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Alou won't accept radio host's apologyAssociated Press SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants manager Felipe Alou called a one-week suspension given to a radio host for making racial remarks about the team's Latino players "a slap on the hand" and said he wouldn't accept an apology from Larry Krueger. "He came to apologize to me? You have to be kidding me," Alou said Saturday, one day after the suspension. "There's no way to apologize for such a sin." Alou said he wasn't in position to accept an apology on behalf of the "hundreds of millions" of people offended earlier this week when...

Station won't fire host after apology SAN FRANCISCO -- A talk show host for the San Francisco Giants' longtime flagship radio station was suspended for a week without pay Friday for racial remarks he made about the team's Latino players -- though a high-ranking station executive said he would not be fired. “ I never heard anything like that here. I heard it in the South and in some other cities, but not here. ” — Manager Felipe Alou On the air late Wednesday after the Giants lost 3-2 to the Colorado Rockies, Larry Krueger of KNBR went off about...

CHICAGO - Moises Alou has had better weeks.   Not only is the Chicago Cubs (news)' left fielder mired in a hitting slump after a fast start, he's been dogged by questions about his unorthodox hitting preparation. Alou is one of only a few major league players who doesn't use batting gloves, and it was reported that he urinates on his hands to harden them. Alou doesn't dispute the report, but also doesn't want to discuss it anymore. "I don't want to talk about that because I told that to somebody who wasn't supposed to print it," Alou said before...

Do you think the media acted responsibly when they released the name of the man who grabbed the foul ball during the Cubs game?

Another Bone-Headed Play The Cubs owe their last World Series victory to a fluke. Friday, October 17, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT We doubt that it will be any consolation to Steve Bartman, the hapless Chicago man who did what any fan would do when a ball was hit his way: try to catch it. But for the embittered Cubs fans who chanted profanities at him during Game 6 and are now blaming him for blowing their chance for a World Series berth, we've got some news: You wouldn't even have been in the 1908 World Series--the last time you won--without...

MIAMI - If he's interested, the 26-year-old Chicago fan who deflected a foul ball away from a Cubs outfielder in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series can find solace in Florida. Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday an offer of asylum might be a good idea, and an oceanfront retreat in Pompano Beach is offering the man a free three-month stay, should he deem it necessary to get out of Chicago until the hubbub over the popup cools down. The fan, whom The Associated Press was holding off naming for fears of his safety, would also receive free airfare and...

Unlucky Cubs fan says he's brokenhearted after deflecting ball Oct. 15, 2003 SportsLine.com wire reports CHICAGO -- The fan who played in a key role in the Chicago Cubs ' collapse in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series apologized Wednesday, saying he was brokenhearted. With the Cubs five outs from advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945, Steve Bartman tried to grab a foul ball, preventing outfielder Moises Alou from catching it. That helped the Florida Marlins rally for an 8-3 victory to tie the NL Championship Series Tuesday night. COMMENTARY Fan didn't lose Game...

CHICAGO -- We don't know his name. We don't want to know his name. We hope no one in Chicago ever learns his name. We hope he already has joined the witness-protection program. We hope he can start a new life somewhere, rooting for a team thousands of miles from the North Side of Chicago. We hope he forgets. We hope the people of Chicago forget about him. But that will never happen. No way. Because the Cubs lost a playoff game they couldn't lose Tuesday night. And one reason they lost it is because a 26-year-old guy in a...

CHICAGO - They were down to their final five outs. Five more outs and their season would be over. Five more outs and they would go home, kick back for the winter, and daydream about the glorious summer that was. And then, as a stunned Wrigley Field crowd of 39,577 sat in dumbfounded silence, it happened. The Marlins found their magic. They whipped out their wand in the waning, desperate moments Tuesday and produced one of their most dramatic victories in a summer full of them. Down 3-0 and facing elimination with a loss to the Chicago Cubs in Game...

CHICAGO (AP) - A howling mob demanded answers, a name to go with the face. Instead, haunted members of Cub Nation should ask themselves a few questions. What kind of kid grows up rooting for a team whose motto is, "Wait 'til next year?" What kid learns about curses by the time he's old enough to walk and hears testimonials about suffering from grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors and friends and then decides, "That's for me?" Very likely the kid who was parked in Seat 116, Row 9 on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field. A Cubs fan. One of their...

Chicago -- Last seen, the fan who tried to catch the ball was wearing a jacket on his head and being led into the underbelly of Wrigley Field for his own protection. He may forever be referred to as "that fan" or any number of other names after he reached for a pop foul that Cubs left fielder Moises Alou was about to catch for the second out in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the NLCS Series, with the Cubs leading 3-0 and five outs away from the World Series. But the ball struck the fan's hand and...

CHICAGO (AP) — Add a meddling fan and a rare error by a sure-handed shortstop to the Chicago Cubs' long history of misery and dashed hopes. The Cubs were five outs from their first World Series in 58 years Tuesday night when one of their own fans got in the way. It started a series of ugly plays that resulted in Florida's eight-run inning and an 8-3 victory for the Marlins in Game 6 of the NL championship series. "It has nothing to do with a curse," Cubs manager Dusty Baker said. "It has to do with fan interference and...

<p>CHICAGO — Chicago Cubs (search) supporters showed up for a night-long party at Wrigley Field (search) on Tuesday, only to have their raucous celebration snuffed by a stunning late-inning rally that left them cursing one fellow fan.</p> <p>In a stunning eighth-inning turnaround, the Florida Marlins (search) took advantage of left fielder Moises Alou's run-in with a fan on a foul fly and an error by shortstop Alex Gonzalez to score eight runs in an 8-3 victory Tuesday night, forcing the NL championship series to a Game 7.</p>

Play Ball!

OAK BROOKE, Illinois -- The foul ball that may have saved the Florida Marlins' post season could be yours -- the biding will start at $5,000. An Internet auction house near Chicago claims to have the baseball at the center of one of the most infamous plays in Chicago Cubs history -- the foul fly from Game Six of this year's National League championship series. MastroNet Incorporated said it will auction the ball on behalf of a 33-year-old Chicago attorney identified only as "Jim". The company says Jim was sitting near Cubs fan Steve Bartman, who deflected a foul pop...

MIDI - TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME Take me out to the Cubbies...I scored wonderful seats If a foul ball should be coming near...I will grab me that great souvenir 'Cause these tickets cost a whole paycheck...I have a warning for you No one had better get in my way...so watch out, Alou

In Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series between the Florida Marlins and the Chicago Cubs Wednesday night, five outs Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo stood in against right-hander Mark Prior of the Cubs, who’d been painting a three-hit shutout until that point. With one out, a 3-2 count, and the Marlins speedy Juan Pierre on second with a double, the switch-hitting Castillo sliced a Prior pitch down the left field foul line. As the pop-up tailed for the grandstands. Cubs leftfielder Moises Alou circled under it, braced his right hand against the wall of the Wrigley Field...

Man in stands described as diehard fan Chicago Sun-Times, October 15, 2003 BY ANNIE SWEENEY, FRANK MAIN AND CHRIS FUSCO The man some fans blame for Tuesday night's Cubs loss because he reached out and touched a foul ball that Moises Alou was trying to catch is a diehard Cubs fan who coaches youth baseball in the north suburbs. Steve Bartman, 26, works at Hewitt Associates, an international consulting firm in Lincolnshire. "He is an associate at Hewitt, and he is not coming to work today because of the incident," Suzanne Zagata-Meraz, a spokeswoman for Hewitt, said this morning. "That...