SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants outfielder Barry Bonds is baseball's new home run king -- another flawed champion for America's flawed national pastime.
Bonds is an accused steroid user and convicted jerk whose record will be acknowledged warily by some and not at all by others, none of which seems right. He joined on Tuesday night a long list of perceived bad guys -- scumbags and racists, cheaters and gamblers -- atop baseball's most cherished individual lists. Bonds doesn't stick out. He fits in.
|
|
| History is made at 8:51 p.m. PT on Aug. 7, 2007. (AP) |
He is baseball.
Nonetheless, Aug. 7, 2007, will live in Major League infamy. It happened at 8:51 p.m. local time at AT&T Park, just before midnight in the East, and it happened emphatically.
After ripping a double and a single in his first two at-bats against Washington Nationals starter Mike Bacsik, Bonds homered 435 feet into the frenzied right-center bleachers in the fifth inning. Bonds watched his 756th career home run from the batter's box, his arms raised, before making the trip around the bases that would demote Hank Aaron from first to second on baseball's career list.
Bacsik, who replaces Aaron victim Al Downing in ultimate gopher-ball infamy, didn't watch. As Bonds posed, Bacsik grabbed the back of his neck with his pitching hand and looked away while the rest of the Nationals applauded into their gloves.
How will America react? You know the answer. In San Francisco they will be proud and defiant. In most other places they will be divided. In reality, Bonds is merely the latest imperfect man to own a place of honor in this imperfect game.
The all-time hit king, Pete Rose, was banned from the game in 1989 after betting on baseball while managing the Reds. He is ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
The man Rose unseated after a 57-year run as baseball's hits leader, Ty Cobb, was a racist and monster who once climbed into the crowd to beat up a handicapped spectator. Cobb also was the game's steals leader for 50 years until Lou Brock passed him in 1977, and he remains No. 1 in career batting average at .366.
Two spots behind Cobb on the batting list at .356 is Shoeless Joe Jackson, infamous for his role in the 1919 World Series -- the most controversial major event in U.S. sports history. Jackson and seven other members of the Chicago "Black Sox" were banned from baseball amid accusations of throwing the series to Cincinnati.
This is the company Bonds now keeps, and while you can argue that he passed Aaron only with the help of steroids -- illegal in this country without a prescription -- you cannot argue against Bonds' overall greatness. He won three MVP awards in four years in the early 1990s, several years before the so-called "Steroid Era" began and, more pointedly, several years before he evolved from a lithe greyhound into a burly behemoth.
Tuesday night as Bonds walked to the plate in the fifth, his chosen music blared over the loudspeakers -- the ominous organ from Phantom of the Opera. Unlike in his first at-bat, Bonds exchanged no pleasantries with Nationals catcher Brian Schneider. He settled quietly into the batter's box, and with flashbulbs popping everywhere, took his first swing on Bacsik's 2-1 pitch and fouled it back.
