ESPN had this article last year (I think)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bartman
Pretty good article.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bartman
Pretty good article.
my heart truly goes out to this guy. i've read an article saying it had a brief interview with him where he reveals he felt sick for a couple of weeks but he eventually let it go.
he also said he was still going to cubs games. no one deserves to be treated like people treated him and probably still taunt him to this day when he is recognized.
he also said he was still going to cubs games. no one deserves to be treated like people treated him and probably still taunt him to this day when he is recognized.
Location, Location, Location.
Jeffrey Maier is hero in NYC, like he won the Yankees the Series and Bartman is goat as if he was the reason they lost. Bill Buckner samething, 2 Strikes on Carter and they couldn't get him out but every butthead in Boston blames Billy Buck.
Even though most moronic sports fans think sports come down to one play, they never do. There are opportunities during the entire game to distance yourself and get outs, blame the players. I guess Cubs fans are too stupid to do that.
It wasn't the same situation. They had a day to travel to regroup, they had their ace going, they had a 3-2 lead, and they had no pressure on them. The Cubs choked game 6 away, and the +200 the next night on the Marlins was a gift. Sure, the Cubs could have won, but that was a value bet if I've ever seen one.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84671675/
Steve Bartman's agent keeps the wolves from the door
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The 'Bartman Game'
Kent Babb, The Washington Post
2:31 pm, October 10, 2015
It was Wednesday evening in Pittsburgh, and the Chicago Cubs were winning. Frank Murtha knew his phone would be ringing soon.
In most parts of Chicago, or at least on the city's north side, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League wild-card game meant it was party time: The Cubbies were heading to the National League Division Series to take on the St. Louis Cardinals, the next step toward the World Series and the lifting of all curses.
Murtha, though, understood that the Cubs' national relevance meant it was time once again to go to work. "I know it's silly season again," said Murtha, a longtime but relatively obscure sports agent, who since a mid-October day a dozen years ago has been the man in charge of keeping Steve Bartman — perhaps the most infamous fan in baseball history — invisible.
The Cubs, of course, have not won the World Series since 1908 and haven't even played for a championship since 1945. The best chance, at least recently, to end that drought and exorcise all curses, real or imagined, came in 2003, when the Cubs needed five outs to protect a 3-0 lead to close out the Florida Marlins and advance, finally, to the World Series. Instead, Bartman, at the time a 26-year-old man wearing a green turtleneck, black sweatshirt and headphones near the left-field line, leaned forward to catch Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo's foul ball. His attempt distracted Cubs left-fielder Moises Alou, and anyway, the Marlins wound up scoring eight runs that inning. The Cubs lost. They were eliminated the next night. The curse lived on.
Bartman left Wrigley Field that night but, in the following hours, barely knew where to turn. A day earlier, he had been an anonymous Cubs fan who worked in a consulting office; now he was a pariah, the cause and symbol of more losing. Strangers swarmed him, attempting to question or condemn or maim him. Interview requests overwhelmed him. Death threats filtered in. Rod Blagojevich, at the time the Illinois governor, suggested Bartman enter witness protection.
Bartman's family remembered Murtha, who had dealt in high-pressure matters before. He had worked in sports law, negotiating contracts for NFL players Kevin Carter and Olandis Gary and Al Del Greco. Bartman had known Murtha's daughter while they were both in high school and, as the years had passed, had kept in touch. Bartman needed a favor. Murtha said yes.
They began by releasing a prepared statement: "There are few words to describe how awful I feel and what I have experienced within these last 24 hours," it read, going on to ask Cubs fans to redirect their anger into positive energy.
That didn't happen, so Murtha asked Bartman how he'd like to handle it. He just wanted to be anonymous again, just go back to work and be left alone. So Murtha went to work, forming a wall around Bartman that, even during a generation in which privacy is a hope and hardly an expectation, rarely has been breached.
If someone hoped to interview Bartman, the answer then — as it has remained each time since, no matter the outlet or angle or circumstance — was no. Murtha, who said he never asked Bartman to pay for his services, acted instead out of generosity as Bartman's spokesman, as his de facto attorney when his name or likeness had been inappropriately used, as his first and last line of defense as weeks turned to months and then years.
"He's not the kind of person or personality that wants attention or needed attention before all this happened," Murtha said in a telephone interview.
As time passed, the requests and vitriol continued. Bartman spent his days at a suburban Chicago office avoiding attention, but the response surrounding his name never simply dissolved. If anything, it intensified when the Cubs were destined for last place or the playoffs. Murtha's temporary favor turned into a long-term assignment, renewed every few years.
