Bonds, 756, and its place in history

First off, I would like to congratulate Barry Bonds for breaking the all-time home run record last night, which is a tremendous accomplishment regardless of the questions that may come up about his past. The fact is, he was a great player before he came under question, and simply became superhuman after that. Now, am I the biggest supporter of Barry Bonds? Absolutely not. I dislike what he represents and what he has done to the integrity of baseball. However, there have also been many other players who cheated as well and have not been punished in the public eye as much as Barry has. That being said, this is in no way a post in which I will be forgiving Barry for his past mistakes, nor am I going to accuse players of taking steroids who have not been proven guilty. We can think what we want about these players and come up with our own opinions on who we think did what and how it affects the record books, but everyone is innocent until proven guilty as far as I'm concerned, and Barry has not been caught yet.

Back to the home run and where it belongs in the hearts and minds of America. I don't know about you guys, but I know that once Barry hit 755, I went on Bonds Watch and made sure that I saw most of his at-bats for the next few games. Fact is, this was history, it was going to be broken, and you never know if you will ever get to see anything like it again. I try to see as many milestones and records as I can as a fan of sports. I tuned in to ESPN when Sammy Sosa was trying to hit #600; I was listening to the Yankees game on the radio (which never happens, for those of you who know me) for A-Rod's 500th career home run; I watched Mark McGwire hit #62 in 1998 when I was just a kid; I watched Barry hit #71 in 2001; I watched Michael Strahan sack Brett Favre for #22.5 in 2001/2002, and the list continues on from there. As sports fans, it should be a point to watch history unfold. What if it turns out that Barry really didn't cheat? What if he was actually clean this whole time and we missed out on one of the greatest players in the history of the game because we were too wrapped up in the fact he might have cheated? What if then, A-Rod DOESN'T break the all-time record, and instead Bonds is STILL the home run champion when you die, and nobody comes even close to breaking it again? You would have missed history for something that turned out to be untrue, and to me, that is just crazy. One of the greatest records in all of sports is being ignored because people are jumping to conclusions. People refused to watch it over allegations that have not been proven yet. It just seems silly to not watch a piece of sports history that will last a lifetime over something you know nothing about.

Anyway, I think this is a fairly obvious point that everyone will agree with: I don't care what the record books say, Babe Ruth is the greatest player to ever play the game of baseball. It's unfortunate that he played for the Yankees, but in any case, he is, by far, the best player and the best hitter of all time. Yes, Barry and Hank Aaron have more career home runs than Babe Ruth, and yes Pete Rose may have more hits, and yes, Ted Williams may be the last person to have hit .400 in a full season of baseball, and yes, quite a few players have hit more home runs in a single season than the Babe, but fact is, Babe Ruth hit in the Dead Ball Era. He hit the ball a mile when it wasn't wound as tight as today's balls are. He faced pitchers that are in the Hall of Fame all the time. He is the most revered player in the history of the game, and nobody is better, no matter how many home runs they hit. Babe hit more home runs than entire teams. He hit for power, he hit for average, and he won championships (unfortunately), and was part of the greatest offensive teams in the history of baseball. No way can you put Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, or anybody near him, with the exception of a select few players (Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio) and even they have a tough time staying in his league.

Lastly, I would like to put it on record that the coverage of the home run by ESPN was atrocious. Dave O'Brien did a terrible job of capturing the excitement of the moment that was in the stadium. Look at the video of Bonds' home run on ESPN.com, then look at the same video on MLB.com, where they have the video from FSN Bay Area. The broadcaster, I believe his name is Duane Kuiper, could not have been more excited as the ball took flight into the San Francisco night. Even I, a Bonds hater, got chills watching it happen (I watched online on a live feed through MLB.com, and saw the FSN version of it all). To me, O'Brien made it seem like almost any other home run that Barry has hit, instead of the one that made him the all-time home run leader, whereas Kuiper tried to make it as exciting as some of the more famous calls of all time. By the way, has anyone else realized that exciting broadcasting is remembered far more often than the typical, boring ones that the announcers use today, when they try to use the crowd to explain the moment? Joe Buck does it all the time in the same bland, boring voice, and I can't get excited watching his broadcasts of anything. Think of all of the great calls in the history of sports:
"The Giants win the penant!!"
"I don't believe what I just saw!!"
"Do you believe in miracles? YES!!"
"There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron!!"
And of course, my all time favorite call in sports history...
"3 and 2 to Mookie Wilson. A little roller up along first, BEHIND THE BAG!! IT GETS THROUGH BUCKNER!! HERE COMES KNIGHT AND THE METS WIN IT!!!"

The best moments in history are the ones when everyone is excited, including the announcers. Any March Madness game with Gus Johnson announcing (UCLA-Gonzaga 2006, Ohio State-Xavier 2007), the Fiesta Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State... they were all packed with excitement on the field, in the stands, and in the booth and in our homes.

In conclusion, I still think that Barry Bonds is one of the greatest players of our generation, and even though he may have taken steroids or performance enhancers to break records and get noticed on the same level as Mark McGwire, he won 4 MVPs before his alleged steroid use, and was going to hit at least 500 home runs anyway, and was a Hall of Famer even without the home run records. Either way, I believe that we should celebrate the talent that Barry Bonds has and displayed for us over the years, regardless of his past, but at the same point we should all remember just how incredible it is that Hank Aaron (most likely) hit all of those home runs in a fair way, and that Babe Ruth hit 714 in a time when the home run was just beginning. I hope we can all appreciate what the Babe and Willie Mays and all of the great players of yesteryear have done in the time before growth hormones and steroids and other performance enhancers. Their legacies should never be forgotten, and have only been enhanced with the phenomenons that have occurred in the past decade.