The Enumerative: Sports Most (In)Famous Fans

Welcome to our incredibly innovative feature, The Enumerative. Because lists are awesome, plus effective time killers, in this space we'll provide a top five based loosely on something that has recently occurred in the sporting world.

Today is the 5th anniversary of The Bartman Incident, and if you have to ask what that is, well, you obviously are not from Chicago. At Wrigley Field during Game Six of the 2003 NLCS against the Marlins, with the Cubs leading 3-0 in the 8th inning and leading the series 3-2, fan Steve Bartman leaned over and caught a foul ball that surely would have dropped into the waiting mitt of left-fielder Moises Alou.

The rest is, well, some very dark history for the cursed Cubs. Florida went on to score eight runs in that 8th inning and win the game, and then the series. Below is some video of Bartman getting escorted out of Wrigley that night. It’s absolutely amazing that he made it out alive.
For a decidedly unfortunate reason, Bartman is now one of the most famous fans in the history of American sports. But is he among the top five most famous? Only The Enumerative knows ..

5. Jeffrey Maier
It’s one thing to lean over and catch a foul ball that costs your team a precious playoff out. It’s another thing altogether to lean over the fence and turn a probable out for your team into a playoff game-tying home run. Especially if you’re a 12-year-old whippersnapper out late on a school night. Maier’s grab gave Derek Jeter a round-tripper that tied game one of the ’96 ALCS. The Yanks went on to win the game, and then the series, and then the World Series, inaugurating the Torre era of dominance. Orioles fans still say Maier’s grab unfairly altered history. Bronx fans say, yeah, but whaddya gonna do?

4. Rainbow Wig John 3:16 Guy
A true icon of the 70’s. His real name was Rollen Stewart, and he made his debut at the 1977 NBA Finals. After that there was no stopping him. Rainbow Wig Guy wanted to get the message out, and the message was a sign he held reading “John 3:16”, which is this Bible verse – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It got to a point where networks were actively trying not to show him on camera, but Rainbow Wig Guy was too wily for those confounded networks, getting his mug on the air at Super Bowls, the Olympics, All-Star Games, and even The Masters. (P.S. – Rainbow Wig Guy is currently serving three consecutive life sentences for kidnapping. Turns out he was CRAZY crazy.)

3. Steve Bartman
Man, how much would you hate to be this dude? It could have been anyone of us. Hell, I’ve never gotten a foul ball in my life. You lean over, there it is, your first foul ball, and it’s at the clincher of the NLCS no less, what luck … and the next thing you know your life is in danger and you’re the most infamous jerk in the history of your favorite team. Pity poor Bartman.

2. Fan Man
This is one of those things that, if you saw it live, you just never forget as long as you live. Holyfield/Bowe II, seventh round, a face-to-face rock-em-sock-em robots round like all the rest of them, and then ... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? James Miller, forever afterwards to be known as Fan Man, parachuted nearly into the ring, getting caught in the ropes and then very quickly getting destroyed by security and heavies from both camps. Afterwards he quipped, “It was a heavyweight fight, and I was the only guy who got knocked out.” Later on, Fan Man parachuted into a Broncos/Raiders game, a premier division soccer match in England, and onto the top of Buckingham Palace.

1. Morganna the Kissing Bandit
Mmm ... Morganna. For a boy who reached the height of puberty during the height of her fame, let me tell you that the impossibly buxom Kissing Bandit was a subject of some considerable fascination. Her first conquest was Pete Rose, and she went on to kiss some of the best of the era in baseball: George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken, Johnny Bench and Steve Garvey among them. Sadly, she’s been in retirement since 1999. How I’d love to see her back in action. Nobody did it better. (Below, she ambushes Charles Barkley.)

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.