A new king is crowned

Hate him or love him, Barry Bonds is the new career home run leader.

Last night against Mike Bacsik, a journeyman who will now forever live in infamy, Bonds came up big, going three-for-three, but there was no hit bigger than his third. Barry drove a 3-2 pitch to right-centre field, the deepest part of the AT&T Ballpark, into an incredible swarm of fans, waiting to pounce on the historic baseball.

Bacsik, whose father was also named Mike and pitched in the big leagues, actually shares a distinction with his son: He pitched to Hank Aaron when Hammerin’ Hank was sitting on 755. While the elder didn’t give up a shot to the former King, there also wasn’t as much pressure on him since Aaron was already well past Ruth’s mark.

After Bonds had rounded the bases and celebrated with teammates, family and friends, Aaron himself appeared on the outfield video-board to congratulate Bonds in a touching and classy recorded piece. I understand Aaron not following Bonds around to see the historic and didn’t understand why he was taking flak for it; this piece should erase any of the criticism that the legend had to endure.

And, for the record, I never had anything against Bonds through the years, except for two minor and actually quite loser-ish things: firstly, Bonds was never in any of the more recent MLB video games. There was always a guy on San Francisco named something Joe Young or John Dowd and you would have to waste your time going in to edit the player if you wanted that tidbit of realism back. Secondly, in old school video games, Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. were retardedly good. There was hardly any way to get those guys and it was even cheaper to play with them.

So, now, with 756 out of the way, let all those jackasses out there keep arguing (a losing cause) for that asterisk.