Las Furias del Beisbol

While the storm gathers over Barry Bonds and the dwindling gap between him and Hank Aaron, so much is made of how it will be handled when he hits number 756. Who will be there, how fans will react (especially if it doesn't happen in San Francisco), and what his legacy will be. There doesn't seem to be much joy in this, and maybe there shouldn't be. But there no longer seems to be as much anger as there was a year or two ago. Maybe everyone has just resigned themselves to the inevitability. Or maybe its the return to form Bonds has enjoyed thus far this season and the assumption that he's done it cleanly and that maybe he really always has been this good. Russ Springer might still throw at his head, but everyone else seems to have calmed down.

But I can feel it stirring in me with every home run highlight. Only, it's not Barry Bonds highlights that do it. It's Sammy Sosa. Now, maybe this is because I want the Giants to win pretty much every game they play while I only care about the Rangers if C.J. Wilson is pitching. (Which isn't often enough. Seriously, click on his name and read his blog instead. It's awesome. Anyway, Sosa...) I should have the same kind of resigned detachment people have come to regarding Bonds, right? I should by now be able to accept that he's in the Top Five of all time and just hope he retires before getting to 660 so when A-Rod gets there, he'll be back to sixth. But it's not enough. I want him blighted out. Erased somehow. Even though I don't really believe in that. Nor asterisks. I believe Jason Giambi when he says steroids didn't help him hit home runs. I believe that all it does is keep one healthy enough to hit said home runs and that really, they ought to be as acceptable to use as this Phiten stuff that supposedly straigtedge CJ Wilson bandies about (on his blog, which, come on, why aren't you reading that yet?) And yet, I cannot stand that Sammy Sosa is back and climbing that sacred ladder even if we can assume that everyone is now playing "clean."

And I don't get why. I don't particularly enjoy the idea that Rafael Palmeiro is number 9 and that Frank Robinson is out because of that, but I'm not angry about it. And it's not just starting now, I didn't want him to hit 60 in 1999 or 2000 because I didn't want him to be the one to hit 60 in consecutive years. But maybe that was just my subconscious doing the math and seeing his arrival in this selective sector he's wading in now.

I don't know. and I'd like to find out. Maybe it's that stupid sidestep he does when he hits one. Because I think we can all agree that that's awful.