Patty Biggio, wife of Astros second baseman Craig Biggio, was sitting with the Astros' traveling party, when a Sox fan apparently was teasing her, then struck her and fled, according to a Houston Chronicle report on the incident (thanks to blogger Michelle Malkin for pointing this out).

"He slapped her and ran," Craig Biggio told the Chronicle. "She ran after him. My brother-in-law ended up putting him against the wall. That's pretty sorry."

Asked whether his wife had been hurt, the veteran Astro said she had held her own, the paper reported.

"You don't slap a New Jersey girl and get away with it," Biggio said.

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, apologized personally to Craig Biggio on behalf of the entire White Sox organization and said of Patty Biggio, "I wish she would have grabbed something and broken his head."
Biggio, Astros manager Phil Garner and other members of the Houston organization pooh-poohed the idea that the unnamed fan's act represented the White Sox or Chicago fans in general.

But Astros catcher Brad Ausmus said his wife wasn't hit but was harassed with vulgar taunts and hand gestures during Game 2.

"I know the people of Chicago are overwhelmingly good people. But if I was from Chicago, I'd be embarrassed by the way the Astros' families were treated by the White Sox fans," the Chronicle quoted Ausmus.

Now, I know that Chicago White Sox fans are nothing like Chicago Cubs fans. But just imagine if Patty Biggio had managed to snag a foul ball that a fielder could have caught and in the process turned the tide of the game.

Does the name Steve Bartman ring a bell?

He's the guy who did just that when the Chicago Cubs were sitting on a 3-0 lead in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series with the Florida Marlins and were five outs away from going to their first World Series since 1945.

Bartman caught the ball before Cubs left fielder Moises Alou could, and in the ensuing shock and confusion, the Marlins rallied to score eight runs, win the game and go on to the World Series where they beat the Yankees 4 games to 2.

Bartman -- a lifelong Cubs fan, a Little League coach, and according to friends and neighbors an all-around good guy -- had to leave Wrigley Field under escort for his own safety.

The Cubs organization tried to let him off the hook, saying in a statement "It is inaccurate and unfair to suggest that an individual fan is responsible for the events that transpired in Game 6. He did what every fan who comes to the ballpark tries to do -- catch a foul ball in the stands."

But the damage was done. In the days that followed, he was almost universally blamed by Cubs fans for blowing the Cubs closest chance to a World Series in nearly 60 years. He was outed by his home town paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave his name, his address and place of business. He became the fodder of late-night television monologues. And in perhaps the unkindest cut of all, got an offer of asylum in the state of Florida by Gov. Jeb Bush.

But Bartman took it like a man, generously turned over the many gifts he'd received from gleeful Marlins fans to a charity, and declared he'd like to go back into obscurity, where he appears to have mercifully gone.

But not at all the kind of weasel-ly obscurity of a guy who pops a ballplayer's wife and tries to get out of Dodge as fast as he can.

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