Bonds, fans, be ready for boos
I guess if I was writing for a newspaper in the Boston area
right now I’d be cranking out a feel-good column about how the
beloved Red Sox are on cruise control in the American League
East
– 11.5 games up on Baltimore and more than a baker’s dozen ahead
of the Yanks.
Bonds, fans, be ready for boos
I guess if I was writing for a newspaper in the Boston area right now I’d be cranking out a feel-good column about how the beloved Red Sox are on cruise control in the American League East – 11.5 games up on Baltimore and more than a baker’s dozen ahead of the Yanks.
But since we’re in Barry Bonds country instead, it’s more appropriate to pick the day that the controversial slugger will surpass Hank Aaron on the all-time homerun list. I’m predicting that he does it on Father’s Day on the road in Beantown. I can just imagine the boos and chants that will reverberate throughout Fenway Park that afternoon: “Bonds sucks!” “BALCO!” “Steroids!”
Red Sox fans can be downright brutal to the enemy, and Bonds, even though he plays in a completely different league, seems to be the enemy everywhere he plays these days – unless, of course, he’s at home at AT&T Park.
If Bonds is one jack away from the record when the Giants head to Fenway that weekend, the boos he’ll receive will also be record-breaking – they’ll probably even surpass the ones that Johnny Damon routinely gets every time the Red Sox play the Yankees at the corner of Lansdowne Street and Yawkey Way.
But if Bonds can ignore it all and block it out in his mind, what a park to break the record in. The ultimate would be to land the 756th blast right in the Ted Williams seat in right field.
Despite the boos, can you imagine the scramble to get that ball? The people sitting in the bleachers better up the ante on their life insurance policy before walking through the turnstiles that day.
Hopefully, once Bonds does hit that final blast, all of the fans will tip their hats and cheer to baseball’s all-time homerun hitter, steroid controversy and all.
After all, steroids might bulk a person up but they still don’t tell a person when to pull the trigger on a 3-1 count in the bottom of the ninth. They might enhance strength but it takes more than a supplement to be the best. It takes God-given talent.
How many Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan’s are there? One. Just like there’s only one Barry Bonds, love him or hate him. The numbers don’t lie.
And who knows, the added muscle mass and bulk might even slow down timing and bat speed. And who is to say that without steroids Bonds homerun balls still wouldn’t have cleared the fence anyway? Instead of going out of the park some 440 feet, maybe they go 420 – which is still going to clear the fence.
And what if the guy wasn’t an intentional walk machine for the last decade? Teams have almost unfairly avoided pitching to him otherwise he might have broken this record two seasons ago.
Not only that, we all know that Bonds is not the only homerun hitter who has ever taken a performance-enhancing drug. Remember Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco, to name a few.
So when the record is finally broken and the hype and hoopla has passed, it’s time that we all give Barry credit for what he accomplished, even if some people want to see a subtle asterisk beside. Because it’s one record that may never be broken again – and it’s the most coveted record in sports.