In 2005, an ESPN reporter followed Bartman from his family's home to his employer's parking garage, waiting hours in an attempt to get an interview. Later, when ESPN was producing a "30 for 30" segment about Bartman, it reached out in hopes of interviewing him. News organizations have made similar requests, and the way Murtha sees it, there's nothing in it for Bartman, and the answer — including to those 15 or so requests Murtha has fielded since this past Wednesday — is always no.
A few years ago, Murtha said, a playwright reached out to discuss a potential Broadway show depicting Bartman's experience, complete with an offer to send over storyboards. Murtha told the playwright not to bother.
And even if there is incentive, the answer hasn't changed. A tax company offered Bartman a six-figure sum, Murtha said, to come out of hiding and appear in a commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl. An autograph show offered $25,000 for Bartman to simply show up and sign a photograph of the incident from 2003. Jeb Bush, at the time Florida's governor, offered "asylum" should Bartman wish to escape his native Chicago area.
Each time, Bartman remained silent because Murtha was there to respond instead. No, Bartman was not interested in the Super Bowl ad or appearing at the autograph show, and no, he wasn't interested in moving to the state Bush governed at the time. No, Murtha said, Bartman wouldn't take Blagojevich up on his offer for witness protection, but after the former Illinois governor was impeached and indicted on 16 felony counts of corruption in 2009, Murtha fired back that maybe it was a shame the offer couldn't be transferred back to Blagojevich.
"It has just been Groundhog Day, I guess, and has been over the years — fielding calls for him, doing requests for interviews and appearances," Murtha said. "But it's an endless log."
Even now, Murtha said, the attention has barely waned. A Bartman impersonator lurks on Twitter — and has occasionally duped a few national reporters — and a group of Cubs fans started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for Bartman to attend last Wednesday's wild-card game in Pittsburgh; after Murtha declined on Bartman's behalf, another man dressed in a black sweatshirt, green turtleneck and blue Cubs hat, paraded around PNC Park anyway.
Murtha said he speaks occasionally with Bartman, though the 2003 National League Championship Series rarely comes up. They talk about everyday matters — work, family and whatever else - though Murtha keeps the details of those conversations private, too. He won't even say whether Bartman, who was single a dozen years ago, now has his own family or whether, in the years since '03, Bartman has attended a Cubs game. He said he still worries about Bartman's safety — the image of a T-shirt, featuring a likeness of Bartman hanging from a rope, recently found its way to Murtha — and the fact is, Bartman has never indicated his desires have changed. "Steve has not put his life on hold because of this, nor will he," Murtha said.
In fact, whether a reporter calls or a paid appearance is offered or someone asks if Bartman would be interested in throwing out the first pitch at Wrigley Field, Murtha said he no longer needs to ask.
"Nothing has changed," he said. "Steve doesn't think the world hates me by any stretch of the imagination," Murtha said. "He has any one desire in all of this: at some point see it end."
Related Content10 years later, Bartman remains enigmaMLB Network reimagines Steve Bartman as hero
Steve Bartman's agent keeps the wolves from the door
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The 'Bartman Game'
Kent Babb, The Washington Post
2:31 pm, October 10, 2015
It was Wednesday evening in Pittsburgh, and the Chicago Cubs were winning. Frank Murtha knew his phone would be ringing soon.
In most parts of Chicago, or at least on the city's north side, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League wild-card game meant it was party time: The Cubbies were heading to the National League Division Series to take on the St. Louis Cardinals, the next step toward the World Series and the lifting of all curses.
Murtha, though, understood that the Cubs' national relevance meant it was time once again to go to work. "I know it's silly season again," said Murtha, a longtime but relatively obscure sports agent, who since a mid-October day a dozen years ago has been the man in charge of keeping Steve Bartman — perhaps the most infamous fan in baseball history — invisible.
The Cubs, of course, have not won the World Series since 1908 and haven't even played for a championship since 1945. The best chance, at least recently, to end that drought and exorcise all curses, real or imagined, came in 2003, when the Cubs needed five outs to protect a 3-0 lead to close out the Florida Marlins and advance, finally, to the World Series. Instead, Bartman, at the time a 26-year-old man wearing a green turtleneck, black sweatshirt and headphones near the left-field line, leaned forward to catch Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo's foul ball. His attempt distracted Cubs left-fielder Moises Alou, and anyway, the Marlins wound up scoring eight runs that inning. The Cubs lost. They were eliminated the next night. The curse lived on.
Bartman left Wrigley Field that night but, in the following hours, barely knew where to turn. A day earlier, he had been an anonymous Cubs fan who worked in a consulting office; now he was a pariah, the cause and symbol of more losing. Strangers swarmed him, attempting to question or condemn or maim him. Interview requests overwhelmed him. Death threats filtered in. Rod Blagojevich, at the time the Illinois governor, suggested Bartman enter witness protection.
