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Bleed Cubbie Blue: The Bartman Play Had Already Happened To The Cubs

The month of February brings much joy to the baseball fanatics around the world. The words "pitchers and catchers report" is the sweetest sound MLB fans can hear. So in the spirit of baseball kicking off again, let's re-visit one of the most famous plays in MLB history.

By Dave Halprin
USA TODAY Sports

In the annals of professional baseball, some plays are remembered forever. One of those plays is the famous "Bartman Play" from the Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins playoff game on October 14, 2003. The play occurred in the eighth inning of Game 6 in the NLCS, a series the Cubs were leading 3-2. Without rehashing the incident in too much detail, a ball was fouled off into the edge of the stands, a fan reached out and interfered with Cubs outfielder Moises Alou catching the ball, and then all heck broke loose as the Cubs fell apart and lost the game, and the series.

Sounds like a "can only happen once" type of play, right? Wrong! Not only has the play happened before, it happened to those same Cubs. The editor of the SB Nation Chicago Cubs community Bleed Cubbie Blue, Al Yellon, happened to be getting in the spirit of the new season by reviewing some of the great plays in Cubs history. And to his surprise, he found an almost exact duplicate of the "Bartman Play" that happened 19 years earlier.

Here's Al Yellon:

Let me set the scene. The game has gone into extra innings, tied 9-9 after Sandberg's first homer off Sutter. Lee Smith, the last reliever in the Cubs' then six-man bullpen, had entered the game in the top of the 10th. Leading off the inning was Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith.

Ozzie fouled off the first pitch, and then this happened:

That's pretty eerie.

To read what happened after the play, visit this article at Bleed Cubbie Blue.

Kudos to Al Yellon for finding this unusual coincidence. The "Bartman Play" is obviously a painful memory for many Cubs fans, but Bleed Cubbie Blue was able to put that in the past and recognize this unbelievably cruel cosmic joke. May the Cubs, one day soon, exorcise this demon by winning it all.