The Bartman Chronicle: ESPN Lacking Class. Again.

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, AndyDisco on Twitter

ESPN is going to make a documentary about Steve Bartman.

It's despicable that people still use his name. I have referred to him on this blog a few times, but never by name until now. If ESPN is doing a documentary about him, I don't think my not naming him will protect his anonymity.

Among my pet peeves in sports journalism is when sportscasters mention him by name. Everyone knows who they mean, and just calling him "the fan" would suffice, but instead they use his name- and perpetuate his feelings of alienation. Everyone remembers his name, but I doubt many people would recognize him on the street- so using his name is actually doing a lot of damage to the guy and it's not necessary to use it.

I'm as big of a Cubs fan as anyone you'll ever meet, but that guy has had enough. I wish he hadn't done what he did, but it didn't legitimately affect the game. It isn't as though Wrigley Field briefs fans sitting near the playing field to not reach for foul balls that are possibly catchable by Cubs. It's a ballgame. They sell alcohol and let any paying customer in- it's not the row of the emergency exit on an airplane- there is no briefing or screening process. Most people's arguments against the fan's actions are, "He should've known better. You don't interfere with the home team." I think a good bit of that is because he is a relatively young adult male. If it were a 65 year old female tourist from Kenya or Thailand, do you think the ire for the actions would be the same? I don't.

While a lot of people wished the fan knew better, we have no reasonable expectation in the intelligence of the public at large. How often do you seem something annoying in public you wish you could change? A bad driver who fails to use their turn signal while cutting you off in traffic, the moron standing in the doorway at the coffee shop- which is the only place you really shouldn't stand, the waitress who forgot to put your salad dressing on the side, the guy sitting next to you on the train screaming into his mobile phone, the blogger who uses too many examples of annoyances, etc.

I assume that strangers are not intelligent, and you shouldn't either. And you know what? I am proven correct at an alarming rate. Maybe "the fan" is intelligent, but had a momentary lapse of good judgement. It sucks, but is it shocking? Do we have the right to be disappointed that a guy at a sports game, where they sell alcohol, did something unintelligent? How is that surprising?

Since ESPN (along with Fox) beat us over the head Curse of the Bambino, and it is no longer profitable to exploit a dead "curse", ESPN needs profit from the misery of another fan and fanbase. So great job for making a documentary about him, ESPN and profiting from his pain and the pain of Cubs fans. With all of the positive sports-related stories that you could possibly document, you went out of your way to focus on one of the (comparatively) few stories of sports ruining someone's life. That's awesome because I was getting tired of all of that uplifting news that has been saturating the media lately.










I'm T.R. Slyder, and that's how you Tangueray.