So I guess it's been ten years today, huh.

[OnWis97]

Bartman needs to stop being such a pansy about the situation and just come out and do an interview. Him going into recluse like a sissy is one of the reasons why it's still talked about the way it is.

They blew up the ball, dude. They're bat-sheeot crazy up there. I know I wouldn't want to be recognized in a city where there are folks ready to harm/kill me.

Like that 30-for-30 documentary said, Bartman got the blame because, of all the fans that were going for the ball, he least looked like "Average Joe"....he has this nerdy look to him. He didn't "look" like a big baseball fan.

Saying nothing was Bartman's best move...it's not about being a pansy, it's about not attracting (thereby prolonging) spotlight. He wanted to get away from this and he's done about as good of a job as possible. And he's apparently turned down a bunch of money in the process. If you (Camden Crazy) have not seen the ESPN documentary, watch it...he comes out as about the best person involved.

(Bold)...he really did not. Which is funny...he was listening to the game (I presume) and probably paid a lot to be there. Turns out he was a pretty big baseball fan and a youth baseball coach. But at the time, because he did not look (as Costas said) "dynamic", I kind of thought he was a dork who probably was not much of a fan...I think we all did.

[Sport]

I thought the 30 for 30 was the perfect time for Bartman to do an interview and I was waiting through the entire piece for things to slow down and for him to show up to talk about it. One interview, that's it. I'm sure they tried their hardest to get him, but that doc just felt incomplete without talking to the man most affected.

I totally get why he wants to remain anonymous, but if it were me, I would've done an interview with somebody.

Maybe one day the Cubs will win the World Series and Bartman can throw out the first pitch on opening day the way the Red Sox did with Bill Buckner

[TheOldRoman]

Cool, rams80 and I were like the same person in high school, except band instead of choir. You're my downstate spirit brother. teehee madrigals.

Funny that in the midst of this 2003 nostalgia, what do I see on my facebook tonight but a link to an AV Club piece about Homestar Runner! No flashback to ten years ago is complete without Trogdor The Burninator.

What instrument, bro? Also, haha madrigals.

Cabrera didn't put us over the top?? Then what did? Do you remember how pitiful the Red Sox infield defense was in the first four months of 2004? I do. A hobbled, disgruntled Nomar wasn't doing dick at SS. Yeah, our subsequent winning streak and lower number of runs allowed after Cabrera and his defense arrived must be a coincidence. That piece of crap.

Montreal not getting the callups could easily have had both practical and psychological effects. Practical because September callups provide relief during the stretch run, where the games really start to pile up. Especially in the case of pitchers. More resources in the bullpen = more freedom to attack the other team's lineup as needed in an important game. Bullpen management becomes less of a delicate art form for the manager when more arms are available. A couple of bad pitching outings with a standard bullpen can have a snowball effect in the games to follow. The psychological part comes into play because the players know that they're playing the last month of the season shorthanded relative to every other team they'll face, and it will stay that way until they're either eliminated or pull off a mammoth upset with a WC berth. If you don't think that has impact on the field then I really don't know what to tell you. Would they have won the wildcard if they got the callups? Who knows. But trying to argue that Montreal didn't get boinked when Selig denied them is ridiculous. Whether they would have done it anyway doesn't change that fact.

First off, my impression of Cabrera being a piece of crap was from him spending a year on the south side. He was a whiny, selfish dick. He called and cussed out the official scorer during a game for giving him an error. He divided the lockerroom, and the only thing keeping him from being the most hated guy on the team was the existence of one Nick Swisher.

Cabrera was a really good player in his prime. Great defensively and a solid contributor with the bat. I think he had an impact on the Red Sox in 2004, but I don't think he lead to their great second half. I understand how important defense is, particularly at short, but if all pitchers are dropping their ERAs significantly, I think there's more to it than just one position. LightsOut is exaggerating Cabrera's worth like he put the team on his back, so it can fit into his narrative that Selig not only single-handedly torpedoed the Expos season, but also helped hand Boston a title.

