Cubs pay penance to Bartman with WS ring
The thing to remember always is just how gracious Steve Bartman has been these past 14 years. Perhaps that’s a commentary on how low our bar is set now and for how we def i ne genuine celebrity.
The truth is Bart man could have cashed in on his infamy a thousand times over since that fateful night in October 2003, when his hands interrupted a baseball’ s( possible) pathway into Moises Alou’s glove. He has been offered hundreds of thousands of dollars by hucksters and hacksters, hoping he would break his silence, bar ea( presumably) tortured soul. He never did that. Not once. In 2017, when we are overrun by K ar dash ians,w hen our insatiable 24/ 7 celebrity culture is forever groaning to be fed, everyone has a price. Everyone has a point at which they’ll take a check, cash or money order as partial compensation for their pain and suffering, real or imagined. Bartman never did that. Not once. So even if it seems a bit odd, a bit of a karmic dance, for the Cubs to present Bartman with a championship ring commemorating their 2016 World Series championship, it’s hard to find any fault in it. It seems a genuine gesture, a civic penance t he Cubs have opted to pay for the egregious behavior of those who chased Bartman out of Wrigley Field on the night of Oct. 14, 2003, who made Bartman’s life hell for doing what every single one of them would have tried to do: catch a foul ball.
“We hope this provides closure on an unfortunate chapter of the story that has perpetuated throughout our quest to win a longawaited World Series,” the Cubs told WGN-TV in a statement Monday, the day owner Tom Ricketts presented Bartman with the ring. “While no gesture can fully lift the public burden he has endured for more than a decade, we felt it was important Steve knows he has been and continues to be fully embraced by this organization.”
More notable was t he statement delivered by Bart man, which echo es what little we’ve known about Bartman — what little he’s allowed us to know — since Luis Castillo sent that foul ball drifting in the direction of Bartman’s seat at Wrigley Field, Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113.
“Although I do not consider myself worthy of such an honor, I am deeply moved and sincerely grateful to receive [this ring],” Bartman said. “I am fully aware of the historical significance and appreciate the symbolism the ring represents on multiple levels. My family and I will cherish it for generations.”
He added :“I humbly receive the ring not only as a symbol of one of the most historic achievements in sports, but as an important reminder for how we should treat each other in today’s society.”
Then he did exactly what you would expect he would do: He asked for his privacy, declared he would do no interviews and went back to his life. Bartman didn’t seek the spotlight 14 years ago, when the image of him in his Cubs cap and his oldschool Walkman earphones became as much a part of that October as Aaron Boone’s home run and Josh Beckett’s World Series.
He never tried to flip that fate, either. Not once. There really was only one thing we ever knew about him: He loved the Cubs. He expressed heartbreak at whatever role he had in extending their playoff drought in 2003, and that always seemed especially cruel, a fan having to carry a burden like that — far heavier and far longer than, say, Alex Gonzalez, who botched a double-play grounder that really did the Cubs in a few minutes later.
So Bartman gets his ring, and he goes away again, seeking anonymity, dashing away from the spotlight, same as he’s done from the moment he was escorted out of Wrigley all those years ago. Good for him. In a time when so many walk around with their hands out looking for a payday, he never did. For that alone, he earned every karat.