Last night after returning home from a terrible baseball game at Shea I watched with a terrible person (Lang. He’s a Braves fan. I was getting more aggro than any sober person should.), history was made. Barry Bonds, just saying the name itself drives people into fits of indignant rage or self-righteousness. I honestly don’t know what to think of Bonds anymore. I have gone through a cycle of hate and respect and denial and awe and so on and so on and so on. The conclusion I reached is another question, which is to ask does his performance on a baseball field really impact our lives in any way?
After thinking about that, the answer for me is YES! One of my favorite selfish things about sports is that they give you a marker of how to measure time passing in your life. I can remember exactly where I was, who I was hanging out with, and what was going on in my life at the time of most of the iconic sports moments of this generation. Jordan’s push-off and jumper to win title #6, the Scott Norwood miss, the Endy Chavez catch, all of the major events that define our society.
So, last night after coming home from the Mets game and talking to my girlfriend for a little while, I turned on the TV and you could hear the crowd buzzing with one of the Molina brothers at the plate. Turns out I just missed the record breaker and all of the mid-game celebration. Luckily I had DVRed, was able to rewind, watch, and I’ll never forget it. Is the home run and celebration including Hank Aaron acknowledging the feat a tainted moment? That depends on your perspective. The technology of modern baseball from computerized scouting reports to lighter more streamlined bats to lasik surgery to weight training have turned baseball into something totally different from when I first started watching as a kid. I was more into baseball cards than the game itself when I was young, so I know a lot of old school stats by heart. Maybe one or two people would have a 40 homer season and they were considered these God-like sluggers. I liked the game better back then, but whaddyagonna do? It’s baseball, it’s a part of summer.
Many of the players have used performance enhancing drugs that were not banned by the league for years, while the media and fans glorified their HR gluttony. The 2002 Anaheim Angels are rumored to be one of the most roided up teams of all-time. It’s all hearsay and innuendo, but they might have robbed Barry Bonds of an elusive championship that year. When both sides are “cheating”, you can choose to ignore the game entirely or accept it. I happen to be a baseball fan, so I accept it for what it is. Congrats to Barry Bonds the home run king. You have kept us entertained for many years, and in the end that’s really what it’s all about.
Sorry there is no basketball content in this post other than the mention of the Jordan shot. Summertime! Also, there was a flood of Evan Almighty proportions this morning and I am being advised to wait for the MTA to clear it up before I am allowed to step foot on the subway.
