All he has to do is one or
two interviews and the mystery is gone and we can all move on. But he is so
obsessed with the limelight he won't allow anything to penetrate his image of
beaten puppy. Look at this years playoff run. Articles all over the place asked
"Will steve bartman go to wrigley". And bartman spoke through a damn
lawyer to say he wouldn't. It implies that the whole situation is just too
difficult. It's as if he wants everyone in the city to apologize to him. he
wants us to know how much he hurts, he can't go to Wrigley because of us and we
should all feel guilty. He's like a mother who's birthday you forgot 10
years ago.
He's addicted to his own air
of mystery, like Batman, obsessed with controlling how people view him. Steve
wants this perpetual news cycle of "don't you feel bad for him, its so sad
he can't come to the games"
He's turned himself into a
martyr and he is milking it for everything it's worth. That's why Bartman is
the worst fan in sports.
Above is a grammatically damaged email I wrote to some
friends. And so I kept thinking about this whole thing, consumed by its
consumosity. And I realized I was missing a connection. Why was this man, so conspicuously
decked out in green, sitting in the perfect spot on a breezy October evening? How
could time fate and conspire in such a way? I think I've found the answer.
We all know the Cubs haven't won the World Series in over
100 years. In 2003 it had been 95+ years. Using this failure, the Cubs had
created a marketing machine that milked the misery and disappointment of fans
for the past 30 years. The fans commiserated in the surrounding bars, drenching
not just the Cubs, but the area of Wrigleyville in beer-soaked dollars. The
culture of losing was a never ending money train.
But after game 4 of the 2003 NLCS that train was about
the hop the tracks. And crash. Killing everyone on board. Except for a puppy
who was in a travel case. The puppy survived with only minor wounds. I mean its
12 years later, so it’s probably dead now. But I digress…
Part I The Training of an Assassin
In the aftermath of the Steve Bartman incident the media
portrayed him as a die-hard cubs fan, a man harboring a lifelong obsession with
the lovable losers, he was a physical portmanteau of the two keys of Cubbiness,
failure and obliviousness. He was a perfect foil, clad in his mismatched green
turtleneck with his headphones blocking out the world around him. Maybe, too
perfect.
It’s 1977. The Cubs have finished .500 for the first time
in half a decade. The stench of the 1969 collapse lingers in the Wrigley Air
like the scent of cat litter at your aunt’s house, tainting the furniture with
a thin layer of dust and causing your asthma to act up halfway through dinner.
“Well I just vacuumed so you’re being dramatic, the dust isn’t that bad” she
claims, but you can run your index finder along the table and show her the
litter dust which is coating your lungs. And I’m running low on albuterol and
we’re only halfway through dinner.
1977 is also the year Steve Bartman is born. (Allegedly,
I have a theory about him being a lizard-like alien, but very little solid
evidence. And I’m certainly not one to jump to ridiculous conclusions.) By 1984
the Cubs return to the playoffs. They lose a heartbreaker to the Padres, but
the seeds are sown. In those seven years between his birth and Padres
heartbreak a funny thing happens. The Cubs keep losing. But the attendance
keeps rising. (excluding the strike year.) (And excluding the years the
attendance actually went down.)
Bartman’s 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."
This seemingly innocuous quote form Bartman’s father
takes on a darker meaning when you’ve been drinking since 9 am. It’s as if the
father of Lee Harvey Oswald bragged about training his son to nail a moving
target at long distances. But this wasn’t some silly president who died, this
was the assassination of the hopes and dreams of an entire city.
“I’m sure I taught him well” Maybe too well. His
father could only be ‘sure’ if Steve accomplished his mission. Now if his goal
was to help the Cubs win, then Steve’s father is a failure. But by his own
admission he “taught him well”. One can only conclude that much like America in
every war ever, Steve Bartman accomplished his mission.
He trained and conditioned Steve to catch foul balls when
they came near him. No matter the inning, the score, the situation, Steve was
trained like a single minded machine to catch foul balls. What other reason
would you have for this kind of training? Unless you were gearing up for a
moment akin to the Chicago Baseball Apocalypse.
PART II Losing IS Winning
In 1993 the Cubs finish in 4th place, 13 games
out of first. Their crosstown rivals lead by the greatest hitter in Chicago baseball
history, Frank Thomas, make the playoffs for the first time since 1983. In ‘93,
the Cubs draw their biggest gate in franchise history, 2.6 million. The White
Sox draw 2.5 million.
