Homer

Friends, sports fans, and countrymen, lend me your ears. Today we come not to praise the home run king, but to Barry him. Last night as I watched the seventy-third video replay of number seven hundred and fifty-six go sailing into the night, illuminated by thousands of cameras flashing and the expectant glow of the fans in right field, I made a mental note: I have known three Sultans of Swat in my lifetime. Babe Ruth was the first with his seven hundred and fourteen. Hammerin' Hank Aaron left with seven hundred and fifty-five. Now we have Barry Bonds, who has assorted nicknames depending on your proximity to the Bay Area, has his seven hundred and fifty-sixth home run.
I know how hard it is to hit a home run on my son's Wii video game, so I have a deep and abiding respect for anyone who can knock one out of the park. All of this physical effort is sadly diminished by the personality defects ascribed to Barry Bonds. I watched him round the bases and was struck by the image of his son, a batboy for the Giants, running out to meet him at home plate. Caught up in the moment, Barry was looking to the night sky or heaven, and seemed not to notice his son's attempt at an embrace. When the moment ended, he reached out to his teammates first. That is when I realized that I was taking moments out of this man's life and putting it under my judgemental microscope. I was reminded of the way that Denver residents used to sneer at articles about John Elway's marital infidelities and the kind of candy he passed out on Halloween. It was a short hop from there to the "celebreality" of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. What we see on TV is the tiniest portion of a life that is flavored by the surreal nature of fame. I shudder to think about the pressure of playing professional baseball in the same town, for the same team as my father. Oh, and your godfather is Willie Mays. A highly evolved human would rise above the hype and succeed in spite of all these distractions, or maybe a lesser one would be driven because of this.
Baseball is a sport that is filled with asterisks. Roger Maris hit sixty-one home runs in 1961, but his record carries an asterisk because he didn't do it in the one hundred fifty-four game season that Babe Ruth played. For many people, their lasting image of Mark McGwire will be the sad, battered face that appeared in front of Congress. Records were made to be broken, and so, it would appear, are the men who make them.