Barry Mushroom Head

Ruth did it on hotdogs and beer

I have mixed feelings on this post, but I figured why not run it. It’s something I’ve been thinking about and Juice sent me that picture the other day. I also saw a funny one of people holding up a single asterisk each, probably from the same game. Maybe the final straw was reading this piece by Tom Verducci today. What angered me most about it was how he treated the soldier that has the last ball he hit out. Anyway, here’s what I was thinking…

There’s a chance that Barry Bonds will tie Babe “The White Guy” Ruth tonight with his 714th home run. A lot of baseball fans are up in arms that this is going to happen. Honestly, before the season started I was too. I hoped that his knees would have prevented him from playing this year and he would have instead retired before passing the mark. I am not up in arms about this happening now though. I realized the other night, as I watched him crush 713 off Jon Lieber on Sunday Night Baseball, that I no longer care what the guy does. If there was any doubt, the Verducci piece sealed it today.

You see, I used to be a Bonds fan. No, really. I used to like to watch the Pirates back in the early 90’s when it was Bonds, Bobby Bonilla and Andy Van Slyke with that old chain smoking in the dugout throwback Jim Leyland at the helm. They had this rookie knuckleballer you might have heard of that goes by the name of Tim Wakefield.

Anyway, at some point, and I don’t remember when it was exactly, I stopped being a Bonds fan. He wasn’t that same charismatic guy anymore and his head kept growing. Hmm… I wonder what that’s all about. Hang on a tick… I know when it was; it was when he suddenly hit 73 freakin bombs after never even hitting 50.

The thing is, I can’t say the guy is not a great player because whether or not he ever used The Cream or The Clear or whatever else, he was going to be a Hall of Fame player anyway. Sure, he might have one to one hundred fifty less home runs right now, but he’d still be over 500 and still have won three MVP’s (90, 92, 93) without using, unless you want to say he started in 93, his first year in SF where he hit 46 home runs, which was 12 more than his previous best but with 19 more games played.

I don’t really want to get into trying to figure out that stuff since there are numerous books and experts doing that already. In fact, I’m not sure why I am writing this except to document that he’s going to pass Ruth and it bums me out that he got there by cheating. In point of fact, passing Ruth won’t bum me out as much as when he passed his Godfather, Willie Mays. What a great and classy player he was and continues to be. I don’t think he’s ever really addressed the steroids thing with respect to Barry, but you have to feel like there’s a great conflict there for him. I wonder if that’s the case for Barry with respect to how he passed Willie.

So, barring some act of Gawd, Barry will pass or tie Ruth this week and set his sights on Aaron. Personally, I don’t think he’ll do it even though it has been noted that he’d likely play next year if he physically can.

Bonds Hit #680Noelle and I watched him hit number 680 at PacBell Park (or whatever it was or is named now) on July 2nd of 2004 and I somehow managed to capture it on my crap point-and-shoot (unfortunately the ball was already out of the frame). You can click on the picture to find a larger size in my flickr photostream.

I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see him get one, but was he still juiced up or not? I gotta believe at that time he still was, so… did I really see him hit a home run if he cheated to do it?