The Barry Bonds Homerun Record
When I was in Fifth Grade, our teacher had a small bulletin board that he changed each Monday. On it he posted a Word of the Week along with a picture to illustrate it, a Quotation of the Week, and a general knowledge Question of the Week. The only question from that Fifth Grade bulletin board that I remember was this one: “How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit?” In other words, it was considered general knowledge for a fifth grader that Babe Ruth held the home run record.
The only question was how many. Most of my friends could rattle off 714 without thinking. My dad was a Yankees fan (don’t hold that against me), so I knew that number too, along with Ruth’s 60 home run season and Maris’s 61 home run season. They were numbers that you just knew would always be there.
A few years later, when Hank Aaron made his assault on the career mark, it was an event to cherish. We knew we were witnessing something special. On that April night in 1974, I was parked in front of our black and white television, with the rabbit ears antenna, along with my dad and the rest of our family, watching as Hank Aaron came to bat. He didn’t disappoint. He hit home run number 715 to break Ruth’s record.
Fast forward to September, 1998. I, like most of the sports world, was following the amazing home run race between Mark Maguire and Sammy Sosa. Maguire got to 61 first, and it was only a matter of time before he would break the single-season record. My wife and I had been camping over Labor Day weekend, and we were driving home that Tuesday. The sports station on the radio would cut away to the Cardinals-Cubs game whenever Maguire came to bat. I can remember exactly where we were on the road when we heard Maguire hit his 62nd home run.
But oh, how quickly the monster home run days lost their luster. The specter of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs tempered all our feelings about the accomplishments of Maguire, Sosa, and Barry Bonds. When Bonds surpassed the single-season mark in 2000 with 73 home runs, my reaction was mostly just, yeah, okay, whatever. Over the next few years it became evident that, barring injury, Barry Bonds was sure to break Aaron’s career record as well. Yeah, okay.
I’m not sure how I feel about it. I certainly didn’t follow it with any fervor. I saw on ESPN when he tied the record, but that still didn’t pique my interest enough to follow his next game. When Bonds hit number 756, I found out the next morning. That is to say, the home run records just aren’t as important to me anymore. At one time, the single-season home run record and the career home run record meant something to sports fans. For me, the home run record is now reduced to the level of NBA scoring records — don’t know what they are, don’t know who holds them, don’t really care.
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