Nearly 11 years after the infamous Steve Bartman incident and nine years after the baseball's remains were used by a restaurant in some pasta sauce, a 17-year-old named James Nugent showed up at a Cubs-Marlins game in Miami dressed in a homemade Bartman jersey.
Nugent's jersey bore the number "03," a reference of course to the year that Bartman interfered with a foul ball in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series and seemingly prevented outfielder Moises Alou from making a catch for an out.
But the inning continued and the Cubs melted down, eventually losing the series, making Bartman an excellent scapegoat and further cementing Cubs fans as lovable losers.
Anyhow, people have worn the large headphones and a blue Cubs cap as a Halloween costume for years a la Bartman (probably few in Chicago) but not many actually turn up at the ballpark, let alone people that were six years old when it happened.
There's video from MLB showing reaction to a Nugent foul drop but not the goof itself. But it makes perfect sense that Nugent would drop a ball in a spot well into the stands where it would have been perfectly acceptable for him to field it: He cursed himself.
