Three claps for Barry Bonds
Growing up I had a coach that used to dole out accolades with a simple term: three claps.
If you hustled during practice, afterward when we were all in a group he would call out your name, say what you did and then say “three claps.” Everyone would clap three times. Go 2-for-3 during a baseball game and afterward the same thing would happen. Three claps. It was simple and it got the point across.
With that in mind I would like to hand out my own three claps to Mr. Barry Lamar Bonds.
For those of you who may not have been following as closely as I have been these past few days, Barry Bonds tied Hank Aaron’s all-time home run mark of 755 career dingers on Saturday night in San Diego. And I know many people reading this are probably “poo-pooing” that accomplishment, but I am not.
Say what you want about Bonds, but hitting 755 home runs throughout your career is not an easy thing to do. Thousands of people have played the game of baseball professionally and only two, I repeat two, have ever hit that many home runs throughout the span of their career. And to steal the words of “Anchorman” Ron Burgundy, “I’m not even mad. That’s amazing.”
At the forefront of Bonds’ record-tying feat is his alleged involvement in the steroid scandal that rocked the baseball world a few years ago. Almost everyone has an opinion about how Bonds illegally took this, or knowingly took that, but no one has the proof to back up their viewpoints.
Yeah, there is a book (”The Game of Shadows”) that pretty much details Bonds’ involvement with performance enhancing drugs, but that book was written by two journalists in search of a quick buck and using a source that, by all accounts, was illegal. (Using leaked grand jury testimony to sell a book should be frowned upon just about as much as the content inside said book, if you ask me.)
Regardless of how much Bonds was involved with performance enhancing drugs, that doesn’t take away the fact that he is the most dominant baseball player of all time.
No one in history changed the way the game of baseball was played more than Bonds did. He drew more intentional walks in one season (120 in 2004) than some of the greatest hitters of all time drew in their whole careers.
He was walked with the bases empty and even a few times with the bases loaded, he was feared that much, and with every reason. More often than not, when he wasn’t walked, Bonds made opposing pitchers and managers pay for the mistake of pitching to him with one of his signature long bombs.
In no way am I a Barry Bonds fan. He doesn’t have the best personality, he’s gotten into fights with teammates and he portrays a sort of “woe is me” attitude every time a microphone is stuck in his face.
But all of that doesn’t, and shouldn’t, take away from what he has done throughout his 20-plus years in baseball.
As of Monday afternoon, Bonds holds the record for most home runs in a season (73), most intentional walks in a season (120), most walks in a season (232) and highest slugging percentage in a season (.863). He also holds the record for most intentional walks in a career (645), most walks in a career (2,426) and by the time the week is out, he’ll probably hold the record for most home runs in a career, too.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could have injected myself with human growth hormone while spreading “the cream and the clear” all over myself and I still wouldn’t have come close to those numbers.
And what makes Bonds’ statistics even more amazing is that he did that in a time when steroids were omnipresent in baseball. Hitters used them to hit the ball farther, pitchers used them to overpower hitters, and the owners and commissioner sat back and relished the fact that the game of baseball (and the money in their pockets) was booming.
With all that said, I would like to give props to one Barry Bonds. He just hit No. 755 and will soon hit 756, and no matter what he’s allegedly done or not done, will go down as one of the greatest baseball players that I have ever seen play.
So in the words of my old coach, “Barry Bonds …. Greatest hitter ever…. Three claps.”
Clap, clap, clap.