I dont know about baseball, never was my sport. But I was watching this do entary and it fascinated me and I just had some questions.
1) I understand that Bartman interfered with the play and the ball could have been caught, but it wasn't like if Moses caught that ball the game was over. So then why did the fans react that way and make him out to be the scapegoat? That was an epic choke and I have no idea why all the fans placed blame on one ball not being caught. Weren't there 4 more outs that needed to happen anyway? Why did they get so psyched out over that?
2) How the is it possible that no one has any updated pictures of Steve Bartman or what he looks like outside of that game? I understand he did this in the pre-myspace\facebook era but how is it humanely possible there aren't tons of pictures of this guy out there showing who he is. It took the ESPN reporter hours to find him.
Odd and fascinating story to me...
Cubs fans are re ed. The Cubs choked because they gave up five hits in that 8th inning, intentionally walked two players who scored, and Alex Gonzalez committed a Little League error on what should have been a sure out. They didn't even call fan interference on the Bartman play.
Supposedly Bartman still lives in the Chicago area and works in investing, but that's about all the media has dug up on him. Can't blame him for trying to avoid the wrath of that got fanbase, tbh.
^^ Disagree.
Absolutely killed momentum. A 2nd out there and the Cubs have Mo on their side big time.
Blaming it all on him? Ya that is silly.
Some fan bases have very knowledgeable fans that know when to interfere with the ball and when not to.
See New York Skunkie and some of the bull they have gotten away with.
Bartman was just ignorant of the ramifications and just wanted to get a ball to take home. Innocent mistake.
Bartman was just a easy target for a team looking for an excuse to lose and a fan base willing
to not face up the team just choked. Bartman was sitting along the left field line. That area is home to
some of the biggest assholes in baseball. They blamed him and the media was looking for someone to
blame other than their "Cubbies" who choked it all away. I have attended about 10 games and sat along
the left field line area at times. These drunk "fans" harassed a Pirates left fielder one game where he went to the
stands ready to get piece of someones ass. They had to call security and throw the assholes out of park. I know
there is some hard core Cub fans but alot of game fans are there just to toss down some OldStyle and eat a few
Chicago dogs that you can get under the stands on the left field side. It's just a shame that Bartman became a bigger
story than the yearly Cubs choke....
Unmatched LCS's, we'll never see that again. My s beating Prior and Wood in Chicago to win the pennant, Red Sox/Grady Little fiasco against Yanks. Then Beckett bent the Yanks over in the series for #2. Good times
Always felt bad for the guy. Felt even worse for him after I watched this do entary on Netflix. The sad thing is he wasn't the only fan who tried to grab that foul ball. He was the only unlucky one to do it, however.
The guy I blame more than anyone else for that fiasco is Moises Alou. If he'd simply shrugged off Bartman's interference and gone back to his position like nothing happened, the inning might have turned out differently. I believe Alou's angry, glove-throwing overreaction completely unnerved the Cubs and the fans- and inspired the Marlins.
(Also, why the didn't Dusty Baker visit the mound to check on Mark Prior, especially after he walked Castillo on a wild pitch right after the Bartman play?)
However- and I don't condone the way he was treated by Cubs fans one bit- I do blame Bartman to a certain extent. Every fan ought to know the old rule- when it's your guy making a play on a pop fly get out of the way, and when it's the opponent making a play on the ball get in the way. He had no business going after that ball. I mean, the Cubs are five outs away from the World Series and he's thinking about a souvenir? His priorities were completely out of whack.
The whole Bartman thing is an example of a sports "curse" perpetuating itself. The reality was that the play changed nothing in the game- there was still a man out, a man on and a 3-2 count on Luis Castillo, which was exactly the situation before the play. There wasn't even a guarantee that Alou would have caught the ball. But since it was the Cubs, since it was Wrigley Field, it was as if everyone was just waiting for something like this to happen. The "curse" is the expectation that the other shoe is going to drop at some point and the way the bubble immediately deflates when it does. There was no reason the Bartman play should have caused such a meltdown. But it was almost as if the Cubs and their fans willed it to happen.
You covered it all......
Alou did flip out and he probably broke the fragile concentration the Cubs had....Bartman will forever be in Cubs
lore whether he likes it or not.
Last edited by Biernutz; 06-25-2015 at 12:59 AM.
Apparently, 2 years after the Bartman incident ESPN senior writer went looking for him. He found out that Steve never changed his name, he works at a financial company and has a name tag that says Steve Bartman. He also supposedly lives in the same house and address that is all over the internet...my question is how is it possible this guy didn't have to dissapear for several years to another country and he continued to live the way he did? He supposedly also still a die hard Cubs fan.
I would have thought he changed his name, location, did reconstructive surgery, etc.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...y?page=bartman (awesome article)
Again, don't see how anyone can justify scapegoating Bartman when this happened:
That's the type of error that would be embarrassing in the Little League World Series, let alone the NLCS.
Agreed...even if Bartman didnt make that catch there were still 5 outs left
This was aired during the late 80's...1989...how ing eerie is that?
He had the integrity to stand up to it and not allow the situation to detour his entire life.. Good for him as he did nothing wrong. I think after a few years most of the Cubs fans realized they massively overreacted..
Checkout the video I posted of Married with children...came out over a decade before the Bartman incident...how weird
Bartman was an idiot pretending to be some diehard fan. No way any true fan would not realize the situation at that moment. But the guy looked like some clown with his glasses and headphones. He didn't cost the team the game by himself but he definitely had a role.
He tried to catch a foul ball. He did was 99.99% of all fans do in that situation.. Alou acting like a jack-ass and the whole team waiting for something bad to happen is why they lost..
He wasn't the only fan going for the ball... just the unlucky one to get it.
beisbol fans
Alou's temper tantrum is even more pathetic considering he had zero chance of catching that ball to begin with.
Alou would have easily caught the ball.
Without the Bartman play, the Marlins still tie it in the top of the 8th thanks to the error, but too many hypotheticals. It was a dumb move by him, but regardless the Cubs still choked in the end. I wonder if him having those headphones on distracted him from the play on the field.
Yeah, I see a baseball coming at me my first instinct is to try to grab the ball. LOL Alou and got Cub fans scapegoating this .
Just once I'd like to hear Moises Alou say, "You know, I overreacted. I should have kept my cool."
Actually, the last player I'd expect that sort of reaction from would have been Alou. I saw all too much of him during the 1997 World Series when he played for Florida (and he should have been the MVP of that series, not Livan Hernandez) and he was downright reptilian- he never even changed his facial expression. I thought he was the ultimate cool customer.
It was a perfect storm of many factors coming together
- Cubs history
- Bartman's look [i live in Moms basement] & reaction [sitting while others yelled and threw food/drinks at him]
- Alou's reaction
Fortunately for Bartman, the Marlins SHOCKED the yankees the following week and that stole some of the heat. Cub fan also thought a bright future remained with the pitching staff still young
Wood - 26 [Won 27 more games]
Prior - 22 [Won 18 more games]
Zambrano - 22
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