We, at Point-Spreads.com offer congratulations to Barry Bonds on his breaking Henry Aaron’s home run record of 755, with career home run No. 756 last night at San Francisco’s AT&T Park in a game between the Giants and Washington (D.C.) Nationals.
As a lad growing up in a rural north Arkansas town, I came to worship the game of baseball via weekly broadcast in black and white of ‘Saturday’s Major League game of the week’ with Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean.
Four hour road trips with my family to see the nearest team, the Kansas City Athletics were common occurrences. The Athletics were not very good during their Kansas City days, their home between longer stays in Philadelphia and current home Oakland. The first home run bomb I ever saw from the bat of Rocky Colavito, sailed over the center field fence sending fireworks into the Kansas City night. From that moment I was hooked on the long ball. Sure, I had seen Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams hit a few on television but nothing compared to watching it live.
On a family trip to Minnesota in the early 1960’s we got to see the Minnesota Twins play a three-game weekend series with the Baltimore Orioles. For the Orioles the big bopper was Frank Robinson while Harmon Killebrew had the big bat for the Twins.
I learned what baseball was all about and nothing in the game was bigger to me than the home run. It was the ultimate achievement in my eyes. I wondered if I would ever see in my lifetime a player topple Babe Ruth’s 714 career home run mark.
Into adolescence I heard occasional mention of a home run chase. Several players were beyond 500 and one, Willie Mays was creeping towards 600. I also heard there was a guy over in Atlanta who was pretty good by the name of Henry Aaron . A few years later on a September evening in 1974 my entire college fraternity was crammed into the house TV room and watched Aaron hit a deep ball into the stands becoming No. 715. I’ll never forget listening to broadcaster Milo Hamilton describing the pandemonium as Aaron rounded around the bases.
On Tuesday night, a month shy of 33 years since Aaron broke Ruth’s record, it happened again with Bonds hitting 756. As we congratulate Bonds on his accomplishment we must wonder, where is the joy? Of course there was a media circus swirling as Bonds neared the record but it wasn’t about the feat but about something sinister; did he cheat by using steroids?
The little boy in me wants to jump for joy that the record has been toppled again. I don’t plan to point fingers but will let others do that. For now the record belongs to Bonds and we honor him. Only time will tell what the final verdict will be after all the investigations are completed. In the mean time we can wonder who will be next; Alex Rodriguez perhaps?
