I’m a Bonds fan. I used to argue that he was completely misunderstood by everybody and really was a great guy, but some close friends removed me from that cult over the past year or so. I think he’s intelligent, definitely has a chip on his shoulder, and is merely somewhat misunderstood.
Anyway (look, my first “anyway” since restarting this blog!), I’m thrilled that Barry’s back playing again. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks he decided to go back on the steroids in order to recover from his knee injury and therefore had to take extra time off in order to sneak past any MLB testing. But part of my Paranoia Anonymous (is there anything more scary to a paranoid than the anonymous?) recovery process is to ignore those voices.
Back in early 2001, Bonds was coming off a 49 HR year which had dispelled the myth that his career was on the decline (how funny that notion seems in 2005…) and was in the midst of a HR “drought.” Through seven games, he’d hit only one home run. I remember reading that Bonds was tightening up as he reached the 500 HR plateau. While I think a conclusion like that is a little silly — I’m sure Bonds has gone other stretches of 30 ABs with only one HR — it makes for a cool story in that he went on a tear after reaching number 500, hitting 73 HRs in an incredible season. Bonds hit homerun number 600 the next year. Two years after that he hit number 700.
Hitting 209 homeruns over a four-year span is impressive enough (Nomar hasn’t hit the 200 mark in his career), but the coincidence of starting that streak on homerun number 494 and finishing it on number 703 is the stuff of legends. Who crosses three century-marks over the course of four years? Ridiculous.
Baseball’s pretty unique in that every aspect of its gameplay is extremely individualistic, yet teams cannot win with one superstar alone. Barry’s the exception. With apologies to Dominek Hasek (but none to Dale Earnhardt Jr.), Barry’s the ultimate Dominator. I hope he pulls a Rickey and plays until nobody wants him anymore. How many more century-marks that’ll be, I don’t know.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day….