So What?

My colleague in blogging, the irrepressible Floaty, asked a question last night that had been much on my mind after Barry Bonds broke the major league home run record.

"Shouldn't we all be happier?"

I would imagine that Bud Selig is doubly happy. This wearisome race finally ended and he didn't have to dignify this circus by his presence. Bonds is undoubtedly happy because now he will get to sit and rest up for the off season when he will most likely get traded to an American League team where he can play out the string as a designated hitter. At this stage of his career, he is about as mobile as a road grader. But Lord knows he can still get around on a fast ball.

And I am happy because now the Giants can go back to sucking in relative obscurity and I don't have to be annoyed by "cut-ins" whenever you-know-who is up to bat.

And I remember back in the 90s when baseballs were flying out of parks all over the place, there was a sense of joy and excitement about it all. I distinctly remember my brother and I hugging and cheering in the clubhouse at Burns park when Mark McGuire broke the single season record. Of course, that's before we knew the game was rigged.

Maybe we're not happy because only a complete naif still believes that Bonds was not assisted in his task by anabolic steroids. Perhaps we just don't like Bonds, who was a world class jerk in a sport full of them, who, if we are to believe the leaked grand jury testimony, turned to the juice because it pissed him off that all the attention was going to a white boy like McGuire. Maybe we're not happy because a closer examination of baseball's records reveal that the sanctity of many of them is in the eye of the beholder.

Maybe we aren't happy because we know this mark will get surpassed and the sooner the better. A-Rod just hit number 500. The pitching in the majors is not getting any better and they haven't pushed the walls of the ballparks out in the offseason. Indeed, I believe you will see somebody eclipse Barry Bonds's record-damn I hated typing that-before you see somebody win 300 games as the Mets' Tom Glavine did the other night.

And maybe we're not happy because as bad as this whole BALCO-steroids mess is, it pales in comparison to the Micheal Vick indictment and the allegations that an NBA official fixed games. Perhaps we are just numb to it all at this point. There is a stench associated with professional sports now. The FBI rarely plys its trade amongst the transcendent.

And so, my response is just that: "So what?" Barry broke the record. Now we can move on. Now he can get out of our face.

Not exactly transcendence but some good did come of all this, huh?