Bartman offered 25k to sign 1 autograph
 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big...?urn=mlb,95542

Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008 3:23 pm EDT

Cubs fan Steve Bartman offered $25K for just one autograph
By 'Duk
Sportsbuy.com and the National Sports Collectors Convention sure have devised a way to get a lot of marketing without ever having to pay a dime.

As you might have read on Deadspin, they're offering infamous Cubs fan Steve Bartman a cool $25,000 if he shows up to their memorabilia show in suburban Chicago and signs just one picture of him destroying the World Series dreams of Cubs fans everywhere getting tangled up with Moises Alou in Game 6 of the '03 NLCS.

From the Orlando Sentinel:


To collect the cash, all Bartman has to do is show up at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., at 1 p.m. on July 31, prove his identity and sign a photograph of the infamous play. It will then be auctioned on the Web site with the proceeds going to a Chicago-based charity, according to a news release for the publicity stunt event.

"No one in sports memorabilia history has ever been paid $25,000 to sign one autograph — not Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, or any other athlete,” said Mike Berkus, co-Executive Director of The National. "Steve Bartman has been a recluse for years, but we’re hopeful that he will accept our invitation and generous offer to appear ... We have personal security to provide to Steve at The National and to a destination of his choosing.”


It's an ingenious marketing plan, really, because I'm sure the organizers know they're dealing with probably the only man on Earth who wouldn't simply sign his name and then collect $25K. In the almost five years since his name became synonymous with the Billy Goat curse, Bartman has turned down every single interview request that has come his way and no doubt also said no to numerous book-TV-movie deals that were worth much, much more than what a bunch of baseball card dealers are offering here.

What's worth noting, though, is just how much attention just the mention of Bartman's name in a press release can draw. Can you imagine what it'd be like if he actually showed up for one of these stunts?

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Entertainment Society FTW!

I am still in awe of the fact that this guys life was essentially ruined by going to a baseball game. Fate is a bitch sometimes.

Alou wouldn't have caught the ball. Any Cubs fan still mad at Bartman is an idiot. The Cubs did plenty on their own to blow that game.

That does suck. Heck, other people around him were reaching for the ball too. Now he is in hiding and they want to bring him out by offering the cash.

Yeah, sure. The 25K will go to the sniper they'll have there waiting for him. DON'T DO IT, BART MAN.

If I were him I'd already have built an underground shelter to live in.

We'll never know if he would or not

Most of them are still mad at him, and yes, most of them are idiots.

Damn shame, too. By all accounts, Bartman is a very decent guy. He was a little league coach and die hard Cub fan.

If I was him, I'd show up wearing Sox gear and sign 1,000 of them.

**** that, after they turned on him, i would just move to the i think it was the Cardinals right? Become a fan of theirs and live the rest of my life being a hero. lol

Well the incident happened in the NLCS against the Marlins and I think I remember people offering him a free place to stay down in Miami after it happened.

I'll never forget the day after that. Prior to that game, everybody and their friggin dog had Cubs stuff on. Everything was World Series this, World Series that, curse is over, we rule, blah blah blah.

Then came the collapse.

They still had a game left. It was being played at Wrigley. The Cubs had the advantage.

But it was like the city already knew it was over. I think I saw, perhaps, ten people wearing Cubs gear during my 10 block walk between Union Station and my office. The previous day, that number had been in the thousands. It felt like I was walking through a crypt.

I, of course, loved it. :evil:

It's sort of been that way this week, too. Not seeing much evidence of the Mighty Cubbies on the streets of Chicago this week. Sure doesn't take much losing for those blue hats to find their way to the bottom of the hall closet. :)

Well, hell, Miami then. Nice place alot of beautiful women. Win win.

That game 6 was just unreal. The Cubs on the verge of heading to the World Series and the epic collapse that followed Bartman's goof. A play that most baseball fans will never forget. The life was sucked out of Wrigley that night.

Five outs away....

I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that phrase uttered in a whiny voice. LMAO

Yet all Cardinals fans are still mad at Denkinger, so I can't really blame Cubs fans here...

That's messed up how fanatical people get. Bartman is the fan's version of Bill Buckner ... social pariah ...

I never understood why people blamed Bartman and not Bernie Mac's stupid ass.

Almost reminds me of some series that took place in the 80's

11-0 baby

Correct 100%. A lot of idiot Cubs fans still blame the guy, even though Alex Gonzalez booted a tailor-made double play ball that would have ended the inning about 5 minutes after that and then Kerry Wood went out in Game 7 and got his dick knocked stiff. I am a Cubs fan, but I am not a fan of Cubs fans.