I have been through several pennant races. I understand how call-ups are used by teams in the race. Position players rarely ever play before late innings, and almost always come in as pinch runners (unless guys are injured or that team has a gaping hole somewhere in its lineup). Pitchers are used a lot more frequently, but again, outside of loogys getting single batters in the 6th or 7th inning, most of their contributions come from taking the ball in garbage time. Teams in the race are not generally "giving the keys" in important situations to guys who weren't good enough of important enough to be on the team in August. So yes, the Expos' pitchers may have been a tiny bit more gassed down the stretch than other teams'. But as I said, it's ridiculous for LightsOut to keep on this "Selig stole the wildcard" crusade. I've watched enough baseball to know that even with a gassed pitching staff, minor leaguers aren't contributing 8 additional wins to a team over a 27 game stretch. The Marlins were on fire in September. The Expos would have had to go 20-7 that month to tie Florida. I think it's complete bull to claim that they surely would have done it, and probably still silly to claim they might have done it.

[The_Admiral]

Trumpet. You think a jerkass like me played saxophone?

[Unocal]

3 observations I remember from these Cubs:

1. It can't be underestimated how amazing a job Wood/Prior did in the NLDS against Atlanta. That Braves lineup was absolutely scary.

2. You don't hear much about how the Cubs had a chance to clinch in game 5 and potential avoid what happened.

3. The Marlins fanbase may have been the least deserving ever to win a World Series, let alone 2. I mean, the Cubs/Indians and their loyal fans are starving for success and here you have the bandwagoner Marlin fans who somehow got 2 titles dropped into their lap.

Also, it's easy to forget how close the Marlins were to falling behind 2-1 in the NLDS. Now, if it's Giants vs. Cubs, we're completely redoing everything.

[The_Admiral]

I'm pretty sure Game 5 was Beckett pitching lights-out in an extreme pitcher's park. Of the three elimination games, that's the last one you look at.

[TheOldRoman]

Trumpet. You think a jerkass like me played saxophone?

You could. I play(ed) sax and am arguably a jerkass.

[Sport]

I'm pretty sure Game 5 was Beckett pitching lights-out in an extreme pitcher's park. Of the three elimination games, that's the last one you look at.

I remember watching game 5 and thinking, "No, this is better. Now they'll get to clinch at home in front of their fans at Wrigley Field."

I never thought they'd lose two straight at home to the Marlins because at the time I didn't think much of that Marlins team and the Cubs had Prior and Wood for games 6 and 7.

At the time the Marlins were a bunch of dudes that we didn't know that much about. Knowing what we know now about that lineup, it makes sense that they won it all. They fell into the perfect window for Derek Lee, Mike Lowell, Luis Castillo, Juan Pierre, Alex Gonzalez all before they began to decline. Their pitching staff was excellent and they had all of those guys in their early primes, Jack McKeon who was great at getting the most out of guys (99 Reds for example), Pudge when he was still only 31, and a rookie Miguel Cabrera. It was a team where everybody player came together and peaked at the exact right time.

The only surprising thing about that team looking back with hindsight glasses was how mediocre they were at the all-star break.

[The_Admiral]

Trumpet. You think a jerkass like me played saxophone?

You could. I play(ed) sax and am arguably a jerkass.

All our sax players were BFFs and always did silly tra-la-la team-bonding activities. The trombones just did their thing with solid workmanship. The trumpets all loathed one another and excelled by sublimating our rampant selfishness and mutual contempt.

Rhythm section was probably drunk or high all the time.

[TheOldRoman]

Strangely enough, our trumpets were the buddy-buddy ones. The saxes were mostly agreeable during practice, but disliked eachother otherwise. And of course, there were a couple "too cool for school" saxes who thought that their ability to quickly trill a scale would lead to vaginas being heaped upon them. And for some reason, those losers were actually looked up to among band kids! It's funny you mention that the trombones were solid workers. For some reason, through junior high/high school and then college, trombones were all :censored:ing weirdos. They wouldn't act up, but they were the kind of kids who would always be pulling pranks, beating on eachother during rehearsals, making fallic references to their instruments, poking people in the butt with their slide, and eating habaneros before practice to see who was toughest of them all. For some reason, the type of kids who would participate in streaking were attracted to trombones.

[The_Admiral]

Hmm, usually it was the drummers who were barely civilized. I mean, when you think about it, it's the closest thing to cavemen banging rocks together.

