Question about Steve Bartman

As someone who lived through this as a Cubs fan and has seen the play more times than he would like to admit:

1) I'm sure I would have been getting out of the way. Not that it would have mattered, because six guys around me would be reaching for it. But there's a subset of fans nerdy enough to think these scenarios through ahead of time when they sit that close. I'm sure it's greater than 5% and less than 50%.

2) It wasn't a routine play. He had to come a long way, and the wall is pretty tall at that part of Wrigley.

3) Regardless of whether it was routine, he had already done the hard part. His glove was right where the ball was about to be in a split-second. There's no guarantee he would have held on, but a major-league outfielder who gets his glove in that position is going to catch it *almost* every time.

 

Unless your name is Matt Holiday ...

 

No, he shouldn't have ever been "on the hook", if not for a bunch of lifeless jerks who are looking for everyone to blame but the people who should have been blamed for losing that game, the Cubs. Just to clarify, THE BALL WAS IN THE STANDS, MULTIPLE HANDS WENT UP FOR IT, BARTMAN'S WAS THE UNLUCKY ONE, AND ALOU THREW A LITTLE SISSY TANTRUM WHICH STRINGS SOME PEOPLE ALONG LIKE SHEEP TO VILLIFY BARTMAN.

 

Sigh. I'm going to say it one more time. No, Bartman shouldn't be villified. That's silly, and I've already said that on this thread multiple times for the reading impaired.

But to dismissively act like the Bartman play had no bearing on that game is just as silly.

 

Bartman should just put his mask back on so nobody recognizes him.

 

The dumbass wing of the Cubs' fanbase and the Chicago talk-show morons -- a shit-ton of Cubs fans and the Chicago talk-show hosts are just that -- share most of the blame for keeping this idiotic scapegoatery alive.

They say they don't blame Bartman, but its funny how nearly all of them invoke his name as a verb for the Cubs' '03 failure.

You still can't swing a dead cat in a roomful of Cubs fans and not hit at least one who says or thinks, "God damn Bartman cost us a World Series."

Idiots.

 

Anybody see that Rockies fan "interfere" with a catch? What a fucking idiot. He may have cost his team the World Series. Any reasonable fan would have let his player try to catch the ball.

 

I didn't see it.
But that fan should be shot.

 

Funny. Whenever I see the video again or hear the subject brought up, it's always by non-Cubs fans.