If Alou hadn't over-reacted then it would never have been a big deal. Cubs fans should be mad at him and that shortstop, not Bartman. Douchebag Cub fans.

As much as red sox fans invited Buckner back after they won in 04 I hope they do some kind of tribute to bartman if the cubs win. hahaha the cubs winning thats rich

I'll agree with you on that. No denying it whatsoever. The "Call" will also go down as one of the unforgetable moments in sports. Whether it changed the outcome of the game or not is debated, but the play it self is memorable to all who saw it happen.

Watched the ESPN doc on Bartman tonight.


I think I blame Moise Alous childish overreaction for being the root cause of hate for this guy.

Impressive that he's stayed out of the spotlight for so long and has turned down over 200 interview requests.

Yeah exactly. W/o Alou's temper tantrum none of the Bartman happens.

I don't think once in my life I've ever seen a fan purposely get out of the way of a pop up so a player can catch it. No one has that kind of self-awareness. Everyone is looking straight up at the ball, just hoping it won't hit them in the head. You reach out your hands to protect yourself as much as anything else. No one is aware of where the railing or any player is. Ever.

I literally just paused that documentary to put my kids to bed. About 20 mins in. Looks really good. The pathetic-ness of sports fans never ceases to amaze.

Just finished it. Cubs fans deserve another 100 years of losing.

Yeah, not worth it for the ridicule he has been through. I don't think I would show up for that if I were in his shoes.

But but but he was the first domino. LMAO

It wasn't even a game 7.

Cubs had plenty of chances to win.

Cannot believe how caught up in sports teams people get. I'd like to stay and discuss but I have to get back to voting for Moose.

I was sick to my stomach at the time when fans reacted that way. Poor guy. Besides, Alex Gonzalez is 100% to blame. That dude should be sending a Christmas card to Bartman every year

The behavior of the Cubs fans at Wrigley that night was nothing short of despicable.

I'm glad they choked the '04 pennant away and I hope those losers never even sniff a title.

The ESPN documentary made a very good point. Chicago doesn't need to forgive Bartman...but maybe Bartman is a good enough human being to forgive Chicago.

As someone who roots for the Cubs, I was a college freshmen at the time and I pissed off everyone in my dorm by defending Bartman. Everyone just had to have someone to blame. Doesn't help that, overall, baseball IQ is just awful. We still have a large contingency of Royals fans who think Gordon should have went home

FYP

LOL

The guy standing right next to Bartman actually extended his hands out FURTHER than he did, but he was six inches or so from touching the ball. Cubs fans are just being results oriented. If you grill Bartman, grill the other guy for trying to get the ball too. It really wasn't totally egregious, he didn't significantly lean over the railing. I would have been annoyed too if I was a Cub fan, but the hate he gets is so overblown. And, I agree, without Alou's temper tantrum it would have only been a blip on the radar.

The shortstop ****ed Chicago more than Bartman did.

I don't like Cub Fan, they obviously took it way too far, and Bartman took way too much abuse, but we had a player get injured in July and people were talking about becoming physically ill, calling into work the next day (hopefully joking), and drawing on their time as a youth girls soccer coach to provide diagnosis. This same thing, under the same circumstance, happens at the K last year and people are flipping the **** out on the guy. Maybe not to this extent, but we had people harassing Cano's family over a guy we now laugh at for his shitty play being snubbed for the HR derby.

Lee Elia had it right when he called Cubs fans one who sucks the peniss.

3 out of my 5 years of college was spent at the University of Iowa (in Eastern Iowa 3 hrs from Chicago) so I encountered way way too many Cubs fans from mainly suburban Chicago. They kind of reminded me of the Sporting Kansas City fan, they didn't actually like baseball. They didn't actually like sports. They liked the Cubs because they were trendy, and it was just the thing to do. The crazy part about this is, unlike Sporting who is actually successful, the Cubs have sucked for decades. But they were decent around 2006 if recall.

Cubs fans go to Cubs games to drink, not to watch baseball.

I would have to agree with that. Usually, elite prosport fan bases are pretty knowledgeable. They've been around. Their fan base has followed the game their entire lives. So that generally makes them smarter than the average fan. That certainly is not the case, IN GENERAL, of most of the Cub fans.

I thought this was a ComicCon reference. Bart man Simpson...

Chicago owes Steve Bartman an apologikee .

So does the media.