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This day got off to a sad but necessary start, following our escape (there's really nothing else to call it) from Chicago and a night in downstate Illinois, in Bloomington-Normal -- nice enough community, with much of what is right about the Midwest and a commendably vigorous, future-oriented attitude, but not exactly a tourist hot spot. Unfortunately, it's also the site of a nursing home in which my mother resides, getting care for her increasingly severe Alzheimer's disease, and that's why we were there. Gads, Alzheimer's is an awful disease.

Statue of Stan "the Man" Musial outside Busch Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri -- an object of veneration for St. Louis Cardinals fans, of whom I am one.

As the sign and web site say, Welcome to Baseball Heaven. Busch Stadium, St. Louis; Gateway Arch in the background.

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Like many people who grow up in downstate Illinois, as I did, I have a deep-seated, visceral dislike for Chicago and everything associated therewith. (Sorry, Marc and Peter; nothing personal.) Time, maturity, and an appreciation for some of the city's definite pluses have mellowed this dislike somewhat, but haven't eliminated it, and it was therefore with definite misgivings that we included a stop there for baseball watching, even though it had to be done; the city does have two major-league teams, after all.

Miller Park in Milwaukee, home of baseball's Milwaukee Brewers. Not the worst place to see a major-league baseball game, but not the best either...

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First things first, a Web Site du Jour that may spare you some of the unpleasantness that we faced on this leg of the trip: http://www.speedtrap.org/, wherein are listed some of the more notorious radar traps on United States highways. Two days of otherwise pleasant busman's-holiday touristing, with a baseball game to top it off, were spoiled by one of these traps, and consequently I have no intention of visiting southwestern Wisconsin ever again.

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So what's an "eephus ball"?

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It should come as no surprise that I'm a baseball fan, and I'm glad to see that a growing number of people around the world are likewise. There is a beauty to a well-played ballgame that simply isn't there in any other team sport I know of, and I've played a lot and watched a lot more. But being forced to play the most important games of the (American) major-league season under conditions better suited for, say, skiing, just to keep the media moguls happy and in clover, well ... Soapbox time here, albeit with a personal travel overlay.

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My own answer to this Barry Bonds trivia question isn't particularly exciting: when he hit his record breaker, I was in my beat-up little house in New Mexico, trying to get a busted wireless connection to work. (Bless my wife and son, they eventually succeeded where I failed.) All very routine, and in contrast to #755, I didn't even know about it in close to real time, courtesy of the bad connection. However, it's probably just as well, because as will become clear, I don't like Barry Bonds.

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Every generation has its defining events, such that members of that generation can remember with stark clarity where they were and what they were doing when the event happened. Pearl Harbor ... the JFK assassination ... first man on the moon ... John Lennon's murder ... when the Berlin Wall came down ... 9/11/01 ... that kind of thing. For baseball fans, seeing Hank Aaron's hallowed home-run record reached by Barry Bonds must be such a moment, if not really a globally significant one. So where was I when Bonds got his 755th?