The 20th anniversary of the Alex Gonzalez Game is upon us, though few Chicago Cubs fans refer to it as that.

Gonzalez, the former shortstop who booted a potential double-play ball that contributed to an epic Cubs collapse in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series, was fortunate enough to find cover under the dropped foul ball by a fan that preceded his error.

Ditto pitcher Mark Prior and the rest of the ‘03 Cubs who helped fritter away a three-run, eighth-inning lead on Oct. 14, 2003, and then failed to get the job done in Game 7. Manager Dusty Baker and pitching coach Larry Rothschild dodged most, but not all, of the finger-pointing as well.

Steve Bartman famously took the fall, disappeared for 13 years, returned to accept a World Series ring from the Cubs, then went back into hiding for the last seven years. His face has not been on the internet, to anyone’s knowledge, and he has not profited off his moment of infamy.

While his story has been told in an ESPN documentary, alluded to in a PlayStation ad and rehashed in numerous newspaper articles over the last two decades, including a 10-year anniversary piece I wrote for the Tribune in 2013, Bartman has refused to talk.

Only on occasions such as this does his attorney and family friend, Frank Murtha, spring into action to reiterate that Bartman has nothing to say about that day or his life.

Murtha thought it would be over by now but admits he was wrong. The legend continues. You have to credit Bartman for staying underground after a life-changing event he easily could have cashed in on and for overcoming an ugly reaction from die-hard Cubs fans upset that their team blew a chance at the World Series.

Former Marlins outfielder Juan Pierre, who was on second base at the time, told me 10 years ago that the team thought nothing of the foul ball at the time.

“I saw where someone in the dugout said ‘Hey, let’s make this guy famous,’ ” Pierre said. “But I didn’t hear that. I definitely feel bad for him.”

Bartman did become famous, which might not have happened had the Cubs gotten their act together and held on in Game 6 or won Game 7 to make it a moot point.

But those things didn’t happen, and you can’t change history. Still, you can look back at the facts and change the narrative, which a popular TV show recently did.

So I had to ask Murtha if Bartman had seen a particular episode of “The Bear,” a Hulu show about a Chicago man named Carmy, played by Jeremy Allen White, who took over the family’s restaurant after his older brother committed suicide.

“I don’t know if he does, and I didn’t hear anything about it,” Murtha said. “But it’s not like I have search engines covering everything in the world.”

I have to believe Bartman has at least been informed of a scene that mentions his incident in a profane and hilarious conversation between two of the main characters.

In the episode, a grizzled businessman called Uncle Jimmy (played by Oliver Platt) gives an impassioned speech about the hazards of the industry, using the Bartman episode as a metaphor.

“Do you remember Alex Gonzalez, shortstop for the Cubs?” Uncle Jimmy says.

“Um, no, no, I don’t think so,” Carmy replies.

“Right, and it’s a shame you don’t think so,” Uncle Jimmy says. “But I’m going to explain why you don’t think so.”

Uncle Jimmy goes on to explain the circumstances of the Game 6 loss, calling the grounder to Gonzalez an “easy grab, no (bleeping) brainer kind of thing” that led to the Cubs falling “apart at the seams.”

When Carmy asks himself out loud why he doesn’t remember Gonzalez, Uncle Jimmy delves into the earlier play of the fly ball down the left-field line that a fan dropped as left fielder Moises Alou approached the wall.

Carmy quickly realizes he was referring to Bartman, and he nods knowingly. Uncle Jimmy tells him the reason he couldn’t remember Gonzalez’s name was because “everybody and their mother wants to blame the (bleeping) guy instead of the actual (bleeping, bleeping bleeps) who (bleeped) it up.”

Those bleeping bleeps, of course, were the rest of the Cubs.

The scene was perfectly written and well-acted and might have been the best defense I’ve ever heard of Bartman’s accidental appearance in Cubs lore. Kudos to “The Bear” for giving Bartman’s side after all these years.

Most Cubs fans have come around to Bartman’s side, realizing he was just an unlucky person sitting in the unlucky seat where Luis Castillo’s fly ball would land. But that doesn’t mean his name won’t be remembered long after Gonzalez and the other Cubs who contributed to the loss are forgotten.

