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 the Cubs' 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.

Let's take another look at that photo, actually:

It doesn't much look like Bartman had a chance at catching that ball. However, just looking at the photo, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Alou didn't have a hope in hell either. The only person who had a chance of catching the ball was a fan's face or shoulder, by the looks of it.

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.