THE DAY CHICAGO CRIED

Game 6 of the 2003 National League play-offs, my buddy Frank and I had the best seats in Wrigley Field to watch the Chicago Cubs play the Florida Marlins.  No, we weren’t sitting behind the catcher.  No, we weren’t sitting on one of the nearby buildings, watching the game from a rooftop with on a lounge chair while cracking open a few beers. Like we always do, we sat in the front row along the left field corner wall behind the bullpen.  My dad always got us seats there so that’s where I sit.  But this night I happened to be sitting next to the devil incarnate himself, Steve Bartman.  Yeah, like I said, best seats ever. I remember it like it was yesterday.  It all happened like it was in slow motion.  I’m not kidding.  The ball came rocketing up toward us.  Yeah, we thought it was a foul ball and we all stood up to catch it.  Then our man Moises Alou starts running up with his glove out and I pulled Frank back down into our seats.  We knew Moises was going jump up in the air and catch the ball.  That’d have been one more out closer to the World Series.  Bartman, though, shoves everybody out of the way and is shouting for the ball.  He won’t let anybody else come near it!  And he bats the thing away from Moises!  What was he thinking?  It all went downhill from there, but it started with Bartman. 

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