The Cubs tried to make amends in 2017 when they gave Bartman a 2016 World Series ring, whether it was done with good intentions or just virtue signaling to show what benevolent guys they are.

Bartman and Murtha drove to Chairman Tom Ricketts’ office to pick up the ring with president of business operations Crane Kenney and president of baseball operations Theo Epstein also in the room.

That was supposed to bring closure to the incident, and to some extent it did.

Bartman issued a statement that day expressing his “heartfelt thanks” to Ricketts, Kenney, Epstein and the entire Cubs organization,” calling the gesture “the start of an important healing and reconciliation process for all involved.” Bartman mentioned his wish was to “prevent harsh scapegoating and to challenge the media and opportunistic profiteers to conduct business ethically by respecting personal privacy rights and not exploit any individual to advance their own self-interest for economic gain.”

The Cubs also invited Bartman to appear in the victory parade, which Bartman politely declined because he didn’t think it was appropriate to take any attention away from the players.

I asked Murtha if Bartman ever wears the ring.

“I kind of doubt that he does,” he replied, adding he never has asked.

The media has mostly ignored Bartman over the last seven years, expect perhaps when other so-called “Cubbie Occurrences” happen, such as Seiya Suzuki’s missed fly ball that helped lose a game in Atlanta last month during the Cubs’ wild-card chase. One ESPN.com reporter stalked Bartman for a story many years ago, but otherwise he has been left alone.

When I reached out to someone who had helped Bartman escape Wrigley that fateful night, the person declined and said “Please leave him alone.”

His name still pops up from time to time, though not as often as the first 10 years after the incident.

A front page of the Tribune with a photo of Bartman’s drop and the headline “The Mitt Hits the Fan” was signed by Alou and framed by a Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse attendant. It resides in his office in the visitor’s clubhouse at American Family Field to this day, viewable to any Cubs player who walks past.

In April the Miami Marlins promoted a “Steve Bartman Appreciation Day” on social media for a series against the Cubs, but the idea was quickly squelched after Kenney contacted the Marlins to voice a complaint. In September a fan wore a Bartman outfit, with the distinctive green turtleneck and old-school headphones, and sat behind the plate during a Cubs-Colorado Rockies series at Coors Field. Hardly anyone seemed to notice, even though he was in almost every TV shot.

But when the subject of the 2003 Cubs comes up, it’s impossible to ignore his name. I recently asked former Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano, who lost Game 5 in Miami that would have clinched the NLCS for the Cubs, if he ever felt sorry for Bartman.

“No,” he said. “It could’ve been Paul Sullivan or Carlos Zambrano, it could’ve been anybody else. His name popped up, and he became famous after the incident.”

Zambrano added that he didn’t think Bartman did anything wrong.

“It was just the natural reaction of the fans,” he said. “You see the ball, you want to grab the ball.”

He stopped for a second and thought about how long ago it was.

“Twenty years ago, wow,” he said. “But we have to turn the page and celebrate ‘16.”

The Cubs got their rings in 2016. Baker earned his first ring last year with the Houston Astros and is working for another. Prior got one in 2020 as pitching coach with the Los Angeles Dodgers and also is back in the postseason.

It sounds as if Bartman has come out OK and moved on as much as possible. Maybe he’ll write a book someday and explain how he felt going through it all.

Or maybe not. The longer time passes, the more people will have forgotten the true story of the foul ball that changed one man’s life and left a scar on Cubs fans.

But scars heal, fortunately, and life goes on.

The worst of times never last forever.

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Since 1990, MLB’s winningest team has won the World Series just seven times.

The two teams tied for the most single-season wins in MLB history — the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 2001 Seattle Mariners — both had losing playoff records. The 2006 title-winning St. Louis Cardinals had a winning percentage of .516, just above average. And as recently as 2021, the Atlanta Braves — with the 12th-most regular season wins — won the World Series.

The postseason is home to the unpredictable, where healthy rosters and timely performances reign supreme. If anything is to blame for MLB’s best getting bounced this year — the Orioles (101-61), Braves (104-58) and Los Angeles Dodgers (100-62) combined to go 1-9 in the divisional round — it’s the randomness of the playoffs and those teams falling flat for a few days in October, not the five-day break each of them received.

