Bill-on-the-Hill

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.

First a little travel tie-in, then the rant. Emily and I have seen two Bonds homers in the flesh, from a seat far up in nosebleed territory at what was then called "SBC Park," the Giants' home field in San Francisco. (It's undergone a series of name changes in its brief history, and is now called "AT&T Park.") Based on some research at my Web Site du Jour, cited below, it looks like they were his career homers number 686 and 687, hit on August 3, 2004, versus the Cincinnati Reds. I remember that the second tater was a screaming line drive that never reached as high into the air as we were sitting, and left the park entirely, splashing down in the small appendage of San Francisco Bay known as "McCovey Cove." That ball was smoked. This outing was part of a project of sorts that Emily and I have: to see at least one major-league baseball game in the home park of each of Major League Baseball's 30 franchises. We're not quite half way through the list, and will be trying to pick up one or two more parks yet this fall if we can. (Hm -- anybody got a recommendation among Houston, Dallas where the Texas Rangers play, Anaheim, or Los Angeles? Those appear to be our options.) Incidentally, I should add that whatever you call this park and despite what plays in it, the Giants' home field is a really terrific place to see a baseball game, beautifully situated with views of the Bay, and not a bad seat in the house. We had a fine time there, even though we wished those two homers hadn't happened.

So back to Bonds and the record that I devoutly hoped that, through some fearful concatenation of circumstances, he would never set. I am offended that this overswollen monstrosity broke baseball's most hallowed record with the help of "arthritis cream and flaxseed oil" supplied by BALCO -- or, if you believe the leaks from the BALCO prosecution and several other sources, "the cream" and "the clear," respectively, and we all know what those terms mean. But I am vastly more offended that he never owned up to what he did. All it would have taken to get this baseball fan's grudging forgiveness, and similarly grudging acceptance of the legitimacy of the record, would have been a simple statement to the effect of "Sorry, I screwed up, I won't do it again." But no, it was BALCO that screwed up, right, Barry? Puh-leeze.

Anyway, the steroidal poster child will probably hit a few more homers before he hangs it up, whether from normal wear and tear or because of some bizarre Lyle-Alzado-like pestilence brought on by putting something into his body that doesn't belong there. Let him. I will see no more games in San Francisco while he plays there, and if we can, we'll avoid continuing our stadium-seeing tour with any games in which the Giants, or whatever team he mugwumps to as a free agent, are the visiting team. But you know what? Baseball will go on. There was baseball long before Bonds, and there will be baseball long after he is gone, and it will still bring out the little boy (and girl) in us when we see an incredibly graceful, powerful -- and not steroidally enhanced -- swing launch a little white ball from home plate into seats 400 feet distant, seats occupied, at least in our own dearest fantasies, by Emily and myself. I would love to be in the park when Alex Rodriguez breaks Bonds' record eight or nine years from now, as I believe he will. I would love even more to watch Albert Pujols then break A-Rod's record, as may also happen. And I may even live long enough to see some kid who isn't born yet put all of them in the past with his 800th home run in the year 2047 or so; demographics are against it, but longevity runs in the family, so who knows ... Just somebody break this record, please, and restore some legitimacy to this game we love.

P.S. Web Site du Jour: http://www.baseball-reference.com/ , an incredible treasure trove of baseball data and trivia.