone get to throw out a first pitch at Fenway Park.

Bartman? Not so much. He's not off the hook yet; not until the Cubs win a World Series of their own. And it's sad. His name will forever live in infamy for being an innocent fan who happened to get in the way.

San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow, a paramedic and father of two, has just started speaking after getting savagely beaten outside Dodgers Stadium on Opening Day.

Outside Candlestick Park in an NFL preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders, two fans, a 24-year-old and a 20-year-old, were shot in separate incidents, and a 26-year-old man was beaten unconscious inside a stadium bathroom.

When will we learn, folks? When will we learn that sports aren't life and death?

There have been so many sad moments because of overreaction to a simple game. We watch sports because they are our outlet from the stresses of the world. Since when have sports fans become so misguided?

There are plenty of lessons to be learned spanning sports history.

When will we begin to come around?