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Home run record loses its luster
Home run record loses its luster, By: Richard Justice
August 4, 2007
Congratulations, Barry. You did it. You joined the 755-homer club Saturday night. You and Hank Aaron. How does that feel, Barry?
You now share baseball's most coveted milestone with one of its most respected players. Thanks to you, the record feels different. It feels a bit less magical. In fact, the entire game feels diminished.
On the other hand, you certainly did it your way. You did it without regard to what teammates, managers, coaches or fans thought of you. You apparently were unbothered by the rules, either. You believed the means justified the end.
You got the record you'd wanted from the moment you saw the love showered on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa after the 1998 season. You'd been a respected player, but never a beloved one. You wanted some of what they had.
You did it by getting huge. According to exhaustive reporting by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, you did it by using an array of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
At a time when many players are starting to decline, you got better and better. Beginning in the summer you turned 36, you averaged 52 home runs a season. You'd averaged 37 in the five years before you added those slabs of muscle. You showed the world that steroids and human growth hormone do work. You've won a record seven National League Most Valuable Player trophies, but four of them are tainted by steroids.
You got a record, but lost a reputation. These final days to 755 have been painful to watch. You turned 43 last month and have look every year of it. You were getting overpowered on fastballs, thrown off by off-speed stuff. You had days when your limp was noticeable.
Yet you showed the world Saturday night you've still got something left. You began the afternoon with a long session of extra batting practice, and then in front of a packed house in San Diego, with commissioner Bud Selig and your family watching, you did it.
You ripped a Clay Hensley 91-mph fastball into the left-field seats at Petco Park. You took a few steps, clapped your hands quickly and began the 755th trip around the bases. You embraced your son, Nikolai, at homeplate and were greeted by teammates.
Selig seemed to smile for a brief second. He didn't clap. He stood and put his hands in his pocket. Some fans cheered, some booed. You're used to that by now. Some fans held up asterisk sings. You're used to that, too.
Your pursuit of Henry Aaron has been tough on Selig because he and Aaron are close friends. He personally watched Aaron's first home run and also his last. He knows all the threats and racial taunts Aaron endured on his way to pass Babe Ruth on the all-time list.
There was no word on what your former trainer was doing. Greg Anderson is in prison for refusing to testify against you.
Selig hoped against hope that it wouldn't come to this. He believes you stand for all the wrong things. He also knows that you stand for one of his few failings as commissioner. Under his watch, steroids became part of the baseball vocabulary.
Many people believe baseball looked the other way because steroids are good for business. Home runs sell tickets, and no one did it better than you, Barry Lamar Bonds.
This is your moment. You'll have another very quickly, and then you'll stand alone atop the home-run list. You will be the king.
Go ahead, Barry, and hit one more. Do it quickly and then take your record and begin your fade away. Hope it was worth it.
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