Barry Bonds Hits Another One - Adds To Record
Barry Bonds didn’t waste any time adding to his home run record set yesterday. In fact, I didn’t even have a chance to blog about the record setting home run before Bonds has went and hit another one. This time it was a two-run shot into the water outside of AT&T Park for home run numer 757 of his career. The San Francisco fans were delighted as the Giants cruised to a 5-0 win over the Washington Nationals which assisted Giants’ skipper Bruce Bochy to his 1,000th managerial victory.
Barry Bonds was quoted as saying “I’m pretty locked in right now and the atmosphere is a lot easier today”. It must be a great relief to the powerhitting Giant having finally surpassed the milestone that was so controversial due to the issues of steroid abuse surrounding Bonds. As many former MLB players turned commentators have openly stated, regardless of the steroid issues, nobody has brought up the fact that possibly many of the pitchers Bonds has faced throughout his extraordinary carreer may have also been on “the juice”.
Barry Bonds drew praise from President Bush who once was a partial owner of the struggling Texas Rangers. Bush phoned the Giants star Wednesday, a day after Bonds hit his 756th home run to break Hank Aaron’s record. The president Bonds “you’ve always been a great hitter and you broke a great record,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
The tabloids and newspapers papers were less kind.
The front page of the New York Post had a banner headline of “756″ that was formed out of syringes, which was an obviousa reference to allegations that Bonds used steroids. The front page of The Daily News page read: “King of Shame.” The Boston Herald’s back page headline was: “King Con”. Oh well, it’s not like petty jealousy and negative reactions are going to further the sport of Baseball which has had a decline in the sports market ever since the cancellation of the 1994 World Series due to ridiculous salary negotiations. Major League Baseball became the first professional sport ever to lose its entire postseason due to a league players labor dispute.
In other news, the AP wire reported Hank Aaron is still the home-run king when it comes to television ratings due to the fact that ESPN2’s broadcast of Barry Bonds’ record 756th homer received a 1.1 cable rating on ESPN2 Tuesday night, which translates to 995,000 households while Hank Aaron’s 715th home run on April 8, 1974, which broke Babe Ruth’s record received a 22.3 rating on NBC, the equivalent of 14.9 million homes. Times have changed a lot since 1974 due to cable programming. I personally have the MLB package on my cable system and I was upset the last two Giants games were blacked out on my provider due to them being televised on ESPN2. Instead I watched some reruns of Futurama and Family Guy while Bonds was setting his record. I’m certain that sort of confusion led to many households tuning out of that market broadcast due to believing that it wasn’t televised.
For any of you Bonds fans out there who want to relive the moment, here’s a great offering from MLB.com that shows how fast the big guns come out to start marketing
