May 28, 2006: A confusing home run

SAN FRANCISCO – Great. Now what are we supposed to think? I mean, numbers don’t lie, and according to the numbers, this is something that everybody’s supposed to be celebrating. But instead, we’re debating. What are we supposed to think?

The basic background of the story is this: in the fourth inning of a game on May 28, 2006, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds worked a full count against Colorado’s Byung-Hyun Kim, then hit the payoff pitch deep into the centerfield bleachers at AT&T Park. The San Francisco fans stood and cheered, and fireworks went off, and everybody was happy, though the Giants were still down 6-2.

Woah, wait. What’s that? You say that was Bonds’ 715th home run? Isn’t that one more than Babe Ruth? Huh. That makes things interesting. Historic, even. I mean, there’s no more iconic figure in baseball than Babe Ruth. And Bonds just passed him. Shouldn’t that be cause for massive celebration?

See, that’s where it gets confusing. Drugs will do that, will blur the line between an impressive achievement and a massive case of fraud. Sure, Bonds has never tested positive for drugs, nor has he definitively proven to have taken them, but come on. Look at the guy! I mean, compare what he looked like in Pittsburgh to what he looks like now. There’s no way he’s clean!

But so what, you ask. How much can drugs really help you? Sure, they can help you get stronger than otherwise would have been humanly possible, but that doesn’t help you hit the damn ball. That doesn’t help you recognize the difference between a ball and a strike, a hanging slider and a good slider. And what about all of Bonds’ accomplishments from earlier in his career, when he was truly the best player in the National League long before anybody suspects he took anything? Did his possibly (nay, probably) tainted accomplishments from the later part of his career simply erase everything he did earlier in his career?

It doesn’t help matters that Bonds was and is, by all accounts, a complete and utter ass. I mean, look at home plate after he just passed the Babe. The only person there to greet him is his son. Even the guy who was on base for the home run seems like he was waiting for Bonds only as an afterthought. I know it was only the 4th inning, and that the Giants were losing, but doesn’t it seem strange that he doesn’t have more people waiting to, at the very least, give him a high-five? Is that so much to ask for the guy who now has more home runs than Babe Ruth?

And that’s what really doomed Bonds. Sure, people don’t like the drugs. But he could have been forgiven in the eyes of many if he had just been a nicer guy about it, if he had gotten over his persecution complex a little. Yes, Babe Ruth was white, and Barry Bonds is black, and yes, Babe Ruth never hit a home run against a black pitcher because black pitchers weren’t allowed to play back then. But here’s the truth: If black players had been allowed to play when Ruth was in the league, he still would have hit 714 home runs, or come damn close to it. Talent transcends race. He just would have had competition as the sport’s biggest star. And he probably would have thrived on that competition and, seeing somebody out there who had a chance to outhit him, he likely would have been properly motivated to hit more.

The simple fact is people loved Babe Ruth because he was gregarious, outgoing, dedicated to children, and so on. Everybody who met him had glowing stories about him. People hated Barry Bonds because he was an asshole, or at least seemed that way from afar. Race had nothing to do with it.

There should have been a lot of reasons to celebrate Bonds’ 715th home run. Instead, we were left with a lot of reasons why we weren’t.