“It’s a round bat and a round ball and a round Earth that we live in, and sometimes, the ball just doesn’t bounce your way,” Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said Thursday.

If the best teams were guaranteed to advance, the postseason would have little mystique. And that unknown, both beloved and despised come autumn, reared its head again this year, leaving the league’s three 100-win teams in its wake.

In other words: That’s baseball.

The Braves and Dodgers lost to divisional foes whom they finished at least 14 games ahead of in the regular season. The Orioles were surprisingly swept for the first time since May 2022.

“Still irritated, still frustrated, still pissed,” manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday.

In the 2001 book “Curve Ball,” an analysis of chance in baseball, authors Jim Albert and Jay Bennett simulated 1,000 seasons, finding that the “best” team won the World Series 21% of the time.

“The cream won’t generally rise to the top,” the authors wrote.

Anything can happen in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series and postseason baseball is so revered for the improbability of it all. It’s what makes October heroes: No one could have expected Tito Landrum, who retired with 13 career home runs, to belt the Orioles to victory in the 1983 American League Championship Series.

The playoffs are so gripping because of it. If one team is expected to beat another 55% of the time, the worse club will still win a seven-game series four times out of 10, mathematician Leonard Mlodinow wrote in his 2009 book, “The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.”

The sheer chance of it offers a reminder that just because the Orioles, Braves and Dodgers won 100 games does not mean they were shoo-ins for the next round. It’s a challenge for any team, no matter how good, to win a postseason series.

Over the past two years, since MLB adopted a new playoff system that gave four teams byes through the first round, only three of those eight clubs have advanced past the division series. Some have pointed to rust as the culprit: In a departure from routine, these teams had five days off, which could have a detrimental effect.

The argument holds water. A team successfully churning along all season in a rhythm suddenly changes its schedule. Such a variable could hurt a well-oiled group.

For a team accustomed to playing each day, five days off is a long time. “I don’t think it helps,” Hyde said. “Let’s put it that way.”

But the bye still provides an advantage as those top teams skip the wild-card round. Sure, only three of eight teams (38%) that received byes over the past two years have reached the championship series, but a lower percentage of wild-card teams (5 of 16, or 31%) have done the same, since they must win twice as many series.

Plus, just because the bye-receiving teams fell short this season doesn’t mean they will in future. It’s only been two years, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters Thursday in Philadelphia.

“That is absolutely too small a sample to draw any inferences,” David Berri, a sports and economics professor at Southern Utah University, wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

Before the season ended, many saw the break as a bonus. Orioles outfielder Aaron Hicks noted one big advantage: A team can restart its rotation while other teams might enter a division series with tired arms.

Elias said Thursday he had monitored how other top seeds were faring but shied against using the bye “as an excuse.”

“I do not believe that was the difference between us winning or getting swept in the ALDS the way we did,” he said. “I don’t have a big opinion about it.”

Perhaps the intermission threw the Orioles off a bit. But it was their starting pitchers — players accustomed to several days off between outings — who turned in the poorest performances. Twice, an Orioles starter did not complete the second inning.

Before ALDS Game 2, outfielder Anthony Santander said he didn’t think the playoff format had caused the Orioles problems. Backup catcher James McCann pointed to the Tampa Bay Rays, who held the second-best AL record but were eliminated from the postseason before the divisional round, as evidence of a potential flaw in the system. But he didn’t cite the five-day layoff as an issue while speaking to reporters before Game 3.

“As far as, is there a reason we’re down 0-2? Is it because we had the days off? I don’t think so,” he said. “We easily could have had guys banged up and that [could have given] us time for them to get healthy. I think that’s just a way to change the narrative and that’s not what we’re going to do.”

It’s easy to point to a pattern and blame a new system. But it’s not yet apparent that the format is at fault.

Perhaps next year, the Orioles will win fewer regular-season games but advance farther in the playoffs. That’s baseball.

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Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde both expected to hold their end-of-season news conferences under different circumstances, but, as Elias noted, “sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way.”

