Baseball and Bonds

The 2006 baseball season starts today and I'll be spending some time at the ballpark this year thanks to a small piece of a season package that I bought. Only 8 games, but when you combine that with 2 or 3 more that I'm likely to attend, that's more games than I usually go to (I didn't go to any last year).

Vin Scully, the long-time voice of the Dodgers (since they were still in Brooklyn) has called some exciting moments in long career, but he's not looking forward to the possibility that Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron's home run record:

In 1974, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record in a game against the Dodgers, Scully called it. But at the start of a season in which Barry Bonds could pass Ruth and then Aaron for perhaps the most cherished mark in American sports, the Dodgers' Hall of Fame announcer wants no part of that history.

"I would just as soon it not happen against the Dodgers," Scully said. "With Aaron, it was a privilege to be there when he did it. It was just a great moment. With Bonds, no matter what happens now, it will be an awkward moment. That's the best word I can think of now. If I had my druthers, I would rather have that awkward moment happen to somebody else."

Scully's ambivalence mirrors that of fans, current and former players and sports executives across the country. No sport treasures its statistics and fusses over its milestones like baseball, and yet no one is sure of the proper way to celebrate the accomplishments of Bonds, a supremely talented player widely perceived as a cheater, the most valuable player of his league a record seven times and the biggest name in a federal investigation into steroid use.

The record book, for now: Aaron, 755 home runs; Ruth, 714; Bonds, 708.

I remember watching Aaron's home run live on TV from the motel in Palm Springs where my family was vacationing. Bonds will get incredible TV coverage if he ever gets close to the record, but in the minds of many, he'll always have an asterisk next to his name if he succeeds in breaking the record.

UPDATE: I'll be seeing the Angels/Yankees game this Saturday night. Here's a photo from the stadium taken last year during a non-baseball event.