Watching History I’d Rather Not See

It’s a beautiful summer day at Wrigley Field. The thunderstorms that soaked the area the night before are nowhere to be found, and Barry Bonds steps up to the plate in the second inning to a chorus of boos. It was a great day: the Cubs were leading 4-0 (and would go on to win the game 9-8), I was seeing my first game from inside the “friendly confines,” and I was emphatically jeering my least favorite player in baseball.

Then Barry had to ruin it by blasting the first pitch he saw for his 752^nd career home run.

I knew it, pitcher Ted Lilly knew it, and the 40,000 other people at Wrigley knew it the second Bonds swung his bat. The ball sailed out of park and onto North Sheffield Avenue putting him one home run closer to Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 755.

And as he rounded the bases, I booed.

In the seventh inning, he did it again, this time with a three-run shot that barely cleared the ivy-covered walls of the Wrigley outfield for number 753. Again, I booed.

As you may be able to tell by now, I’m not a big fan of Barry Bonds. I think he’s a part of a steroid trend that is ruining baseball, and I’m more excited about Bonds being indicted for perjury than I am about him passing Aaron’s record. So, watching Barry’s steroid-inflated head (it’s grown a full hat size since 199 round the bases (again) while booing my head off (again), I was conflicted.

Yes, Bonds is in my mind the worst thing to happen to baseball in a very long time, and yes, I can’t stand him. But I had just seen two impressive home runs (one literally out of the ballpark, the other into a stiff Chicago wind) to put a player within two homers of what many writes call the most hallowed records in sports.

How was I supposed to feel? Should I be angry I had seen a ‘roid-raging jerk (I doubt stronger language would be allowed) bring himself closer to a record? Or should I save my ticket, game program, and hot dog wrapper to sell on eBay, and be excited to have seen the home runs?

I’ve since decided to do both. I still can’t stand Barry Bonds and I’m still waiting for people (i.e. federal prosecutors and grand juries) to confirm he lied under oath about taking steroids. Then again, I got to see a fantastic ballgame at the best stadium in the baseball, not to mention a couple of extraordinary home runs by a person on his way to breaking the all-time record.

Even if that person is a steroid-pumping, fan-hating, under-oath-to-a-grand-jury-lying cheater.

Baseball Hall of Fame

This shouldn’t be Mark McGuire’s ballot to not shine. As an A’s fan, even I have to say that he doesn’t deserve to get into the Hall of Fame (HOF) – not on the first ballot, not on any ballot. In a Cooperstown class that has seen Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn get some of the highest vote percentages in HOF history, the word will be all about how little Mark McGuire got.

Ripken received 98.53% (537 of 545 ballots cast), well more than the 75% needed to get into the Hall. He fell just short of the record of 98.83% set by Tom Seaver. Gwynn came close to that record, too with 97.6%. But despite these two great players who did so much for the game, the big story has been McGuire. By receiving just 23.5% of the vote, all of the polls were proved correct, and the former Bash Brother was denied a spot in the hall. The other half of that forearm-slapping duo, Jose Canseco, received just 1.1%.

In an effort not to be a part of the problem, I’ll talk about the great careers that Ripken and Gwynn had, and not the 2007 non-election of Big Mac.

Gwynn and Ripken were always the “good-guys” of baseball, and it’s hard to find somebody who thinks they were a bad influence on the game. There is no controversy with Tony and Cal, only fond memories of a time when steroids were (if not gone) than out of the picture.

Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record, and by the time he was done had started in 2,632 games without a day off. Though this is his most famous record, he also has over 400 home runs, owns the record for being the oldest man to hit a homer in the All-Star Game (although the pitcher was basically having batting practice with Cal) and is a member of the prestigious 3,000 hit club. He joins six other former Baltimore Orioles players who were also elected on their first ballot.

Tony Gwynn is also a 3,000 hit club member, but is most famous for a “what could have been” moment. In 1994, Gwynn was on pace to become the first player since the great Ted Williams to hit .400 for a season, until the year was cut short by the famous ’94 strike. He currently coaches at his alma mater, San Diego State.   

So congrats to Tony and Cal, they were the guys who remind us of what used to be great about baseball. Their era was ignorant –  if not clean – of performance enhancing drugs, and they were the last of a generation of great players from before the steroid era of today. Hopefully, McGuire and Canseco won’t be such a big story next year, and with any luck, the 2008 class will have guys as good as Ripken and Gwynn.