Bartman offered 25k to sign 1 autograph

[Pasta Little Brioni]

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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[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Swanman

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.

It wasn't even a game 7.

Cubs had plenty of chances to win.

[Dragonocho]

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.

[Hootie]

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

[KCinNY]

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.

[Hootie]

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

[kepp]

Originally Posted by noa

Any Cubs fan is an idiot.

FYP

[Mama Hip Rockets]

Originally Posted by Dragonocho

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.

LOL

[BWillie]

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.

[Discuss Thrower]

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

[KCUnited]

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

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

[BWillie]

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by BWillie

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.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

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.

[MahiMike]

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