On the heels of the Orioles’ sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series, Baltimore’s general manager and skipper both spoke with the media Thursday morning to wrap up the 2023 season and look ahead to 2024.

Here are 10 takeaways from what they said.

Elias and Hyde are back for 2024 and ‘100% in’

Elias and Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos have both declined to answer specifics about how long the general manager or Hyde are signed for.

Elias once again declined to provide such details, noting he doesn’t believe it’s “beneficial” for the organization to do so. However, when asked specifically if he and Hyde would be returning for 2024, Elias laughed and said, “We’re back next season. I’ll give you that.”

“Me and Brandon, we are 100% in on this,” Elias said. “We are giving our hearts and souls and minds and quite a bit of experience to this, and I hope that lasts forever.”

The Orioles have many questions to answer this offseason — from the lease to arbitration-eligible players to free agents. But who is leading the front office and team aren’t among them.

Elias doesn’t want to talk about roster specifics

The season just ended for Elias, too, and he doesn’t know what the offseason looks like. And even if he does, he still wasn’t answering specific questions about the Orioles’ roster.

“I’m going to be kind of boring today with specific positional roster questions,” he said when asked if the Orioles need a front-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. “This is very fresh. We just got off a plane. I’ll have probably a lot more to say later.”

Elias, entering his sixth offseason as the Orioles’ top executive, was still asked about whether the organization views Tyler Wells and DL Hall as starters or relievers, the club’s 16 arbitration-eligible players and other roster-related questions.

“I’m going to plead the fifth again and not talk about specifics with the roster or the offseason,” he said when asked about Wells and Hall.

The ALDS sweep was formative, but it was one small sample

Elias opened his news conference by putting the blame for the ALDS sweep on himself.

“Any shortcomings that anyone perceives with the 2023 campaign should be directed towards me,” he said.

But how will he evaluate the failure that was the three-game playoff series with the massive success that was his team’s 162-game regular season?

“I think that we want to overweight our failures when we go and self-reflect over the winter and try to push ourselves to get better,” he said. “That said, if we’re evaluating players or things like that, I don’t want to get caught up in what they did in a three-game sample. We’re going to weigh it heavily as an organization, but in terms of, like, finite events on the field, there’s much larger samples to draw from.”

Hyde was asked the same question about how he views the playoffs versus the regular season.

“In the world of analytics — there’s big samples and there’s small samples — they tend to long at the big sample,” Hyde said with a smile. “So, three games is kind of a small sample. It’s also a first experience for a lot of those guys and we’re going to evaluate everything going forward, we just got our teeth kicked in, so we’re still wearing it.”

Hyde is ‘still pissed’ about playoff loss

Like his players Tuesday, Hyde on Thursday was both sad at how the season ended but hopeful for the future. He twice said he was “still pissed” about how his club’s magical season ended.

“I’ll watch,” Hyde said when asked if he’ll watch the remainder of the MLB postseason. “I’m gonna watch a little differently this year, I’m gonna watch a little irritated, to be honest with you. Still irritated, still frustrated, still pissed.”

He was later asked about potentially being named the AL Manager of the Year in November, an award he will likely win after leading the Orioles to 101 wins after the club lost 110 two years ago. But Hyde isn’t concerned about November awards and wishes his team was still playing.

“That’s nice,” he said. “I’m still pissed, to be honest with you.”

Hyde, Elias discuss 5-day layoff

The way the MLB postseason has gone has led to plenty of discourse about whether the current format is fair for the sport’s best teams.

Of the four teams that received byes in the wild-card round, two were swept in the ALDS (Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers), one has its backs against the wall (Atlanta Braves) and one advanced to the AL Championship Series (Houston Astros). With the struggles of those teams, especially the 100-win Dodgers and 101-win Orioles, some have questioned whether the five-day layoff is too long and actually served as a disadvantage.

Elias called the discussion “interesting” but said he didn’t want to use that as an “excuse.”

“I do not believe that was the difference between us winning or getting swept in the ALDS the way we did,” he said. “I don’t have a big opinion about it.”

Added Hyde: “Well, I don’t think it helps. Let’s put it that way. … I don’t know what they’re going to do about that. I think it’s a long time.”

