The Trouble With Barry

Tonight, Barry Bonds hit his 755th homerun, tying him for the all-time record with Hank Aaron. Henry Arron, a genuinely likable guy who fought years of racism to break the previous record of 714, is about to lose his place in history to one of the most hated baseball players since Ty Cobb. (At least Cobb had the decency to admit he was a miserable human being. Shit, he claimed to have killed a mugger in self-defense, and had no problem assaulting the occasional ballpark patron. That's a prick.)

Still, regardless of what kind of an asshole a guy is, it's still impressive to hit 755 homeruns, especially considering that by the time Bonds retires (I suspect) next year, he will have played just as long as Aaron did and will probably have hit more homeruns. I think a lot of other people are just as impressed. What makes it not so impressive is the fact that, 10 years ago, Bonds wasn't on pace to catch Aaron.

"Why is that not impressive," you ask? Well, let's look at the numbers. Through the first 10 years of their careers, it was 366 for Aaron to 334 for Bonds. At this point in their respective careers, Aaron is two years younger than Bonds. Yet, over the next five years, Bonds passed Aaron by 13. Over the next three, leading up to the magical 715, the gap widened to 30. So, a guy who does not have time nor the homeruns on his side suddenly is ahead of schedule by 30. How does that happen?

Oh, that's right: those five years where Barry took the lead were the "magic years," where his head grew eight sizes, he lost the ability to run, and became the most feared power hitter in the game. (Barry once claimed he stopped stealing bases because he was "too old." Rickey Henderson stole 66 bases when he was 40. Yeah: "Too old.") The "magic years" where, at the ripe old age of 37, he eclipsed his previous season-high home run total of 49 (which he set the year before) by 24, and then tacked on another 136 leading up to his 40th birthday. Seems perfectly logical that a guy would hit almost half of his career homeruns after he was 35. Aaron only hit a third of his home runs during that period, so I guess my theory of him being the greatest player ever just got blown to shit.

I also think it's a little odd that it's taken Bonds this long to reach 755, considering the leaps and bounds he's taken in the years leading up to this season. Through the first 19 games of the season, he had eight homeruns. He's hit 13 since then. (That's 77 more games, for those of you counting.) You think he would have jumped all over that by now. Doesn't seem suspicious at all.

Oh well. Hopefully, he break the record tomorrow, so we can all go back to not caring about this anymore.

And for those of you who don't subscribe to the "magic years" theory, the picture at the top of this post is Barry in 2001, the year he hit 73. This picture above is Barry in 1998. Other than the mustache, I can't tell the difference. Can you?

Yeah, that's what I said.