I held off on posting about this story cause just about everyone in the Blogospehere did their own rendition. The basic elements of the story are pretty interesting. Some guy/company was offering $25,000 dollars for Steve Bartman to show up at the National Sports Collectors Convention to sign an autograph.
I would have to say who ever came up with this idea is a genius because it brought some serious national and media attention to a baseball card show that would have traveled well below the radar had this offer not been made public.
That being said, it is wrong to blame Steve for not wanting to attend this show full of baseball fans and in Chicago none the less. The great thing is that unlike many other guys who had “15-minutes of fame”, Steve has absolutely no interest in stretching those minutes for money or a little bit more notoriety. It is believed that Steve even turned down a six-figure paycheck to film a Super Bowl ad some years ago.
To the fans of the Cubs, you have a great team this year. The thing is, your salary is over $100 million dollars which means that if you guys don’t win this year, you cannot blame some ridiculous goat, a scapegoat named Steve, or some stupid Sports Illustrated cover. If you don’t win, your team just flat out sucks.
That message is not for all Cubs fans, though because I know not all of you are living in the past, cursing some unknown guy for a dumb decision made almost 5 years ago, or putting all your eggs in a basket named Fukudome.
The real slimeball in this case is “SportsBuy.com”, formerly the cheap-looking website for selling cards called Naxcom who say that if Steve would have signed, they would have donated the money made (estimated at $100,000 dollars) to charity.
Well, I think you should have put that $25 grand you offered Steve into your Naxcom business because despite being affiliated with MLB.com, the entire navigation of the site was complete garbage. Now that you have no signed photo, does that mean you will donate the money you would have paid Steve to a charity?
Something tells me it ain’t happening.
He must be a least slightly retarded not to have cashed in on all this. Instead I guess he’ll hide his head in shame for the rest of his life. Pathetic!
I hate the Cubs now because of their fans blaming him. What a sad story. If I were him I wouldn’t be so nice.
I applaud Bartman, there is no reason for him to be constantly bombarded with requests for stupidity.
On the other hand, the picture would have been auctioned for charity, so that sucks that they cant do that anymore, because that picture would have brought a ton of money.
This may be strange, but I feel kind of sorry for Bartman. One mistake in a split second decision has basically ruined his life.
I don’t feel sorry for Bartman. He did something that many of us would have done; heck, look at the other fans in the picture with their arms and gloves outstretched trying to catch the ball. If I were him, I’d have a sense of humor about it and enjoy my 15 minutes of fame. I’d actually love to be him with all of the money that he could have gotten. Imagine all of the super high-end baseball cards that I’d be able to buy!
Remember what happened to that Bartman-esque character on Law & Order? Yeah, he might’ve been thinking about that when he passed this opportunity up.