The next time the Cubs set their attendance record they
finish 30 games back and in dead last. You might say, well the year before they
made the playoffs, these effects were residual. Well you are an idiot for
thinking that. The following year they drew almost the same amount and put up
with same exact record.
But this is more than just about attendance numbers. This
is about owning misery. It’s about a mindset so diabolical, so
self-aggrandizing, you don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, you cut it
off to prove to everyone how miserable you are. By 2003 the Cubs whole world
revolves around this image of being lovable losers. The team cursed by a goat.
Like an abused step-child who only knows love through being hit by a drunken
stepfather, the Cubs only sign that the baseball gods know they exist is them
stubbornly smiting the franchise year after year.
In 2003 the golden arms of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior arrived
to shine light on Wrigley. And while the north side of Chicago rejoiced at
their arrival, the Cubs brass had planned ahead. They had already made a call
to one Jim Hendy. Why would they choose an assistant GM from what had become
one of the most woeful franchises in baseball? A franchise KNOWN to sabotage
their own team for profits? The Machiavellian machinations the Marlins maestro
wouldn’t be laid bare till that fateful day in October.
PART 3 Ocean’s 4
Jim
Hendry graduated from Spring Hill College and bounced around baseball
before finally becoming special assistant to the GM of the FLORIDA MARLINS. Through
possibly nefarious dealings Jim Hendry took over the Cubs in 2002 and
immediately began sabotaging the Cubs. He traded away Julian Tavarez and future
all—star Dontrelle Willis to, who else, his former employer the Florida
Marlins. But this wasn’t enough. The Cubs had two stud pitchers, maybe the best
combo of pitching prospects baseball had ever seen, tearing through major
league lineups and setting records on the way. As Sideshow Bob might have
observed, the hitters were the Kleenex, Wood and Prior were the snot party.
After firing Don Baylor in the middle of 2002 Jim Hendry
bided his time and hired a manager whose reputation as a winner seemed to mark
a positive step for the Cubs. But he would leave the Cubs with a much different
rep. In 2003, cloaking his true intentions, Jim Hendry hired Dusty Baker as the
Manager of the Chicago Cubs. It was hailed by a short sighted media as the move
of a team gearing up to win a championship. But Hendry new better. He already
knew what the world would later realize. Dusty Baker is the young pitcher
terminator. Cold, calculating and efficient.
And while the long term health of the pitchers now looked
good, (To Hendry. Cause he wanted them to get hurt. So by good I mean bad. But
I’m speaking from their perspective. Hendry and the conspirators, not the
pitchers) there was wrench in the works, the Cubs were winning, and winning a
lot. When the dust cleared at the end of a great chase the Cubs stood on top
the NL Central by a game. It wasn’t time to push the panic button yet though.
The Cubs still had to beat one of the best offensive teams the NL had ever
scene.
There’s a saying by analysts, ‘good pitching beats good
hitting.’ It’s one of those wonderful sayings which needs no proof or numbers,
but sounds smart when you say it. Well your honor, I’d like to enter into
evidence the Cubs/Braves series. The Cubs won the series on the arms of
Wood and Prior who held the Braves to 2 runs or less in all their starts. Nine
days later, in the NLCS, the Cubs were headed home. They lead 3 games to 2 with
Mark Prior and Kerry Wood scheduled to deliver them to the promised land.
I can’t "prove" any connection between the
Bartman family and Hendry. Not through any actual “evidence”. But if ever the
concept of ‘ethereal conspiracy’ was a thing, this is the definition of it.
Game 6, Steve Bartman just happens to procure the hottest ticket in Chicago, he
just happens to be sitting front row, he just happens to be on the side where
righty’s (most hitters) pull the ball foul. As Ian Flemming wrote, “Once
is happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
We all know the end result. But one thing always bugged
me. How did his father know Bartman would go through with it? How could he be
sure Steve wouldn’t fall in love with the Cubs and want them to win? I
struggled with this variable until I saw the look on Steve’s vacant face. The
only way to be 100% -Donald-Trump-positive is if Steve’s dad made him a sleeper
agent. Just like Jack Ruby and John Hinkley before him, Steve was turned into
an empty vessel. A vessel powerful men used for diabolical purposes. In Steve’s
case it was to maintain the Cubs monopoly of misery.
Now as we all know Jack Ruby was hidden away by the CIA
and disguised as the proprietor of the restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday. Hinckley
was put in charge of a bottle water consortium (Hinckley and Schmidt). So I
leave you with this question: what will Bartman’s 30 pieces of silver be?