Bartman's family remembered Murtha, who had dealt in high-pressure matters before. He had worked in sports law, negotiating contracts for NFL players Kevin Carter and Olandis Gary and Al Del Greco. Bartman had known Murtha's daughter while they were both in high school and, as the years had passed, had kept in touch. Bartman needed a favor. Murtha said yes.
They began by releasing a prepared statement: "There are few words to describe how awful I feel and what I have experienced within these last 24 hours," it read, going on to ask Cubs fans to redirect their anger into positive energy.
That didn't happen, so Murtha asked Bartman how he'd like to handle it. He just wanted to be anonymous again, just go back to work and be left alone. So Murtha went to work, forming a wall around Bartman that, even during a generation in which privacy is a hope and hardly an expectation, rarely has been breached.
If someone hoped to interview Bartman, the answer then — as it has remained each time since, no matter the outlet or angle or circumstance — was no. Murtha, who said he never asked Bartman to pay for his services, acted instead out of generosity as Bartman's spokesman, as his de facto attorney when his name or likeness had been inappropriately used, as his first and last line of defense as weeks turned to months and then years.
"He's not the kind of person or personality that wants attention or needed attention before all this happened," Murtha said in a telephone interview.
As time passed, the requests and vitriol continued. Bartman spent his days at a suburban Chicago office avoiding attention, but the response surrounding his name never simply dissolved. If anything, it intensified when the Cubs were destined for last place or the playoffs. Murtha's temporary favor turned into a long-term assignment, renewed every few years.
In 2005, an ESPN reporter followed Bartman from his family's home to his employer's parking garage, waiting hours in an attempt to get an interview. Later, when ESPN was producing a "30 for 30" segment about Bartman, it reached out in hopes of interviewing him. News organizations have made similar requests, and the way Murtha sees it, there's nothing in it for Bartman, and the answer — including to those 15 or so requests Murtha has fielded since this past Wednesday — is always no.
A few years ago, Murtha said, a playwright reached out to discuss a potential Broadway show depicting Bartman's experience, complete with an offer to send over storyboards. Murtha told the playwright not to bother.
And even if there is incentive, the answer hasn't changed. A tax company offered Bartman a six-figure sum, Murtha said, to come out of hiding and appear in a commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl. An autograph show offered $25,000 for Bartman to simply show up and sign a photograph of the incident from 2003. Jeb Bush, at the time Florida's governor, offered "asylum" should Bartman wish to escape his native Chicago area.
Each time, Bartman remained silent because Murtha was there to respond instead. No, Bartman was not interested in the Super Bowl ad or appearing at the autograph show, and no, he wasn't interested in moving to the state Bush governed at the time. No, Murtha said, Bartman wouldn't take Blagojevich up on his offer for witness protection, but after the former Illinois governor was impeached and indicted on 16 felony counts of corruption in 2009, Murtha fired back that maybe it was a shame the offer couldn't be transferred back to Blagojevich.
"It has just been Groundhog Day, I guess, and has been over the years — fielding calls for him, doing requests for interviews and appearances," Murtha said. "But it's an endless log."
Even now, Murtha said, the attention has barely waned. A Bartman impersonator lurks on Twitter — and has occasionally duped a few national reporters — and a group of Cubs fans started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for Bartman to attend last Wednesday's wild-card game in Pittsburgh; after Murtha declined on Bartman's behalf, another man dressed in a black sweatshirt, green turtleneck and blue Cubs hat, paraded around PNC Park anyway.
Murtha said he speaks occasionally with Bartman, though the 2003 National League Championship Series rarely comes up. They talk about everyday matters — work, family and whatever else - though Murtha keeps the details of those conversations private, too. He won't even say whether Bartman, who was single a dozen years ago, now has his own family or whether, in the years since '03, Bartman has attended a Cubs game. He said he still worries about Bartman's safety — the image of a T-shirt, featuring a likeness of Bartman hanging from a rope, recently found its way to Murtha — and the fact is, Bartman has never indicated his desires have changed. "Steve has not put his life on hold because of this, nor will he," Murtha said.
In fact, whether a reporter calls or a paid appearance is offered or someone asks if Bartman would be interested in throwing out the first pitch at Wrigley Field, Murtha said he no longer needs to ask.
"Nothing has changed," he said. "Steve doesn't think the world hates me by any stretch of the imagination," Murtha said. "He has any one desire in all of this: at some point see it end."
Related Content10 years later, Bartman remains enigmaMLB Network reimagines Steve Bartman as hero
