Steve Bartman Incident - Defense of Bartman

Defense of Bartman

After the incident, the Cubs issued the following press release:

The Chicago Cubs would like to thank our fans for their tremendous outpouring of support this year. We are very grateful. We would also like to remind everyone that games are decided by what happens on the playing field — not in the stands. It is inaccurate and unfair to suggest that an individual fan is responsible for the events that transpired in Game 6. He did what every fan who comes to the ballpark tries to do — catch a foul ball in the stands. That's one of the things that makes baseball the special sport that it is. This was an exciting season and we're looking forward to working towards an extended run of October baseball at Wrigley Field.

Several Cubs players publicly absolved Bartman of blame. Mark Prior said, "We had chances to get out of that situation. I hung an 0–2 curveball to Rodriguez that he hit for a single. Alex Gonzalez, who's a sure thing almost at shortstop, the ball came up on him ... and things just snowballed. Everybody in the clubhouse and management knows that play is not the reason we lost the game." Former Cubs pitcher Rick Sutcliffe said that the crowd's reactions to Bartman "crushed ". "Right after I saw what happened with the fan, I woke up the next morning and told my wife that if the Cubs asked me to throw out the first pitch in the World Series, I was going to take that fan out to the mound with me," he said. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig also came to Bartman's defense, telling an interviewer, "hile I understand that people felt so strongly and that their hearts were just breaking, to blame this young man, who is the most devoted Cub fan ... it's just unfair. When I read his statement, it broke my heart.... If you want to blame the Curse of the Bambino and the goat in Chicago or a series of other things, that's fine. But blaming Steve Bartman is just not right."

Several of Bartman's friends and family members spoke out in the days following the incident. His father told the Chicago Sun-Times, "He's a huge Cubs fan. I'm sure I taught him well. I taught him to catch foul balls when they come near him." A neighbor added, "He's a good kid, a wonderful son, never in any trouble. I don't think he should be blamed at all. People reach for balls. This just happened to be a little more critical. If Florida didn't score all the runs, you wouldn't be standing here." One of Bartman's high school friends wrote to the Chicago Tribune, saying, "He was the kind of person you wanted to be around -- funny, yet sincere, and always looking out for his friends. It's been years since I've seen Steve, but I know that he never, ever would do anything to intentionally hurt anybody." Five days after the game, a group of 13- and 14-year-old baseball players whom Bartman had coached held a rally for Bartman in a park in Northbrook. One boy called him "a great coach, a great person and a great role model". Another remarked that "the foul ball had nothing to do with the rest of the game".

Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti wrote, "A fan in that situation should try his best to get out of the way, even if he isn't of the mind to see Alou approaching, as Bartman claims. Still, he's also a human being who was reacting in a tense, unusual moment. And the resulting verbal abuse and trash-hurling, followed by the Neanderthal threats and creepy reaction on the Internet, hasn't reflected well on Chicago's sports culture. As it is, everyone thinks the prototypical local fans are those mopes from the Superfans skits on Saturday Night Live."

In a 2011 interview on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, Cubs President Theo Epstein expressed a desire for the team to reach out to Bartman. "From afar, it seems like it would be an important step. Maybe a cathartic moment that would allow people to move forward together. I'm all about having an open mind, an open heart and forgiveness. Those are good characteristics for an organization to have as well. He's a Cubs fan. That's the most important thing," said Epstein.

In 2012, former Cub Doug Glanville said, "t was easy to look at Steve Bartman But that was not the whole story by a long shot." He argued that the Cubs lost the momentum of the series when Marlins ace Josh Beckett shut down the Cubs in Game 5. Glanville drew parallels between that game and Barry Zito's game-winning performance in Game 5 of the 2012 NLCS.