Jackson Holliday could make Orioles’ 2024 opening day roster

Underneath the Orioles’ 101-win season is the top-ranked farm system in the sport. Jackson Holliday, who Baseball America ranks as baseball’s top prospect, climbed from Low-A Delmarva to Triple-A Norfolk in his first full professional season at just 19 years old.

Next season, he’ll no longer be a teenager, and perhaps he’ll stop being a minor leaguer, too.

“He didn’t have a full season anywhere because he moved so fast, but he hasn’t been in Triple-A terribly long but he did pretty well,” Elias said. “I think when you’re 19 and then you’re 20, it’s one year, but that’s a lot of aging and physical development. I can’t wait to see what he looks like in spring training. Look forward to having him there, he’s going to have a chance to make the team.”

John Means’ elbow is OK

Starting pitcher John Means’ elbow, which flared up during his simulated game before the ALDS, is “in good shape,” Elias said, and the left-hander will be a “full-go” in spring training.

Whether Means started one of Baltimore’s games in Texas or came out of the bullpen, not having the veteran did take a reliable arm out of the Orioles’ pitching staff for the series.

“It’s unfortunate, but it happened and it didn’t allow us to have one of our starters go in the bullpen,” Hyde said.

Team uncertain on closer for 2024

Félix Bautista, who underwent Tommy John elbow reconstruction on Monday, will soon begin his rehab at the team’s complex in Sarasota, Florida, Elias said. The right-hander is expected to miss the entire 2024 season and be ready for 2025 spring training.

The Orioles got by without him over the campaign’s final six weeks, but replacing him for an entire season won’t be easy.

“That is a massive hole,” Elias said. “We’re going to bring all of our brain power towards answering that question.”

Baltimore might be an attractive destination for free agents

Elias wouldn’t commit to a higher payroll for 2024, but he did say he hopes the Orioles’ success in 2023 leads to more free agents seeing Baltimore as a place to win.

“It’s something that’s really important for me to have a good environment for players,” he said. “We talk constantly about how best to do that. I think it showed this year. I think our clubhouse was wonderful, a lot of people to credit for that, but we want this to be a great place to play.”

The Orioles entered 2023 with a $60.9 million payroll that ranked 29th of 30 MLB teams, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Elias has yet to sign a free agent to a multiyear contract during his tenure.

“Everybody from last year was very interested because of the talent we have on our team and what we’re going to look like going forward,” Hyde said. “I think it’s going to be the same way this year, where people are going to see that they enjoy playing here, this is a fun team to be on and we’re going to win.”

The 2023 season was still a success

Despite their disappointment at how it ended, both Hyde and Elias acknowledged the Orioles’ unprecedented 101-win season was still worthy of praise.

“The way it ended was awful, it sucked, and we’re wearing that still, but it was a really successful season,” Hyde said. “Overcoming so many odds and obstacles that are against us and so many people thinking that we weren’t going to be playoff team and all of a sudden we win 101 games and win the American League East, that says a lot about a lot of people in the organization, a lot of guys in that clubhouse, so I’m really proud of that.

“Unfortunately in the postseason, we just didn’t play our best and ran into a little bit of a buzz saw, but I’m going to have great memories of this team.”

Elias has frequently spoken about the rich baseball tradition in Baltimore, and he hopes the team’s fans are proud of what the 2023 team accomplished.

“I hope that the city of Baltimore remembers this group for kind of reminding the world that this is Baltimore and we do baseball here,” he said.

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The matchups in the league championship series, which begin Sunday with the Texas Rangers at the Houston Astros in the ALCS, aren’t exactly what MLB had hoped for.

Three teams with 100-plus wins — the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles — all bowed out quickly, leaving baseball with the all-Texas matchup in the ALCS and an NLCS series pitting a rebuilding Arizona Diamondbacks team with no household names against the star-studded Philadelphia Phillies.

A possible repeat of an Astros-Phillies World Series would likely be greeted by yawns. Last year’s matchup was the second-lowest rated World Series in history.

But who knows? It could be riveting baseball, which is something the postseason has lacked in the first two rounds thanks to all the blowouts and sweeps.

