Moises Alou Comes To Bartman's Rescue About 4 Years Too Late

I'm sure somewhere Steve Bartman is thanking his lucky stars that Moises Alou rushed to his defense.
In Wayne Drehs's article "Searching For Bartman", Drehs briefly summarizes some of the more troubling aspects of what Steve Bartman has been dealing with:

"I start by throwing Bartman's name into Google, which is putting a cramp into the business of private investigators everywhere. The results are sickening. "Death to Steve Bartman" message boards. Blogs that encourage Cubs fans to, "not let him do this to us" and to "seek revenge.""

And that's just the stuff that's fit to print. Bartman's address was printed all over the internet and he was harassed consistently to the point where he had to hire a legal team to deal forcefully with harassing contact and was rumored to have a private security force following his every move. And even after learning of all of the crap this guy's been through, many Cubs fans felt absolutely no sympathy for the kid. It didn't help that the video was replayed over and over and over again to permanently burn it into the collective memory of Cubs fandom and allow for the blame to be placed squarely upon someone other than their beloved Cubs. Bartman was the easy scapegoat and that one play pretty much ruined a good portion of his life.

But while the video replay was seemingly the smoking gun in the whole ordeal, Moises Alou played a significant role in fanning the flames with his post-game comments:

After the game, he said: "I timed it perfectly, I jumped perfectly. I'm almost 100 percent that I had a clean shot to catch the ball. All of a sudden, there's a hand on my glove."

He didn't have kind words for Bartman on that night either.

"Hopefully, he won't have to regret it for the rest of his life," he said.

Nice, Moises. That quote was the nail in Steve's coffin. Not only did it look as though Alou could have caught the ball but Moises was convinced he could have caught it. Or was he? When asked about it yesterday, Alou sang a slightly different tune:

"Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, 'Bartman! Bartman!' I feel really bad for the kid," Alou told Associated Press columnist Jim Litke.

"You know what the funny thing is?" he added a moment later. "I wouldn't have caught it, anyway."

I have no idea where Bartman was when he heard this for the first time but I bet you whatever he was drinking at that moment ended up on the floor. I'm not sure if Alou was under a rock for the last 4 years and didn't realize what Bartman was going through or if he thought the kid had finally suffered enough but if this is really true, what in the fuck was he thinking in keeping this to himself for the last 4 years? I know it likely doesn't absolve Bartman in the eyes of many Cubs fans but cripes, it couldn't hurt! I'm sure Moises thought he was doing the right thing but Bartman can be forgiven if he doesn't give him a call and thank him for clearing it all up.