McKeon didn't start managing the Marlins until mid-season, right? Maybe that was why they were mediocre early. Jeff Torborg is the Eric Wedge of a prior generation.

[Kramerica Industries]

On a selfish note, today symbolizes ten years since one of my favorite sporting moments, too, but just like with this one, the stupid Marlins had to spoil it.

(sorry, as you were...)

[infrared41]

Trumpet. You think a jerkass like me played saxophone?

Trumpet is kind of cool. It's at least better than the tuba or flute.

[The_Admiral]

On a selfish note, today symbolizes ten years since one of my favorite sporting moments, too, but just like with this one, the stupid Marlins had to spoil it.

(sorry, as you were...)

What a postseason 2003 was that Aaron F'ing Boone was only the second-hardest nutpunch of the month.

[Kramerica Industries]

When you got to the LCS rounds, there was the insane dramatic possibilities of the Cubs breaking their drought, the Red Sox breaking their drought, the Cubs and Red Sox facing each other to guarantee that one drought ends and the other gets even more painful, or you could've had the Yankees and Cubs, who met in the regular season to some dramatics (anyone remember the Eric Karros 3-run PH HR during the regular season series? I think that also temporarily denied Clemens of his 300th win) and would've also brought back some halcyon memories of Babe Ruth's called shot and the two World Series meetings in the '30s (obviously, it's also worthwhile to point out that the last Red Sox World Series victory, to date, had come against the Cubs, creating another great storyline there).

Out of all of those scenarios, it had to be Yankees-Marlins, and, to that end, it had to be the lifeless, boring, "catching-fire-in-a-bottle-again" Marlins to win it all. An expansion franchise of just a decade prior, who were renown for their fire sales, and, to date, have only made the playoffs twice in their now-21 year history, and yet the two times they've made it, they didn't lose a playoff series. Hell, they've won two more World Series titles than they have even won division titles. The Pirates and Royals are probably the only teams in baseball in that timeframe that hasn't won a division title.

Sometimes, sports suck.

[The_Admiral]

I do remember the 2003 Yankees-Cubs series! Wood pitched against Clemens and won, and Hee Seop Choi got KTFOed and stretchered out through the outfield doors.

Check out this run of championships since 2003:

2003: Cubs blow it

2004: other cursed baseball team wins

2005: other Chicago baseball team wins

2006: St. Louis wins

2007: no-longer-cursed baseball team wins again

2009: famously futile football team wins

2010: drought-ridden Chicago hockey team wins, drought-ridden baseball team wins

2011: St. Louis wins again

What indignity is even left? We're getting into Inanimate Carbon Rod territory here.

[Kramerica Industries]

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN200306070.shtml

Ok, so Karros wasn't a PH, but Clemens had been relieved. I think Acevedo got cut within a week of that game. And, hahahah, like I thought, the next game ended with a Yankees rally coming up short because some doofus (Raul Mondesi; didn't actually remember who it was) got picked off first to end the game. That was a fun interleague series; too bad a series unfortunate events prevented us from seeing the World Series version of it. The Yankees would've had their hands full with Prior and Wood.

[The_Admiral]

The Yankees would've had their hands full with Prior and Wood.

snort

It's sad that we never got to have Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood, Rich Harden, and Chien-Ming Wang in the same rotation.

[Jimmy!]

I do remember the 2003 Yankees-Cubs series! Wood pitched against Clemens and won, and Hee Seop Choi got KTFOed and stretchered out through the outfield doors.

Check out this run of championships since 2003:

2003: Cubs blow it

2004: other cursed baseball team wins

2005: other Chicago baseball team wins

2006: St. Louis wins

2007: no-longer-cursed baseball team wins again

2009: famously futile football team wins

2010: drought-ridden Chicago hockey team wins, drought-ridden baseball team wins

2011: St. Louis wins again

What indignity is even left? We're getting into Inanimate Carbon Rod territory here.

One could argue the fact that the Colorado Rockies AND Tampa Rays have been to more World Series' than the Cubs is an additional indignity. And if we're not limited to just baseball, the Arizona Cardinals have been to the Super Bowl more times than the Cubs have been to the World Series since Ought-3.

[The_Admiral]

Yeah well one could argue shut up.