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GOING BY THE BOOK |
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 BONDS HITS ANOTHER ONE OUT |
Steroids or not, the race
controversy is now dead
of TheColumnists.com
In a week or two,
Barry Bonds will hit a home run into McCovey Cove of San Francisco
Bay outside SBC Park in San Francisco at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.
It will be career home run number 756.
The earth will shake. There will be more noise around Haight-Ashbury
than at any time since the 1906 quake, the free love shenanigans
of the 1960s or the earthquake repeat of 1989.
Did he or didn’t he?
Commentators who write sports on a regular basis as well as political
writers, human interest reporters, society mavens, talk show
hosts and bar room blowhards will sound off about the new home
run record that pushes Hank Aaron into second place on the all
time list.
There will be long takeouts in world class journals about the
evils of performance-enhancing drugs. Steroids will be discussed
at every beach party from Malibu to Manhattan. Chemical experts
will be on talk shows from Charley Rose’s to Rosy O’Donnell’s.
Bonds will simply smile and consider the growing price for the
baseball recovered from the bay by a kayak speedster.
The media, the fans, the baseball establishment, the Commissioner,
attending or not, and even Bonds himself will miss the point.
In the 33 years since Aaron set the record in passing the 714
homers of Babe Ruth, no one will care, notice or ever remember
that the new record, tarnished or not, is being set by an African
American as the old one was set in 1974 by Aaron.
I was there in Atlanta on April 8, 1974 when Aaron hit Al Downing’s
fastball over the low left field bullpen fence for homer 715.
Reliever Tom House of the Braves caught the ball and rushed it
to home plate as a gift for Aaron as teammates, family and fans
celebrated at home plate.
No man was ever more relieved to hit a home run. Bonds will hardly
have the same emotions when he dumps number 756 in McCovey Cove.
I traveled with Aaron the last week of the 1973 season as he
challenged the Ruth record. I understood the pressures he was
under, the tensions he faced and the pain he withstood as he
closed in on the sacred mark.
Bonds is only passing Aaron’s mark. Aaron passed the numbers
recorded by America’s greatest sports icon.
I was there when Roger Maris hit the 61st homer of the 1961 season.
That broke the individual mark Ruth had set 34 years earlier.
Maris was booed by Yankee fans for breaking the mark. He was
booed because he wasn’t the New York favorite, Mickey Mantle,
who had to settle for 54 homers that season as injuries slowed
him down. And he was booed because he was doing it in an expanded
162-game season and he was doing it despite Commissioner Ford
Frick’s dastardly ruling that it wouldn’t be truly
recognized since it was accomplished in a longer season. Of course,
Frick was Ruth’s ghost writer and protected the Babe’s
image.
Maris got some hate mail and even a few death threats along the
way. At least no one called him an uppity nigger.
Aaron received vicious racial hate mail in 1973 and 1974. Death
threats were almost daily occasions. Some Atlanta fans couldn’t
believe a black man, even one as talented as Aaron, could break
the mark set by the legendary white hero.
Jackie Robinson had gone through all this hatred in 1947 when
he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. That seemed over by the 1970s
as Aaron began challenging the mark. The closer he came the more
bitter was the mail. Racism was still a big part of the American
scene in the early 1970s, just a few years past the bitter demonstrations
for racial equality and civil rights in the 1960s. The death
of Martin Luther King in 1968 was still a relatively recent event.
As he challenged the mark and as I talked to him daily for some
15 days, Aaron would not publicly comment on the racial hurt
he was feeling. He was and remains to this day, a very modest
man. He is not Reggie Jackson.
“I’m just a ball player,” he would say. “This
is just a baseball record. Some people remember Babe Ruth and
are great fans of his.”
His teammates were effusive as they celebrated with Aaron at
home plate. Most fans in his home park cheered him lustily. Some
fans just ignored the entire scene.
As Bonds closes in on Aaron the only negative seems to be the
steroid fuss. I think Bonds used steroids. I think another hundred
or so players did. None of them is chasing baseball’s greatest
mark. So Bonds has become the focus of the investigation into
steroids.
I don’t think Bonds has received a hate letter suggesting
the mark shouldn’t be recognized and appreciated because
he is a black man.
I think that is the best part of the Bonds chase. Hank Aaron
has said he will not be in San Francisco when Bonds breaks his
mark.
“I’ve done enough traveling,” Aaron says.
The San Francisco fans will cheer the mark and appreciate the
excitement Bonds has brought to a downtrodden team.
In the end it will be another number in baseball’s record
books. More importantly, history will note, nobody will care
that a black man broke the mark of another black man. I think
that is progress.
©2007 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is an
artist's vision of a standard news photo. This column first posted
July 2, 2007.
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