756*: The View from the Stands ...

Thanks to the emergence of the Internets and their cousins, the Google and the YouTube, events that once were the confines of the instant replay on our big TV things have now become part of our domain. And the citizen journalists were out in full force last night in San Francisco to watch Barry Bonds join the famous (and infamous) legends of baseball with his 756th home run. Here, for your watching pleasure, a sampling of the fare that was captured by You the Public in AT&T Park, from just about every angle possible. Pay particularly close attention to the very last video, which shows in vivid detail how average humans can go batshit crazy over a single baseball when the mood strikes them.

Barry Clever ...

You know what I've always liked about the New York tabloids? Their subtlety and light touch.

756* (Or, Can We Get On With Our Baseball Lives Now?)

And so, like so many things with baseball, with the crack of a bat, it is ended. One home run king steps aside, another takes his place. Barry Lamar Bonds, for better or worse, is the the new all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball. And, believe or not, the game of baseball did not collapse onto itself the moment Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik's fifth inning, 3-2 offering traveled 435 feet into the stands at San Francisco's AT&T Park. The game, and the games, will continue.

In many ways, Bonds' 756th blast was anti-climatic. It wasn't a matter of if he would usurp Hank Aaron's 33-year-old record, it was when. Baseball fans who couldn't stand Bonds for whatever reason - the suspicions about his alleged pharmaceutical assistance, his less-than-cordial relations with the press, the fact that he comes across as not so nice (i.e. an asshole) - had to prepare themselves for the cold, hard truth that Aaron's hold on the homer mark was finite. It had to be tempered with the realization that Bonds, physical appearance and other factors notwithstanding, is still innocent in the official eyes of baseball, having never failed a drug test. That, even if it's likely that he has stuffed steroids or human growth hormone or God knows what into his system, that he is far from alone in the annals of baseball in doing so. That the Hall of Fame is filled with less-than-savory folk, including drunkards, thieves and Klansmen, not to mention Ty Cobb, who didn't get where they were because they were nice guys. That with all of Bonds' faults, and there are plenty of them, what he was on the verge of accomplishing was still pretty damn cool.

So Bonds did it, smashing that specially marked baseball into the cold Bay Area air, plunging a fan (in a Mets jersey, no less!) into his 15 minutes of fame and Bonds into immortality (again). The event was marked with delirium in Bonds' home ballpark, but also with reverence, especially when, in a surprise move, the Jumbotron played a message from Aaron himself, who showed his usual class in heartedly congratulating his successor. (Aaron himself was in a self-exile of sorts in Puerto Rico, escaping the clamor and the inevitable question he would get about whether he thought Bonds had cheated - a question that Aaron can't win for answering no matter what he says.) Then Bonds was handed a microphone by his godfather, one William Howard Hays, and Bonds did something that he very rarely does - he spoke from his heart, thanking his teammates, the San Francisco fans, even the Nationals for understanding what this moment meant to him, and finally breaking down when referencing his family and especially his late father, Bobby. At that moment of rare emotion, I thought of Bob Dole in 1996, who could never overcome the albatross of being a mean old man until the last days of his campaign against Bill Clinton when, the race already lost, he loosened up and relaxed and showed his softer side. Had Bonds been this open with the rest of us all along, I wondered, would we be so hard on him today? Would we have given him more of the benefit of the doubt?

Anyway, it's over now. Sure, Bonds will break the home-run mark with every four-bagger he hits for the rest of his career. But for now, there are bigger fish to fry. There are pennant races that are shaping up to be barnburners - including, shock upon shocks, my beloved Cubs, who are only one game out of first place in the NL Central as of today. And ESPN can let go of their Giants caravan after airing a last-place team's games for several nights in a row. And baseball, always the national pastime, can continue. Because it's bigger than one man, or even one record.

P.S. Don't feel bad for Mike Bacsik, for even as he joins Al Downing, Steve Trachsel and Ralph Branca as the footnote for a historic home run. There are pitchers in the minors who would kill for the chance to be such a footnote in the big leagues. But consider this - the moment I read the article earlier today about how Bacsik's father kept Hank Aaron from hitting his 756th home run in 1976, I knew it was going to happen tonight for Bonds. 'Cause that's how baseball works.

P.P.S. You can speculate all you want about whether Aaron should have physically been at AT&T Park tonight to see his record pass to Bonds' mantle. But Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, had no excuse for his absence. His contempt for Bonds - and his devotion to Aaron, his friend and former player when the slugger wrapped up his career with Selig's Milwaukee Brewers - are well-known. But sometimes you have to be bigger than the moment, and bigger than your own feelings. Worse, Selig's no-show brought back memories of when Aaron was snubbed by then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn the night he passed Babe Ruth with homer No. 715 in 1974. That faux pas stung more, but Selig not being in San Francisco was almost as unforgivable. The day he gives up his title will be a great day for baseball. He can't be gone soon enough.

