756*

Mixed Emotions

Barry Bonds hit his 756th Home Run, thus passing Hank Aaron's mark as all time MLB Home Run King.
Here's ESPN's Jim Caple talking about it.

What makes the new record controversial is that we want the number to mean what the old number did. But that's also what makes baseball so special, so wonderful -- the way that what happens today is always connected to what happened yesterday. Bonds, of course, is the son of an All-Star and the godson of a legend. The pitcher he hit the record-breaker off, Mike Bacsik, is the son of former major league pitcher Mike Bacsik who pitched to Aaron when Hank had 755 home runs as well.
"If my dad had been gracious enough to give up a home run to Hank, we'd both have given up 756," Bacsik said. "I'm excited. We won the game and I got to see history. I dreamed about this when I was a kid. Unfortunately when I dreamed about it, I was the one hitting the home run."

After giving up a single and a double earlier in the game, Bacsik ran the count full to Bonds in the fifth. With the best hitter of his generation waiting at the plate and what felt like the entire city of San Francisco leaning in, Bacsik threw a fastball, trying to go down and away. Bonds had other plans.

One moment the baseball was heading to home plate in the mid-80s and the next it was rocketing the opposite direction much, much faster.

Bonds instantly knew the ball would land in the bleachers, which he should after hitting so many home runs. He raised both arms in jubilation and watched the ball clear the center-field fence, then circled the bases while fireworks exploded in the sky and fans cheered.

Fans elsewhere may have conflicting opinions of Bonds, but not San Francisco fans. They know what his 15 seasons with the team mean. There were fans who have attended Giants games practically since they moved to San Francisco and there were fans who were at their very first game (and won't they have something to tell their grandkids?). They clapped and whistled, hugged and slapped hands, laughed and cried.

Yep. There's always a knock on a guy passing a Home Run Milestone.
Roger Maris' 61 in a season? He didn't get it done in the old-style 154 game season, so 'asterisk that," they say.
Hank Aaron does it and there are people threatening him not to do it because *gosh* he's black.
I can remember when Sadaharu Oh hit 756. In fact, he went on to go to 868 over in the NPB, but boy they don't count because he didn't do it in the Major Leagues. "So let's not look at that too closely," they say.
Mark Maguire and Sammy Sosa were hitting 'juiced ball' when they broke Maris' record; and of course both have since been suspected of steroid (ab)uses.
Now it's Barry Bonds and he of course comes under that massive cloud called BALCO.

I don't really know how I feel about Barry Bonds after all these years. One part of me feels he's gotten bad press for his difficult personality, and even rampant racism on the part of mainstream America. One part of me feels he's just another self-important jock. Another part of me wants to applaud his persistence and application, because these milestones don't just happen. However, I'm also extremely wary about his alleged steroid use to get to 756. And another part of me says "innocent until proven guilty" and feels guilty for even trying to absolve him.
Truth is, I'm actually glad he's not my fave player. It would be hellish to reconcile these conflicting notions with a fan's love for their icon. As Robert DeNiro says in 'Analyze This', "I feel Conflicted."
Yet, if any of the above guys really needs an asterisk, it's Bonds' career number, Bonds' seasonal record, together with Maguire and Sosa's seasonal records.

Years ago, I used to tell people that I'd like to see an Olympic Games where everybody was allowed to use steroids just to see what ind of freaky records could be set by human beings. I didn't think the joke would come back to bite me by taking place in my favorite spectator game - but there you go. There's just too much darned money on the table for it not to go that way. If you ignore the fact that steroids are illegal in the USA, the MLB essentially were unwilling and/or unable to get the players' association to lay along and get steroids out of the game. And for the owners, the stars smacking historic proportions of long-balls was just too good a draw-card.
You can see how it all turned into a perfect storm of PR-shit-storm for the sport.

You can go to Baseball Think Factory and find any number of steroid discussion threads and Bonds' records are discussed at length. Some are adamant that it just doesn't matter, while others are totally condemnatory of Bonds, Maguire, Sosa and anybody and everybody who has been suspected or caught. All of the arguments have merits, but the one that sticks out for me is that if the MLB really felt the record books were so important, then they should have done something more pro-active to protect them.

The same go for the journalists who didn't pursue these athletes harder in the 1990s, when there were clear suspicions.
It also goes for us fans who nudge-and-a-wink, shrugged at the tumbling records.
We baseball fans, scribes, teams, front offices, farm teams, MLB, MLBPA, all fucked up, and now Barry Bonds, the BALCO-Chemical Frankenstein monster of our very desire to see records fall, has smashed the All-Time Home Run record as well as the credibility of the record book itself.

On thing is for sure, the way we look at the records won't ever be the same again, thanks to Barry. He will be a reminder to us all that sometimes our love for what we love can be so blind, we absolutely fuck it up. And for that lesson alone we should thank Barry. It's a painful lesson to swallow.

All the same, is this the end? Ah, ...no.
Or as David St. Hubbins so eloquently states in 'This Is Spinal Tap', "...that would depend on what you mean by 'The End', and that is my question to you."

Hope springs eternal. Go A-Rod!

1. Alex Rodriguez
Projected Career Total: 731
Chances of Hitting 500: 100%
... 600 HR: 85.6%
... 700 HR: 60.7%
... 755 HR: 46.1%
... 782 HR: 29.6%
... 800 HR: 27.5%
... 900 HR: 9.8%

Top Comparables: Robinson, George Brett, Willie Mays, Bonds, Aaron.

You couldn't do much better in terms of comparables if your goal is to break the all-time record. Nevertheless, we have A-Rod as even-money at best to pass Aaron's mark, and a decided underdog to surpass Bonds' eventual total. What gives? Think about all the things that have to go right for a player to hit 755 (or 782) lifetime home runs. He has to stay healthy. He has to resist the temptation of early retirement, even if he already has several lifetime's worth of money in the bank. He has to avoid any sudden declines in performance. He has to not only stay at the top of his game, but keep the particular skill of power hitting intact.

Rodriguez could "devolve" into being Brett, and that still wouldn't be enough momentum to get him past Bonds and Aaron. It all sounds so easy -- if A-Rod heads into 2008 with about 520 lifetime home runs, then all he has to do is average around 30 home runs per season through age 40 to claim the record from Bonds. But remember when everyone assumed that McGwire -- or Sosa, or Griffey -- would challenge the record?

Remember 10 months ago, when many assumed Rodriguez's best days were behind him? A-Rod's right on pace, but he's too far from the finish line to be conceding any records to him; it's inherently dangerous to be predicting that someone will do something that nobody else in history has done. We might have to deal with this Barry guy for longer than you'd think.

Yep. He's our boy.