Alou wants to help Cubs ease Bartman’s pain

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – If Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts makes good on his pledge to reach out to Steve Bartman for “closure” now that the Cubs have buried the goat, the man who made the Northshore fan famous says he’s all in.

Moises Alou, the left fielder whose angry gestures and pleas over Bartman’s Game 6 deflection of a foul ball made Bartman famous in 2003, said he’ll even make time to attend any ceremony the Cubs might stage in tribute to Bartman.

“Why not? I’d like to meet Bartman,” said Alou, who, 13 years later, still gets stopped by fans over that play that preceded an eighth-inning meltdown in that National League Championship Series game.

Bartman reportedly still lives in the area but has steadfastly refused media interviews and overtures from the team.

“I have nothing against the guy,” said Alou, who was at the winter meetings Monday representing his Dominican Republic team during a World Baseball Classic media event. “I said it right after the game. I had the ball, and I got upset, but at the same time it’s not that kid’s fault. Everybody goes to the ballpark, and they bring a glove. Everybody wants to catch a fly ball.”

Besides, it’s not like Alou would have caught the ball anyway, as he approached on the run, so close to the rising brick wall down the left field line.

“Yes, I would,” he said. “I always say that I would.”

However, a few years ago he was reported to have told a kid who asked about it that he wouldn’t have caught it.

“That’s a lie,” Alou said. “To me, I had the ball.

“It don’t matter anymore.”

Especially after putting all those past close calls to rest.

“I was very happy,” he said of the Cubs’ championship. “I was very happy for the city of Chicago. And I was very happy because I thought they might finally stop talking about that play. But they didn’t.”

He laughed as he remembered he was at an event about the WBC.

“We’re still talking about Bartman, and the Cubs won,” he said. “Does Bill Buckner still get [asked about the 1986 World Series error]?”

Of course.

“Yeah? Oh, my God,” he muttered. “OK. I’m mentally prepared now.”