P.P.P.S. ESPN reports that Selig called Bonds in the clubhouse after Bonds left the game in the sixth inning. Boo freaking hoo.

Barry Bonds to Hall of Fame: "Drop Dead!"

I'll say this much for Barry Bonds - he's consistent. He really seems steadfast in his determination not to give a damn about what anybody thinks of him. Now, this often can be an admirable trait, one that can serve a person well when it comes to achieving far-reaching goals and defeating the odds. Or, in the case of Bonds, it can just make you seem like a bigger A-hole.

Bonds' latest salvo comes as he comes ever closer to besting Hank Aaron's all-time home-run record. Usually in such cases, the Baseball Hall of Fame comes calling for pieces of memorabilia marking the auspicious occasion - for example, Cooperstown would probably want to display the bat Bonds used to hit homer #756, and the Giants uniform he wore in that historic game. Well, Bonds has in fact been putting aside all sorts of his personal items- bats, uniforms, even the home run balls themselves - that have been part of his infamous quest for sport's most enduring record. But as of now it's very unclear that the Hall will get any of it. Bonds recently alluded that having his items displayed for all of the world to see is not high on his agenda right. More specifically, as he told the Associated Press:

"I'm not worried bout the Hall. I take care of me."

And Barry Bonds wonders why he is one of the most despised individuals in baseball. Then again, he probably doesn't give a damn. So why should we give a damn about him or his would-be record.

"That quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

Most of my friends know that I think Bud Selig is an idiot, not to mention the worst baseball commissioner in history. There are many reasons for my feelings toward Selig, reasons that can be enumerated at a later date. But one thing I will give Selig credit for is recognizing the achievements and the importance of Jackie Robinson. Robinson was not the best player in baseball history, but as the man who broke the color line in the major leagues on April 15, 1947, at a time when African Americans still were considered inferior by a large portion of white people in this country, the Brooklyn Dodger likely was the most important player in baseball history, if not sports history. More than once, in fact, I have called Robinson the originator of the American civil rights movement, starting his campaign when Martin Luther King was still in college.^*

Ten years ago, at a ceremony in New York's Shea Stadium marking the 50th anniversary of Robinson joining the Dodgers, Bug Selig declared April 15 to be known as Jackie Robinson Day throughout baseball, and permanently retired Robinson's #42 throughout the big leagues, an unprecedented act for any major sport. Since then, only players who were already wearing 42 at the time have been allowed to sport the number. (Today there's just one player, Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera, wearing #42.) But now, to mark the 60th anniversary, another idea - Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who wears #3, went to Selig to ask permission to change his number to 42 for one day, the 15th, a week from this coming Sunday. In a somewhat surprising move, not only did Selig approve Griffey's request, but he subsequently announced that any player who wanted to do the same would be allowed to do so.

As a result, there has been a flood of superstars who have revealed plans to pay tribute to Jackie Robinson's legacy by bearing the jersey number he wore with pride six decades ago. The players who will make the one-day shift include the Cubs' Derrek Lee, Minnesota's Torii Hunter, Detroit's Gary Sheffield, San Diego's Mike Cameron, Boston's Coco Crisp and Washington's Dmitri Young. So will New York Mets manager Willie Rudolph and even baseball's active home-run king and active grump, San Francisco's Barry Bonds. Oh, and the entire Dodger squad will sport #42, which could give the official scorekeeper at that game a major headache.

It pains me to give Selig props for approving all this, but really, what choice did he have. If he had turned down Griffey's request, word would have leaked out and he would have come across as the myopic muckymuck that he is eight times out of 10. And once he said yes to Griffey, that opened the floodgates, so he decided to go with it. I also won't be surprised to see "Griffey 42" and "Bonds 42" jerseys being sold at MLB.com for a pretty penny. But if this huge gesture gets more kids asking about why their favorite player is wearing that strange number - and parents telling the story of the man who changed his sport and his world - then I can live with the extra commerce.

^*Strong words? Perhaps. But if you don't believe me, then believe Dr. King, who told Robinson's teammate Don Newcombe that they - along with another African-American Dodger, Roy Campanella - made it "possible for me to do my job." King told Newcombe this one week before his assassination in 1968.

Poor Barry ...

The odds seem quite high that Barry Bonds, only 22 home runs short of Hank Aaron's all-time career record of 755, will eclipse Aaron this season as the homer king of baseball, pending injury, indictment or the Earth, in a last-ditch effort to preserve tradition and fair play, opens up underneath Bonds and swallows him whole. And now it seems that Bonds and Aaron do indeed have something in common. Bonds told KGO Radio on Tuesday that he has received death threats, just like Aaron did in the final stretches of his quest to beat Babe Ruth's record in 1973 and 1974. However, I can make the educated guess that, while Aaron was threatened because he was a black man going after a white man's record, the majority of the threats directed toward Bonds is because he's a cheating A-hole going after a great American's record.

Just a guess, of course.