Bonds Gets His Due Ambivalence

We're supposed to have definitive opinions when it comes to sports.

Our thoughts are supposed to be clear and passionate and, most of all, certain. When it comes to all-time records, especially something as celebrated as baseball's home run mark, we're not supposed to be muddled or ambivalent. We've known for a while now that irritating Barry Bonds would replace beloved Hank Aaron as the owner of the most significant record in American sports. In advance of Tuesday's record-breaking home run in San Francisco against the Nationals, there were projections, retrospectives, town hall meetings, in-depth examinations and at least one book with revelatory and unimpeachable reporting.

Most of us know more about Bonds, steroids, cheating in baseball and the history of the home run than we ever wanted or imagined possible.

All that said, I have no idea how I feel about Bonds hitting No. 756 to surpass Aaron. I'm conflicted on every aspect of the ordeal. I believe Bonds took performance-enhancing drugs, especially late in his career as his body began, naturally, to falter. Yet any legitimate study of Bonds's career tells us he's one of the greatest players in baseball history, that he has been exceptional in every single phase of the game that matters.

I believe Bonds took steroids but have no idea what effect they had on his home run total. Did his offseason body regenerating work turn warning-track fly balls into home runs? And if so, how many? Ten, 50, 100? If Bonds did juice himself up -- and he certainly wouldn't be the only one in a generation full of juicers -- how many additional games did that strength enable him to play? Ten, 100, 150? We don't know. No one can. So I don't know quite what to think of Bonds's home run total.

Is playing with strength derived from illegal substances any more heinous than hitting additional home runs with a juiced baseball?

Aaron and Ruth didn't have the benefit of those tightly wound spheres that bounced like super balls, did they? I'm as certain of juiced baseballs as I am juiced baseball players. If Bonds's total deserves an asterisk, what about Babe Ruth's 714, all of 'em hit in racially segregated times? What would Ruth's total have been if he'd had to hit against Satchel Paige, Smokey Joe Williams and Big Richard Whitworth, among others, instead of inferior pitchers who in integrated times would have been in the minors? How many home runs would Ruth have hit if you remove, say, a dozen stiffs from the American League rosters of the 1920s and 1930s? 700, 670, 640?

I don't know what to believe about baseball's power numbers anymore because there are so many variables to consider it makes my head spin. I don't know what to make of home runs and doubles and slugging percentages because reasonable suspicion must be attached to too many players of the last 15 years or so. I can't come to a definitive conclusion on what's fair and what's foul anymore. We baseball fans so slavishly devoted ourselves to the numbers all these years, and now we don't know what the numbers tell us.

Okay, 756 is a lot. It's a stunning number in and of itself. But does it make Bonds better than Aaron? Better than Ruth? Does that brace that Bonds wears at the plate give him an advantage because it straightens his right elbow when he swings?

Given the cloud that's been hanging over power hitting since the steroid revelations came into focus, Bonds's record-breaking evening came off about as pleasantly as possible. There was nothing cheap about the home run. Bonds murdered it, as the old baseball writers used to say. He hit it to the deepest part of the ballpark; any slugger of any era would have been proud to launch it. Bonds then gave a succinct and heartfelt speech, thanking everybody he needed to thank. The thing I like most about Bonds is he's not begging the kid who caught the ball to give it up for a signed jersey or bat or two season tickets for 2008. Bonds says home runs don't belong to the hitter, they belong to the fan who catches them. It's quite a reasonable and welcome sentiment from a man who has a legit history of being a jerk at times. This wasn't one of them. Bonds is happy to let the kid who caught it make a small fortune from it.

And then there was a really nice surprise: the videotaped congratulatory message from Aaron himself. Hammerin' Hank sounded exactly the right tone in his comments, which were carefully parsed.

They're not friends, Aaron and Bonds. Old-school guys such Aaron and Frank Robinson, who has been representing Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig at times during the pursuit, detest the steroid era and the cheap individual accomplishments that have resulted from muscling up on the juice. They gave their bodies to the game, quite literally, and resent like hell attempts by today's players to prop themselves up illegally while pursuing records of men who had no such assistance.

But Aaron had to let that go, and did when he said: "Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball, and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historic achievement. My hope today, as it was on that evening in 1974 [when he hit No. 715 to surpass Ruth], is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams."

It was perfectly appropriate. My friend and colleague Charley Steiner, who has covered baseball for a lifetime, said it was a wonderful "wave from afar. . . . Hank didn't have to hug and kiss." Bonds's reaction to seeing and hearing Aaron also was appropriate. His spoken motto might be "I don't care what anybody thinks," but he does care what Aaron thinks. Bonds does want to be loved, especially by the men who built the game, the platform on which he now performs. When Bonds said Aaron's taped message "means absolutely everything," I thought we got a rare glimpse into Bonds, momentarily stripped of his arrogance, given totally to appreciation. Sometimes, polite is as good as you'll get. To quote former Georgetown coach John Thompson on his radio show yesterday afternoon, there are times when competitive people owe it to themselves and others to "acknowledge accomplishment, and settle their differences someplace else."

Still, in terms of pure joy, Tuesday night in San Francisco wasn't even close to Aaron passing Ruth -- not to me. It wasn't Cal Ripken passing Lou Gehrig for consecutive games played. It wasn't even up there with Pete Rose chasing Ty Cobb for career hits or Joe DiMaggio's streak of 56 games with a hit. Maybe I'm looking for an innocence in athletic competition that isn't there, or is there but can't make it past my skepticism. Maybe the joy will return when Alex Rodriguez gets closer to 700. Maybe the joy isn't in the analysis or the record-chasing, but the simple act of watching the baseball fly out of the park.