Forgiveness Please: The Alou-Bartman Story

Media outlets reported that Moises Alou forgave Steve Bartman for interfering in that fateful play during the 2003 NLCS. Of course, the Deuce was all over it like the best sports blogging team on the internet. We should just repeat that phrase in every post like a couple of insecure bloggers. Right, Wolf?

I was going to use a political analogy to describe the Alou-Bartman saga but I couldn't decide between Scott McClellan and Robert Byrd. It appears that Alou's advanced age and injuries have finally affected his mental, see. Either that or Alou was playing a cruel April Fool's joke on Bartman. It turns out that Alou now thinks he would have made that catch after all.

Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post reports that Alou now says Bartman did prevent him from making that catch.

"I had it,'' Alou said Wednesday in the Mets' clubhouse. "I make that catch, (the playoffs would have been a) different story.''

In March, Associated Press columnist Jim Litke wrote that he ran into Alou last summer at a department store where the outfielder said he wouldn't have caught that famous foul that hit Bartman's hand in the eighth inning of Game 6, prolonging an inning in which the Marlins later rallied for the lead.

..."Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, 'Bartman! Bartman!' I feel really bad," Alou, a Cubs left fielder in 2003, was quoted as saying. "You know what the funny thing is? I wouldn't have caught it anyway."

Wrong, Alou said Wednesday.

"I don't remember that,'' he said. "If I said that, I was probably joking to make (Bartman) feel better. But I don't remember saying that.''

Tony Tarasco feels your pain, Moises. Good thing Alou is on the permanent DL. He can nurse this hurt along with the physical ones.