This week, Barry Bonds brought his quest for the all-time home run mark back to friendly San Francisco. Had he tied or passed Hammerin' Hank Aaron Monday night, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig would not have been in attendance. When Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record of 714 homers on a Monday night in April 1974, then-Commissioner Bowie Kuhn was nowhere to be seen, having begged off to a previous engagement to speak to the Wahoo Club (Indians baseball fans) of Cleveland.
One important thing to remember about Bonds is that for all the sentiment to preserve Aaron's record today, millions opposed Aaron in his own quest 33 years ago. The Braves star received hate mail, death threats, and was still afraid when two young fans approached him as he rounded third base after breaking Babe Ruth's hallowed mark. He had no way at the time, in light of all the threats, to know if they meant him harm or not. Babe Ruth was an untouchable cultural hero in 1974 (and even in 1961, when a white player, Roger Maris, broke his single-season home run record). The Hammer has never been such.
Concerning performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), Bonds may not have been the only culprit in the game. Barry had a lifetime slugging pct. of .550 before the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa assault on Roger Maris' 61 homers — then posted seasons of .863 and .812 after his 36th birthday. The player who had never hit more than 46 homers, and whose second best was 42, hit 49 and 73 in back-to-back seasons. The 190-pounder filled out to 230. He experienced (and still does) the knee and joint injuries associated with PED usage — when a body carries more weight than is suited to its skeletal frame. He was productive at age 40, when bat speed, recovery time from injuries, and other things generally fail a hitter.
Had Bonds hit the tying and record-breaking homers on the road, and fans booed, he wouldn't have cared. At least that's what he'd say. This issue, however, is bigger than the hefty leftfielder. The most revered and memorized individual record in sport is tainted, at least until Alex Rodriguez nears age 40. No one knows how many TD passes Dan Marino threw, how many points Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored, how many yards Walter Payton rushed for, or how many consecutive days Cal Ripken, Jr. showed up for work. Sports fans do know 755 (and long before that, they knew 714). Home runs are a huge deal (after Ripken's record, McGwire and Sosa helped revive interest in the game with a home run chase). Bonds may not have even begun seeking for non-detectable PEDs had it not been for the magic summer of '98 and the attention it garnered, even in the mainstream media.
Barry Bonds, by all accounts (teammates, workout partners, media, ex-girlfriends), may well have been a jerk before McGwire and Sosa launched their twin pursuit of Roger Maris' single-season home run record of 61. We, however, created the Barry many love to hate now — the man who broke The Record. Our American love affair with the home run most likely triggered an emotion within Bonds after 1998, due to the attention given Mighty Mac (McGwire) and Smilin' Sammy (Sosa). The love affair didn't begin in 1998, but rather during the Golden Age of Sport, with Ruth. The larger-than-life "Bambino" helped save the sport, too — from the Great Depression and the Black Sox Scandal.
Prior to 1998, the decade of the 1990s had been one in which baseball's most interesting debate was as to who was the premier player in the game — Seatttle Mariner centerfielder Ken Griffey, Jr. or Bonds. Both were the sons of prominent outfielders, 1970s stars. Griffey was much younger, and tapped by none other than Hank Aaron as the player most likely to threaten his all-time home run standard. Griffey was not yet 29 in 1998, but had won an MVP award, hit 56 homers in both 1997 and '98, and had a 49-homer season behind him. He'd played in nine All-Star Games, yet was under 30. His ebullient public persona was the antithesis' of Bonds' curt, matter-of-fact manner.
Bonds was 34 then, had never hit more than 46 homers, but had three MVP awards. Because Griffey played the much more demanding position, centerfield, and was to most the more complete of the two players, many argued he was the better player. Four years after a bitter baseball work stoppage that ended the 1994 season on August 11, along came McGwire and Sosa, their towering home runs diverting attention away from Bonds and Griffey.
Having one rival was bad enough, but now Bonds had three (and other stars such as Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez were garnering publicity for their slugging prowess; the closest in age, Thomas, being four years younger than Bonds). This was the context in 1998, when Bonds hit 37 homers, 1999 when he parked only 34 (about half of either McGwire or Sosa's '98 output), then 49 in 2000, an anomalous 73 in 2001, and 46 in 2002.
A player who was 38-years-old had removed several younger sluggers from the sports page headlines, and transformed his career. A player few fans outside the Bay Area felt any admiration towards, and with almost no sympathy from the sporting press. This, coupled with the fact that his trainer was being indicted for conspiracy to distribute steroids (which are illegal, but were not banned by Major League Baseball in 2001), charges he pleaded guilty to in 2005. Greg Anderson refuses to implicate Bonds.
In December, 2003, however, Bonds admitted before a federal grand jury having used the performance enhancing steroid applications called "the cream" and "the clear", but testified he thought they were "flaxseed oil." That was the last straw for many fans and media, as enough of us have played at least a high school sport to know that, even at a scholastic level, athletes know the nature and benefits of every workout routine they are doing, and each substance they are taking into their body. Surely, a baseball all-star would, too.
There are other suspect accomplishments in sport — from juiced cyclists to officiated NBA games to record sprint times. There are other controversial candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame, such as McGwire and Pete Rose. Rafael Palmeiro may never be voted in. But sometime soon, because of lack of chemical evidence, Henry Aaron will not be the all-time home run king, and Willie Mays will move down to fourth place. We know Barry Bonds can live with that, but why should the rest of us and Mr. Aaron have to?
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