Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 05, 2007
Bonds Hits 755

Barry Bonds tied Hank Aaron's all-time home run record Saturday night, hitting number 755 against San Diego.

In the second-inning, Padres starting pitcher Clay Hensley gave up the opposite field HR that landed in the left-field stands. His next home run will give him the record. The 33 year old man that recovered the ball, and his cousin both from La Jolla, California, were escorted by security personnel out of Petco Park for their own safety.

It was quite a day as Alex Rodriguez became the youngest man to 500 home runs on the same day. The crowd responed well to Barry's blast, which was not without irony:

Bonds hit the 755th homer of his career in the second inning off Padres right-hander Clay Hensley, then circled the bases to applause diluted only slightly by the boos that have followed him on the road ever since the spring 2006 publication of the book "Game of Shadows," which accuses Bonds of using performance-enhancing drugs.

A fair number of Giants fans had infiltrated the San Diego crowd, and the rest of the cheering audience had either a deep appreciation for major-league history or a firm grasp of minor-league trivia. The record-tying home run was served up by a man who had tested positive for steroids when he played in Mobile, Ala. Hensley was suspended for 15 games in 2005.

For those of you (like me) who missed it:

It wasn't a typical Bonds blast. He went the other way, and I didn't think it was gone off the bat. But he's still so strong he can muscle a ball out the other way. Congratulations to Barry Bonds! If nothing else, he's persevered through pain and controversy to achieve this goal. And now we wait for 756.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:41 AM | Records | TrackBack (0)
Comments

"Congratulations to Barry Bonds!"

Yay for cheating!!!

Posted by: Andy at August 5, 2007 10:30 AM

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Posted by: Chris at August 5, 2007 10:40 AM

i thought you were cool and were gonna completely ignore that MF when he did it. Guess not.

Posted by: john at August 5, 2007 10:43 AM

I guess all the "Barry Bonds is not going to hit the homerun on the road because he will be booed to kingdom come" theories can stop. It looked like he had plenty of support on the road. I guess seeing a historic event live makes you forget that you were supposed to be "booing the f*ck" out of Barry Bonds.

Posted by: Andrew at August 5, 2007 01:07 PM

Fans certainly booed him the three times he broke the career walk record.

Posted by: Eddie at August 5, 2007 01:32 PM

Bonds got a lot of boos during the game, and it seemed like there were a lot of boos mixed in with the cheers when he broke the record. It certainly wasn't the uniform adulation a ballplayer who was actually well-liked would have received.

The boos during the walks seemed directed at the pitchers for not challenging Bonds. The announcers noted that the focus of the boos would shift during the plate appearances from Bonds to the pitchers.

Posted by: Adam Villani at August 5, 2007 02:04 PM

I wish everyone who has such a grudge against Bonds was man enough to have the same feelings about everyone else in baseball who was doing roids at the same time. Either you have to believe that nobody was or 50% of all players, including pitchers, were on steroids.

Of course there are still performance enhancing anti-inflammatory drugs that reduce pain and inflammation allowing pitchers to throw harder and on back to back days are still legal. So do we call pitchers cheaters? No because they are legal, just like the roids in the late 90's early 2000's.

You boo Barry because you are told too. the guy is a jerk. So? Great then you hate barry and rose and ted williams and cobb and 100s of other pros in every sport.

The two best things I love from this story are that he hit another homer off a pitcher who did take roids and that at 36 Bonds had his best homerun year. Aaron has his best at 37, wonder what he was on?

Posted by: Rob at August 5, 2007 02:09 PM

barry is the only guy who ever used roids. i mean, if he did.

it only matters if a guy did roids if it turns out he's good

and it sure sounded to me like the cheers drowned out the boos. so much for barry is hated by all the fans garbage that the media is trying to poison us with

Posted by: lisa gray at August 5, 2007 05:59 PM

GO A-ROD!

Posted by: Hammerin' Hank at August 5, 2007 11:01 PM

"I wish everyone who has such a grudge against Bonds was man enough to have the same feelings about everyone else in baseball who was doing roids at the same time."

We do, but not every player doing steroids at the time own the most coveted record in American sports. THAT'S the difference.

"You boo Barry because you are told too."

That is the most ignorant, mindless argument EVER. It has no basis in reality.

Posted by: Andy at August 6, 2007 10:41 AM

I was there, 5 rows behind the Giants' dugout. The place went nuts. Out in LF, there is a section of fans that are notoriously brutal while Bonds is in LF. What people didn't see on TV was all the sections in LF giving him a standing ovation when he walked back out there. Whatever that means.

I wonder what will happen if the new Conseco book claims that A-Rod does HGH. That guy has gotten a lot bigger too. There are so few heroes without skeletons in their closet. It all depends on whether the media decides to like or dislike them. My bet is that A-Rod is eventually boo'd when he breaks the record. He's not a media darling either.

Posted by: Jeff Mc at August 6, 2007 09:14 PM
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