PRESENT PLUS PAST EQUALS — FAME OR INFAMY?

By Edwin Cooney
Dated Friday, August 10th 2007

THE PRESENT, Tuesday, August 7th, 2007. As everyone knew it would, when it finally happened it only took an instant. The scoreboard clock read 8:51 p.m. Pacific Time as Washington National’s left-hander Mike Bacsik fired a fastball toward the inside corner of home plate at China Basin’s AT&T Park in San Francisco, California.

In less than three tenths of a second from the time the ball left Bacsik’s hand, Barry Bonds studied the rotation of the baseball hurdling toward the protective armature on his right elbow — and decided to swing at the ninety plus mile per hour pitch.

That decision made, Bonds had to hurl the head of his thirty-three ounce maple bat at the incoming pitch at just the right height and at the exact angle essential for solid contact by a round bat against a round ball.

If Mr. Bonds was right, the ball would change direction ever so slightly away from Barry’s right elbow and cross the plate in front of him where he judged it was going to be. If Bonds was wrong, the ball would either dip sufficiently below and inside of the range of Barry’s bat head or outside and out of the range of Bond’s bat, causing the determined slugger to hit the ball at a bad angle or to miss the pitch entirely.

Because forty-three year old Barry Lamar Bonds judged correctly, there was a sharp crack as maple met cowhide. The nine inch, five-and-a-half ounce baseball was on its four-hundred and thirty-five foot trajectory to Section 144 just to the left field side of the four-hundred and twenty-one foot sign in the right center field bleachers. Reaching its destination, the well-hit baseball became the seven-hundred and fifty-sixth home run of Barry Bonds’ major league career. Finally, at long last, Bonds had passed Hank Aaron’s record of seven-hundred and fifty-five major league career home runs.

Once in the bleachers, the baseball would be the object of much pushing, shoving, poking, diving and falling by desperate and ill-mannered fans. Finally, the ball would be pounced upon by twenty-two-year-old Matt Murphy of Queens, New York—-a New York Mets fan.

As fate would have it, Murphy was on his way to Australia with a friend (whom I’m told wore a Yankees shirt) and just happened to have come to AT&T Park during his San Francisco layover. Matt Murphy just happened to have purchased a ticket for the game about an hour before game time. His reward, after a short and somewhat bloody tussle, was the yet to be valued (but nevertheless priceless) “Bonds’ ball”.

As the crowd cheered, Giants’ officials gathered for a special ceremony. Directing everyone’s attention to the scoreboard video screen in centerfield, Barry, his family, Willie Mays (Barry’s godfather) and everyone else saw the image of Henry Louis Aaron (the just-deposed home run king) congratulating Barry Bonds in a short but very dignified and tasteful statement.

Asserting that home run hitting required skill, longevity and determination, Aaron, now seventy-three, declared:

“…I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement. My hope today,” concluded Aaron, “as it was on that April evening in 1974 [referring to his seven-hundred and fifteenth home run which broke Babe Ruth’s seven-hundred and fourteen home run career record], is that the accomplishment of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.”

Next came the newly crowned home run king himself. Thanking the fans of San Francisco, his team mates, the visiting Washington Nationals (for their understanding of the need for the ceremony), his godfather Willie Mays, his mother, his wife and children, Barry Bonds concluded with an especially emotional tribute.

Pointing to the sky as he had right after crossing home plate and hugging his bat boy son Nikolai, Barry thanked his late father Bobby Lee Bonds who had taught him everything he knew about baseball. The tears and cheers that followed sent a message to the skeptical world outside of San Francisco that, whatever the outside world thought or felt, Barry Bonds was both a hero and home run king in San Francisco. Long live the king! So powerful was that message that it obscured, in the awareness of most, the fact that the night would end with a loss of the game by the San Francisco Giants to the Washington Nationals by a score of 8 to 6.

THE PAST. One-hundred and thirty-one years have passed since the modern game of baseball was born. It has become America’s “National Pastime”. More than any other sport, baseball relies on tradition as a major part of its appeal.

In watching what took place the other night at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, tradition was very evident. Not only was the new home run king, the son of Bobby Lee Bonds, a fourteen year and eight team Major League veteran, but Michael Joseph Bacsik, the son of Michael James Bacsik, was a five year and two team Major League veteran as well.

In fact, daddy Mike Bacsik had pitched to Hank Aaron on August 23rd of 1976 after Aaron had hit what would be his last career home run, number seven fifty-five. Thus, Mike, Sr. and young Mike both pitched to men who had the same number of career home runs. Had Mike Sr. given up a home run to Hank Aaron, father and son would have both given up career number seven fifty-six to the two men. Bacsik Sr, a right-hander, was pitching for the Texas Rangers in 1976 while Hank Aaron was playing out his final baseball season with the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers. Even that was baseball tradition as the Atlanta Braves, Hank’s team when he broke Babe Ruth’s record in 1974, had once been the Milwaukee Braves. Hank had helped bring a world championship to Milwaukee when his Braves beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series. By the time Mike Bacsik, Sr. pitched to “Hammerin’ Henry”, there were no home runs left in Aaron’s powerful wrists and potent bat. Aaron did get a single off the senior Bacsik, but that was it. No one could know on that August Monday in 1976 that another tradition had been born—but that’s baseball.

