No Matter What

Last night Brian and I watched a 30 for 30 entitled "Catching Hell" about Steve Bartman. He was a Chicago Cubs fan who became notorious for trying to catch a foul ball that might have been caught, that might have changed the outcome of a game, that might have contributed to the Cubs going to the World Series, where they might (read: probably wouldn't have) won it all. There's endless footage of him being taunted, ridiculed, threatened, having beer thrown on him, being spit on, etc. They describe how they had to put a disguise on him to get him out of the stadium, because the mob that chanted "asshole" and told security guards to "put a twelve gauge in his mouth and pull the trigger," would not have let him get home safely. The commentators don't really mention it, but in the footage you see him sitting with a friend and the friend's girlfriend, who stand with their backs to him and not only do nothing to defend him, but act as disgusted as the rest.

And this is just a baseball game.

One segment interviews a female security guard who helped sneak him out of the stadium, and eventually brought him to hide at her house when angry fans saw through the disguise. She mentions him calling his parents to let them know he was OK. Somewhere in this city of haters were people who loved him. Yet they had to watch as a stadium full of people berated him and threw things at him and threatened him. For years, they had to read, hear, and witness the awful things being said about him. They had to endure his name becoming synonymous with the devastation of the Cubs' pennant dreams.

Again, baseball.

I was at the airport flying home to attend the June 20th Euclid City Council meeting and I saw Jim Tressel's face on the cover of thousands of Sport's Illustrated Magazines. An entire career of leading the best team in college football (wink, wink, chin to shoulder, chin to shoulder) to victory forgotten in the shadow of a forced retirement. Jim Tressel has a daughter about my age. She's sweet, and talented, and loves to dance. What are the chances she lives in a place that doesn't get ESPN or sell Sports Illustrated?

College football.

And in truly researching these catastrophic events, you can plainly see that every fan in Steve Bartman's section reached for that ball. He didn't even catch it or celebrate with it the way a man three seats down from him did. Jim Tressel never traded anything in exchange for a tattoo. There's an agonizing moment in the Steve Bartman footage where he leans to the people behind him (not his "friends," mind you, who won't even look at him) and asks, "Do you think I did anything wrong?" And while they politely shake their heads, the only real answer is, "What I think isn't going to change the mob behind me."

People ask me not to read it all. People ask me why I care about the opinion of someone who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. How can I take to heart comments like, "Maybe if LeBron wouldn't have left Cleveland, maybe he wouldn't have...?" But it hurts to watch them defile you. And it's frustrating to know that what I think isn't going to change the mob behind me.

But I know you. And I love you. No matter what.