The commissioner traipses about the countryside like a morose medieval minstrel without a flute or a function.
Enough already, Barry. Get it over with so Bud Selig and many of the rest of us can take a shower and clean off the crud.
Barry Bonds prolonged his and Selig’s agony Wednesday night when he weakly went 0-for-3 and didn’t have a sniff of a home run at Dodger Stadium. In the eighth inning, with a runner at third and a 2-0 count, the Dodgers elected to walk Bonds, and he was replaced by a pinch runner. Bonds is struggling mightily.
Bonds will be back in L.A. tonight without Selig. The commissioner said he might travel to Minneapolis to show support for the city after a bridge collapsed several blocks from the Metrodome. Selig had intended to miss the finale of the Dodgers-Giants series in order to attend the groundbreaking for the Minnesota Twins’ new ballpark, which has been postponed.
Selig, who was absent from Giants games last weekend to be at the Hall of Fame induction, rather would be on the beach with Hank Aaron, who is in Puerto Rico (conveniently), addressing orphans and widows in Greenland, or at the all-important summer camp graduation for his barber’s son.
Selig would show up at the opening of an envelope – or endure three root canals at one sitting – to avoid Giants games.
Selig witnessed (most reluctantly) his eighth Giants game in the past 12 on Wednesday night, and the TV cameras showed him stoic and befuddled – and eating a Dodger Dog. Should he applaud? Should he cry? Should he disappear into the bathroom during each Bonds at-bat?
This, Bud, is for you.
We wait.
Bonds doesn’t want to hit No. 756 in Los Angeles, where he is treated more as a pariah than anywhere else, or San Diego, where an enormous syringe was flung onto the field last year.
He wants to do it at home next week, and I believe he and the Giants will figure out a way to make that happen. The sea lions that bark and sun-bathe on Pier 39 won’t be there to clap for Bonds. They left in July for the Channel Islands. Bud will be there, unless he can come up with an excuse to join the sea lions.
You notice I haven’t used the word “record.”
He has come undone. I will not acknowledge or accept that Bonds has reached his home run total without cheating any more than I will acknowledge or accept that Joe Nacchio sold his Qwest stock without cheating.
Ruth was The Babe. Aaron is The Man. Bonds always will be The Frankenstein Freak.
Babe Ruth performed in an era with new, “juiced” baseballs and without African-Americans. Barry Bonds performs in an era with ‘roids and without conscience.
Hank Aaron played with dignity and with honesty and with a hammering bat, and without taint.
The Tour de France has become a farce of a sport, but at least race officials have taken a “Throw the rascals out” stance. Baseball has reacted late to steroids, but can’t get a handle or a test on human growth hormone.
I got fooled in 1998, trailing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa as they powered pitches incredible distances and turned the country back to baseball and turned Roger Maris’ record to mush. Later we learned it was a fraud.
As The Who sang, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
So I will live with the memories of Aaron and Willie, Mickey and the Duke and the baseball of my bubble-gum cards and childhood train trips with my dad to St. Louis for a weekend series.
I don’t care if there’s an * or a half-* next to Bonds’ name. Let him hit 800 or 1,000. Let somebody make a million bucks off the ball, and let the sad souls of San Francisco celebrate. Let people photograph Bonds. The same people would photograph Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. Let it be.
Through 1996, Bonds was averaging 31 homers a season. At that impressive pace, Bonds would be approaching 682 home runs this season. Instead, he is on top of 756.
The Bonds of then, a slim, 185-pound rebellious man who choked up on the bat, would have wound up as one of the greatest home run hitters in baseball history, and a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer. Now, how will the world remember the Bonds of now, the 238-
pound defiant man who has choked the essence out of the most hallowed mark in all of sports?
Baseball needs to get past this amazing disgrace.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