Born to Bobby Lee and Patricia Bonds on July 24th, 1964, Barry Bonds was the son of a baseball star. He became the godson of a baseball “super star”. (It also should be noted here that through his mother Patricia Bonds he is a cousin of still another baseball superstar, Reggie Martinez Jackson.) Barry was four years old when the San Francisco Giants brought his powerful and speedy dad to the majors to play alongside of Willie Mays.

Unlike Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds’ gifts of both power and speed (primarily because they weren’t as persistent or long lasting) were not rewarded with team loyalty. After the 1974 season, Bobby Bonds was traded from the Giants to the Yankees. While that was worthy of a star, playing at Yankee Stadium made pressure-packed demands on the senior Bonds. What exactly happened to Bobby Bonds while he was a member of the Yankees, I’ve never learned. However, it must have been significant, because although Bobby Bonds hit 32 home runs for the Yankees, he was traded off to the California Angels after only one year in New York. Even more, during the six years remaining of his career—1977 through 1981—Bobby Bonds would play with six more teams.

The demands and the unfairness of a professional baseball experience obviously made a lasting impression on young Barry. Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1985, Barry was in the majors by 1986. It was in 1990 that he came into his own, batting .301, hitting thirty-two home runs, stealing fifty-two bases and winning the first of his seven National League MVP awards.

Following his 1992 MVP season with Pittsburgh, Barry Bonds signed with the San Francisco Giants. His father had also signed, that spring, a Giants’ contract as their first base coach. Barry had come home, but his presence cost the Giants $43,000,000 through 1998. It can’t be denied that Barry earned every penny! However, with all of his considerable achievements, there was a downside to Barry Bonds.

Bonds was often moody with teammates, the press and even with the fans. It wasn’t until the 1998 season that there was a discernable change in Barry Bonds.

That year, Mark McGwire, a man whom it is said Bonds considered an inferior player, captured nationwide headlines by hitting seventy home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals. It has also been asserted by some that McGwire’s burst of power wasn’t so much a matter of ability as it was the result of taking growth hormone steroids. So, many people believed that Bonds decided that if McGwire could do it and get away with it, why shouldn’t he? Thus, history began to be made.

Beginning in 1999, Bonds’ weight went from about one-hundred and ninety pounds to about two-hundred and thirty. At the same time, his home run production went from an average of thirty-four per year over his first twelve big league seasons to an average of forty-six per season.

In 2003, federal investigators began investigating Balco Laboratory in Burlingame, California. The names of thirty big league players who had received treatment through the lab’s products, including Barry Lamar Bonds, was uncovered. A grand jury investigation and Bonds testimony followed. Bonds’ boyhood friend, Greg Anderson, a trainer at Balco Lab was arrested for refusing to testify about his recent relationship with Barry Bonds as a lab employee.

Through all of this, we learned from the testimony of Barry Bonds’ former girlfriend Kimberly Bell that Bonds was jealous of Mark McGwire and that he was determined to compete with McGwire’s reputation.

FAME OR INFAMY. Meanwhile, Barry Bonds denies and fans take sides. In San Francisco, many fans don’t want to believe. Still other fans believe but excuse. “How perfect was Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth?” they ask, pointing to Ruth’s drinking and womanizing along with Ty Cobb’s mean and nearly demonic behavior. Some even concede that Bonds may have taken steroids, but they defend it by wondering outloud how many pitchers were probably taking steroids at the same time, thereby equalizing or even countering the power of a batter such as Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa or Barry Bonds.

Home run hitting requires more than strength. It also requires judgment and timing—which is why I began my description of Bonds’ record breaking home run as I did. Past baseball rosters are loaded with the names of brutally strong men who couldn’t and therefore didn’t hit home runs.

Outside of the Bay Area, fans are far less understanding. Commissioner Bud Selig has obviously hedged his bets by offering Barry Bonds offhanded and almost noncommittal congratulations.

What the future holds for Barry bonds, no one can say. The statute of limitations on his possible perjury before the grand jury runs out in 2008, so Barry may well avoid punishment for perjury. However, the weight of public opinion on Barry Bonds’ reputation may matter when the time comes to vote him into the baseball Hall of Fame.

Barry Bonds is talented beyond all question when it comes to production on the baseball diamond. For that reason, he deserves to be famous. However, if the sum total of Barry’s past and present adds up to infamy as much or more than it totals fame, then he may join Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Spiro Agnew and others in the American public’s Historic Hall of Shame.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY