The world is a little different today. By far the most hallowed record in all of American Sport has been shattered. The Great Henry Aaron has been passed, there is a new Home Run King. Harrogate would so much have loved to have been there, to have witnessed history live.
What a great picture of Barry Bonds, even void of context. But then when you add context (what's a Rhetorical Situation without context, after all?), the picture exudes joy. After all this guy has accomplished, and all he has been through. After all the terrible pitches, the intentional walks, the might-as-well-have-been-intentional walks, and the insane infield shifts he has seen through the years.
There he stands, all melts away. A testament to human achievment. He is at home, thank God, in San Francisco when he hits it. Those who have stood unwavering by him for so long. It just wouldn't have been right had he done it somewhere else.
Funny. Harrogate wrote this whole long diatribe outlining exactly why all the naysayers and bashers are morons, but then he remembered. This isn't about jealous bedwetters like Dale Murphy, souless beauracrats like Bud Selig, or the seemingly endlesss supply of pencilneck whiners who call themselves sports journalists.
This is about the man who is unquestionably the single greatest baseball player of this generation, and in all probability the greatest baseball player who ever played the game. Period. It is Bonds's moment. Hats off to him.
3 comments:
how exactly can we knoe if he is the game's greatest at this time?
your lst paragraph presumes equality when it does not exist. now, if all players enhanced their skill equally then maybe he is the greatest. but since only a few cheated (how exactly does one's hat size grow in your late 30s?) there is no way he can be the greatest. the comparison would not hold up.
lets call this what it is: a media moment for another sport in trouble or a media moment to add drama to a sport that runs four months longer than it should.
i mean know. it is difficult to type when your daughter wants to bang on the keys
Sure we can know that. Because we know that all players HAVE been playing by the same rules and more importantly the same ENFORCEMENT which is none. Hate Barry all you want but what you really hate is the fact that after the 1990s strike, MLB turned a blind eye to the problem because as they say "chicks did the long ball" and Big Mac and Sammy were saving the national pastime -- who cared how they were doing it. And the MLBPA is so strong, it is doubtful that MLB could have done anything meaningful about it.
It's a stupid expression but it could not be more appropriate in this context. "Don't hate the player; hate the game"
Also, if you are considering the asterisk next to the record, consider this gem: until 1930, a ball that bounced in the outfield and then over the wall was counted as a homerun (instead of a ground-rule double). How many do you think Babe bounced over the wall to pad his numbers?
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