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Part 3
Steve Bartman: Public Enemy #1
A sellout crowd was in attendance for Game 6 of the NL
Championship Series to watch what many were hoping would
be their team’s breaking of a losing streak that had
plagued them since 1945.
Alas, it was not be. In a sudden eighth-inning turnaround,
the Florida Marlins took advantage of left fielder Moises
Alou's run-in with fan Steve Bartman on a foul fly, and
an error by shortstop Alex Gonzalez, to score eight runs
in an 8-3 victory, forcing the NL championship series to
a decisive Game 7.
Almost immediately, 39,574 Cubs fans were baying for Bartman’s
blood, chanting "Kill him" and, presumably, hoping
that someone would kill him. Security had to escort Bartman
from the game as he was pelted by cups, dirt, loose fillings,
fans' feces and — in the biggest tragedy of the night
— even perfectly drinkable beer.
"I timed it perfectly, I jumped perfectly," Alou
said. "I'm almost 100 percent that I had a clean shot
to catch the ball. All of a sudden, there's a hand on my
glove." By Alou’s account, it certainly sounds
like Bartman was responsible for the Cubs’ loss. However,
it should be noted that left field umpire Mike Everitt ruled
no interference on the play because, as it turns out, Bartman
didn’t actually reach over the wall to get the ball.
That’s right— the ball was in the stands. According
to the perfectly-timed-jumping Alou, Bartman all but snatched
the ball from his glove while pissing in his eyes. According
to bystanders and the umpire, Bartman was sitting watching
a game when a ball and, one second later, an outfielder’s
probing hand dropped in his lap — at which point the
entire population wisely, and from a strictly logical perspective,
decided to murder him.
If Alou had caught the ball, would he have been able to
do anything with it in time? According to ESPN’s Scouting
Report, Alou’s an average thrower with a strong arm
but bad accuracy. Would he have been able to throw it precisely
to where it was needed? Maybe. We’ll never know. What
seems to be more important is: did Bartman cost the Cubs
the series?
Well, no, for God’s sake. Even if Bartman had leapt
out of the stands, flying tackled Alou and ran off with
the ball screaming “I hate everyone in Chicago”,
Bartman would have cost the Cubs a crucial play, not the
series. The only guilty party costing the Cubs the Series
was the Cubs, when they lost four games.
"What if Alou had caught the ball?" What if the
Cubs hadn’t allowed so many runs? What if they’d
pitched a better game? What if they’d won Game 7?
The Cubs losing to the Marlins was a collection of hundreds
of thousands of factors — of which Bartman, having
helped Alou and Gonzalez screw up a play, was one. To crucify
this poor guy for trying to catch a ball is like getting
really drunk, staying up until four in the morning, sleeping
in late, having your car stall, running out of gas, then
blaming some guy who cut you off on the freeway for making
you late for work.
Bartman’s a scapegoat because Chicago
desperately needs one right now. They were close, so very
very close, to the World Series, and for Cubs fans,
that’s like a fucking moon landing. The heartbreak
is palpable, and it’s the most tempting thing in the
universe to single out some small stupid thing as the cause,
rather than admitting the Cubs weren’t quite
good enough to make it past the Marlins. If Alou had slipped
in a puddle while attempting the catch, Chicago would be
openly boycotting water. Everyone in Chicago’s decided
that Bartman attempting to catch a ball was “stupid”
and the reason the Cubs aren’t heading for the World
Series – even the Governor, who helpfully chastised
Bartman for “doing something stupid like reach for
that ball." Let’s take a look at the photo of
the incident:
If the people of Chicago are to be believed, Bartman is
as close to a drooling handicap as it’s possible to
be without having to wear a bib all day, because he attempted
to catch a ball heading straight at him. So apparently everybody
else surrounding Bartman in the above photo wasn’t,
like Bartman, listening to a reflex instinct to catch a
ball – they were all attempting to stop Bartman, and
the best way to do that was with catcher’s mitts outstretched
in the direction of the incoming ball.
I don’t know shit about baseball, so I admit I’m
no authority on the subject. But it also means I’ve
got no emotional investment in it, so when I look at this
story and see an entire city crucifying some poor idiot
for trying to catch a ball that had already made it into
the stands, I’m telling you: you’ve all lost
your goddamn minds.
Let Bartman go. The Cubs not winning the World Series is
hardly cause for alarm – they’ve been doing
it successfully for decades without any help. The fact that
someone in the audience decided to pitch in this year just
means it was one less mistake for the Cubs themselves to
make.
My two cents. I welcome your death threats.
-
Jay Pinkerton
Read more stuff by Jay at
TheTrailertrash.com
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