The Cubs were playing the Marlins at Wrigley Field. It was the sixth game of the National League Championship Series, and Chicago fans were growing restless; restless of the green ivy in left field, restless of being the league's laughing stock, and restless of saying "maybe next year."
If something or someone was going to ruin their chances at winning a title, it wasn't going to end well for the offender. In this case, that "someone" was Steve Bartman.
Did he want to be the entire city's scapegoat? No. He did what every baseball fan would have done in that situation: he reached for a foul ball. It's almost instinctive. It's almost normal.
That's what the play should have been considered: normal. But instead, Bartman hasn't been seen in almost a decade. He didn't just buy a fake mustache from a gag store. He must have changed his name. He must have altered his identity, starting from scratch.
This could have been prevented.
Right after Bartman "stole" the ball out of the air from Moises Alou, ESPN violated the basic moral, unwritten rules of journalism. Even I, a freshman journalism student at Duquesne University, know that it's improper to victimize a fan. Instead of getting back to the action on the field, the station repeatedly flashed images of Bartman's face on the broadcast, allowing Cubs' fans to sharpen their pitchforks with a clear target in mind.
Instead of scrutinizing the Cubs' bullpen and defense for lack of effort, the media demonized Bartman, portraying him as the only reason the team failed to make it to the World Series again.
Now, nearly a century of mediocre baseball can be summarized by one man's face:
I don't blame Steve Bartman one bit for disappearing. If the media is against you, the viewers are against you. It's as simple as that. In this case, the viewers are a ruthless bunch of rough-and-tough Chicagoans; a symbol for hatred, a symbol for intolerance.
And who has led the movement to bring Steve into the public light again? Who has relentlessly begged for an interview? Who will cash in on his words? The media.
Bartman doesn't owe the media anything.