Here are five takeaways from the postseason.

1. Obviously the playoff format will be questioned when 3 of the top 4 seeds who had byes are gone.

The long wait for the first postseason series is basically like the All-Star break, and because baseball is a sport that relies on the 162-day grind, any change in routine can be hazardous.

Still, the Orioles proved they were not ready for prime time, the Dodgers trotted out three starters who looked clueless and the Braves couldn’t hit in the clutch. The blame should go to them, not the format.

The only solution is to change the wild-card series to a do-or-die from best-of-three, shortening the rest time for the top seeds. But that would involve losing TV revenue, so don’t look for MLB to do anything that would affect the golden goose.

2. If you are a Chicago White Sox fan, you might have experienced PTSD watching Wednesday’s Dodgers game.

It happened during the third inning of Game 3 of the NLDS . Dodgers starter Lance Lynn served up four home runs in one inning against the Diamondbacks, which never had been accomplished in postseason history.

Lynn served up a major-league leading 44 home runs during the season, including 28 in 21 starts for the White Sox. He last gave up four home runs in a game on July 21 against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field, though at least he spaced them out over two innings.

In September, Lynn told a reporter: “I mean, once you go over 30 (homers), who gives a (bleep)?”

As we discovered in Chicago when the Sox went south, Lynn doesn’t tend to take responsibility for his team’s downfall. He was one of the ringleaders in a bad clubhouse culture, and the Sox were motivated to find someone to take him off their hands. Fortunately the Dodgers were willing to take a risk, which didn’t work out.

It’ll be interesting to see which organization signs him for more of the same in 2024.

3. Bryce Harper can be an unlikeable guy, especially to opposing players.

After Harper was doubled off first base to end Game 2 of the NL Division Series, Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia yelled in the postgame clubhouse, “Ha, ha, attaboy, Harper.”

A few reporters mentioned it in their coverage, with one naming Arcia as the culprit. After Harper homered twice in Game 3, he stared Arcia down as he rounded the bases. Arcia said afterward that Harper “wasn’t supposed to hear it, that’s why we were saying it in the clubhouse.”

That led to MLB Network’s Alanna Rizzo criticizing one of the reporters on “High Heat” for using the comment, calling him a “jackoff” who didn’t deserve a credential and referring to the clubhouse as “sacred space.”

The Baseball Writers Association of America issued a statement saying the reporter was accredited and “to assert otherwise, in vulgar terms, is both unprofessional and unacceptable.” The statement added: “The BBWAA is deeply troubled that the league’s own network would permit the disparaging of one of our members in this fashion. Scrutinizing our work is part of the territory but comments such as these should have no place on MLBN.”

Rizzo eventually apologized to the reporter for her reaction after an outcry from media.

Will MLB discipline someone it employs on its TV network? Do I need to ask?

4. Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy have faced off many times, and the matchup of two future Hall of Fame managers figures to be highlighted on the ALCS telecasts.

Bochy has three World Series rings with the San Francisco Giants, but what I remember most is the 1998 World Series between his San Diego Padres and the New York Yankees. Bochy was pummeled for his decisions and took it gracefully.

“It goes with the territory,” Bochy said then. “I’d love to be in this situation all year, or every year, and let people take shots at me. We’re in the World Series, and when you’re playing in a series like this, every move is going to be scrutinized, and that’s fine.

“People are watching. That shows you people have interest, especially here in San Diego. And for me, I just have to keep going with what I believe and what my gut tells me. Use my instincts. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

It worked more often than not. Bochy’s 49 managerial postseason victories are fifth on the career list, and he has a .598 winning percentage in his nine trips to the playoffs.

5. Joe Maddon once called Nick Castellanos and his family a ‘reality show in the making.’

“People would watch it,” Maddon said as Castellanos sizzled for the Cubs after arriving in a trade in 2019.

Now it’s happening in Philadelphia, with Castellanos becoming the first player with two home runs in back-to-back postseason games. TBS often cut to his son, Liam, who was celebrating wildly in his box seat.

Why didn’t the Cubs re-sign Castellanos, who loved Chicago and wanted to return after the 2019 season?

It’s one of those things that can never really be explained.

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