Barry

I was watching the game on TV when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record for career homers. Aaron was a feared adversary on the Milwaukee Braves when the Pittsburgh Pirates made their pennant runs in the late 1950s, finally making it in 1960. He wasn't so much a home run hitter then, as an all-around player who could hit with power, hit in the situation, run the bases, field and throw. By the time he was challenging the Babe I guess I was surprised he'd hit so many homers. He was consistent and stayed healthy, and played a long time.

Today I turned on the TV just as Barry Bonds was at bat in the fourth inning with a 2-2 count. The count went to 3 and 2 before he smashed what looked like a fastball on the outside of the plate into right center for his 715th home run. I watched Barry play in Pittsburgh from the beginning of his career---he hit his first home run on my birthday. The last game I attended in Three Rivers Stadium, he had four or five hits, to left, right and center, all of them smoked.

I guess I might also mention that Babe Ruth hit his 714th homer (as well as his 712th and 713th) in Forbes Field in Pittsburgh on May 25, 1935. He was with the Boston Braves then, and they were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. Though it happened more than a decade before I was born, I can claim to have gone to several games in that ball park, now gone.

With the Pirates, Bonds was a good fielder with a strong arm, and he excelled as a runner on the bases. He is the only player in history to steal 500 bases and hit 500 home runs in his career--nobody else has even 400 of both. Of course, everyone knows he broke the single season home run record in 2001 with 73. He then won National League batting average titles in 2002 and 2004, and was voted league MVP every year from 2001 to 2004 inclusive. He'd already been MVP three times in the 1990s.

He got a huge ovation today in San Francisco's great ball park, whatever it's called this year, but nationally there's a lot of talk about his recent records being tainted by steroid use. It's overblown bullshit as far as I'm concerned. First of all, everyone pretends they know what "sterioids" are, but there are all kinds of substances involved. Secondly, if he did so, Bonds was hardly the only major league to use creams and supplements that might contain what's defined as steriods, including pitchers he faced. He passed all his drug tests. The rest is circumstantial at this point and he's been convicted of nothing.

Bonds probably believes racism is part of why he's being singled out, and his detractors would likely vehemently deny it. I believe racism is involved, though mostly unconscious racism, along with a lot of other factors, including the usual viral celebrity deification or demonization, off/on switch. On the Pirates, there was always a good black star and a bad black star. Willie Stargell was affable, projected a modest good guy "Pops" image and was patient with the press. Dave Parker was flashy, opinionated and mercurial. He was uppity. The press didn't like him, and despite his great play, fans didn't love him. That Pirates team had its own drug scandal, and having been in that locker room, I wouldn't be surprised if both of them had been involved.

Later, Bobby Bonilla was the good black star--affable, big smile, modest. (At the time, Bonilla was more of a home run hitter. I once sat behind home plate at an angle that put me in direct line with left handed batters, and when Bonilla hit a homer it was the closest I ever got to feeling like what it might be like to hit one.)

Barry Bonds was the bad black star--mercurial, uppity. He'd lived through what he considered the racism that affected his father as well as himself. Come to that, August Wilson was among those convinced that the Pittsburgh media and fans unfairly criticized Roberto Clemente early in his career because of race. The criticism again fit those stereotypes--he was criticized for being "lazy" when he complained of injuries, and for being uppity when he protested.

Saying that the reaction to Bonds is influenced by racial feelings isn't to say that he's really been a nice guy, or that he's not really been imperious, irrational and rude--though being rude to the press is a relative kind of thing. It's more subtle--it's the difference in the strength of feeling against a non-white person as opposed to a white person who behaves the same way.

Eventually we may know what Bonds did or didn't do that was or wasn't banned or illegal. Yet I don't think his records are tainted. Baseball players have never been choirboys, and as professional athletes--meaning professional entertainers--they use what helps them compete. It doesn't make every choice right, but it does mean that the playing field, so to speak, is generally level. Besides, why no mandatory steroid testing for ballet dancers?

Bonds has a ways to go to break Aaron's eventually record of 755. Bonds got to 715 with far fewer at bats than did Aaron, partly because Bonds is walked so often. Still he has to be ready for the one good pitch he might see in a game. Nobody believes he'll break it this year with the Giants, and few believe he'll return to the Giants next year. His knee injuries hamper his fielding, so the best outcome for him would be to play in the American League, where he could be a designated hitter. If he could make a deal with the Oakland A's so he could stay in the Bay area, he'd probably do it.

ADD: Later I saw a bit of Bonds talking to the press after the game. When he hit 714 he was effusive in his praise of Babe Ruth, but this time he emphasized Hank Aaron. He acknowledged him as the home run king. Beyond simple accuracy, there's another message: The season Aaron came close and then surpassed Ruth's record he was the subject of overt racist threats, and generally had to deal with the implicit racism who said they didn't want to see anyone break Ruth's record, but meant they sure didn't want a black man to do it. Aaron overcame more overt racism than Bonds sees, but like a lot of racism these days, it just got coded into p.c. phraseology, and shoved deeper into the subconscious. But it's there, and Bonds (like most people of color) knows it.