Its time to make my peace with Barry Bonds and I think I did last night. I was watching his at bat against Beckett and I actually jumped off the coach in anticipation of the homerun, ready to give him a huge cheer - a loud YES, BARRY! BARRY, BARRY.
I had to check myself to see what just happened. I’ve been one of those baseball purists over the last couple of years who is convinced Barry used Steroids and I remain convinced that his steroid use is a strong possibility. But, I also always suspected Lance Armstrong must have used Steroids and that never stopped me from watching the stages in the Tour-de-France and his domination of it. I would be in favor of them taking all of Lances championship trophies away from him for his violations, if proved, but still nothing can take away from that moment in the 2000 Tour, I think it was, when Lance was going up some mountain, leading Ulrich (another alleged steroid user) and glancing back at him as if to say, “you hurting Jan, well, lets just pick if up a little then,” and then raced away opening up a large lead.
There is something about a dominant sports athletic performance that is spectacular to watch. I’d rather know that these dominant performances were not steroid produced, but what if everyone is doing them? You still have to admire the feat. No one in baseball has been even close to as dominant as Barry Bonds over the second half of his career. He hit balls out of the park like popcorn popping. I don’t know what I think about him being in the Hall of Fame, but I decided I’m going on barry-watch and I’m not going to miss his breaking of Henry Aaron’s record. I watched Henry break Ruth’s record and, dammit, I’m not going to miss this historical moment in Baseball, just as I never missed Armstrong’s run of tours or Clemon’s 350 victory or Mcguire’s historic run at Maris’s single season record.
Barry is one hell of a Baseball player, even if you factor in that he’s a cheater.
