Steve Bartman incident

The Steve Bartman incident occurred during a Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason game played between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins on October 14, 2003, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois.

In the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS), with Chicago ahead 3–0 and holding a three games to two lead in the best of seven series, Moisés Alou attempted to catch a foul ball off the bat of Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo. Steve Bartman reached for the ball, deflected it, and disrupted a potential catch by the Cubs outfielder. If Alou had caught the ball, it would have been the second out in the inning and the Cubs would have been just four outs away from winning their first National League pennant since 1945. Instead, the Cubs ended up surrendering eight runs in the inning and losing the game, 8–3. When they were eliminated in the seventh game the next day, the incident was seen as the "first domino" in the turning point of the series.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Bartman, a lifelong Cubs fan, had to be escorted from the stadium by security guards and was placed under police protection for a time when his name and address were made public on Major League Baseball message boards.

In 2011, ESPN produced a documentary film exploring the subject as part of its 30 for 30 series. Titled Catching Hell, the film drew similarities between Bill Buckner's fielding error late in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series and the Bartman incident. It explored the incident from different perspectives.

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