Tonight ESPN is showing a documentary on Steve Bartman. If you don't know who Bartman is, you live nowhere near Chicago. Steve Bartman didn't play sports at all. He was a fan in the stands. He was in the stands at Wrigley Stadium in 2003. There was a foul ball to left field. Bartman sitting in the front row in the right field stands. Like everyone when there is a foul ball going into the stands, Bartman reached for it. Moises Alou had a bead on it and thought like he could have caught it. Looking at all the replay and the replay of the replay and the replay of the replay of the replay and the angle and that angle and this angle, you can't tell if Alou is reaching into the stands or if Bartman is reaching into the field of play. Looking at aaaall the replays, he's not nearly the only guy who reaches for the ball.
It doesn't matter.
Irrationally it is Bartman's fault. That's the way that sports work. It isn't the fact that the Cubs then went through one of the most famous meltdowns in a single game in the postseason history. Up the that fateful foul ball, the Cubs were up 3-0 with momentum. Then Bartman. Then sure handed Alex Gonzalez, who led the league in fielding during the regular season, bobbled a perfect double play ball. The pitching then dropped off. By the end of the inning, the Florida Marlins were up 8-3. It wasn't a simple little collapse on the field. It was a disaster. It didn't even matter that there was a game 7 the next night.
Cubs fans started abusing Bartman. They started yelling at him. Threatening him. Then people started throwing beer. Throwing anything, everything.
The vitriol with which the fans treated Bartman is amazing. I can understand that it was the closest the Cubs could have been to going to or winning the World Series. Alex Gonzalez should thank Bartman for all time. It was Gonzalez who bobbled the ball that would have ended the inning. It was that play that truly started the unraveling. After the reaction of the Cubs fans turning on this poor guy, they should be ashamed of themselves. To a point, some of them are. Mike Wilbon, famous for being on ESPN and half of the PTI star team on the network has said that he feels bad about not feeling bad. In the day afterward, Wilbon has admitted to hating Bartman. Now, however, he doesn't. Now he feels bad for not feeling bad. Watching some of the interviews with some of the fans that were at that game, it doesn't seem like they feel bad for Bartman. I mean, a few of them who were sitting near him did feel bad for him. They got to see the effects of their fellow man. They also felt some of the effects. Cubs fans, like the team they root for, aren't the most accurate with their throwing.
Bartman became yet another part of sports that has nothing to do with sports that has everything to do with sports. Sports are notoriously superstitious. That is why Michael Jordan wore his North Carolina uniform under his Bulls uniform every game. That is why Nomar Garciaparra went through his ritual with his batting gloves between not just every at bat, but between every pitch.
Bartman is not why Chicago now has a new curse. Cubs fans earned the bad karma for a new curse. The Cubs will not win a World Series any time soon. The curse, now, is on the fans. Since that night, the Cubs have won the NL Central twice, in 2007 and 2008. They were swept in three games in the first round of the 2007 postseason by the Diamondbacks. They had the best record in the NL in 2008. They choked in the playoffs. They went in with the best record in the NL and were swept in the first round by the Dodgers.
The Cubs have not won a postseason game since the fans' reactions and treatment of Bartman. Their punishment is to root for the Cubs in futility for the rest of their lives. Again, nothing that has to do with baseball that has everything to do with baseball.
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