Bartman staying away
Infamous Cubs fan has yet to return to Wrigley since ’03
CHICAGO — Steve Bartman is the most infamous Cubs fan the city has ever known, blamed by many for destroying dreams the same way Mrs. O’Leary’s cow is blamed for the fire that destroyed the city more than a century earlier.
Twelve years after that October night when Bartman deflected a foul ball that appeared destined to land in Moises Alou’s glove and help land the Cubs in the World Series for the first time since 1945, 78-year-old fan Phil Grinstead feels sadness for the vilified baseball fan.
“I think he made a big mistake by going for that ball,” said Grinstead, who was sitting maybe 20 feet away from Bartman that night and was back in the park Tuesday night for Game 3 of the NL Championship Series against the Mets. “But it wasn’t big enough to bring the wrath of the world on him.”
Bartman was hustled out of Wrigley Field that night and as far as anyone knows he has never been back.
Many feel he should be a guest of honor.
“It would be great to have him come back to throw out the first pitch,” said Wayne Broadfield, a lifelong Cubs fan.
There has been talk over the years that the same man who issued an “apology from this Cub fan’s broken heart” after the game is owed an apology himself. To the surprise of no one familiar with the anger in and around Chicago after that game, he has declined the offer and many like it.
“Right after it happened, it could have easily made hundreds of thousands or more than a million dollars,” said Frank Murtha, a longtime family friend who has been acting as a spokesman for Bartman and saying no to the hundreds, if not thousands, of requests for interviews. Bartman wasn’t interested in anything — from a “six figure” offer from a tax company to do a commercial to a playwright’s proposal to tell his story on Broadway to an offer to sit behind home plate during a World Series game at Yankee Stadium.
“He has just gone about his life,” Murtha said.