Yahoo Sports may have provided a telescoped view of how history will treat Bonds' record. Moments after the home run, the site's main image featured the legend "756*" superimposed on a photo of Bonds swinging. An hour later, "756*" had become "756."
We're already seeing that change. I'm not the only one who has backed off the bashing of Bonds lately. Jeff Pearlman, who wrote the book "Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero" about Bonds, spoke to ESPN Tuesday night and, while expressing disgust at Bonds breaking Aaron's record, had to admit, "This might not be a popular opinion right now."
History will decide how Bonds' home run record will be viewed. History's a bit of a fool sometimes. It can forget the things that seemed important at the time. Then again, we can be fools too, misjudging what's important because we're too close.
"A rough, unruly man who is constantly playing dirty ball. He ... adopts every low and contemptible method that his erratic brain can conceive to win a play by a dirty trick."
Not Bonds. That description is from a newspaper account quoted by Bill Felber in his new book, "A Game of Brawl: The Orioles, the Beaneaters, and the Battle for the 1897 Pennant." The man being described was John McGraw, then the Orioles third baseman, later the manager of the New York Giants, and today considered one of the game's great geniuses. Erratic brain indeed.
His combativeness and love for dirty tricks are now seen not as character flaws but as colorful artifacts of a rollicking time.
Someday, I think, Bonds will be viewed as a product of his era. Hard to imagine future generations will look back on this one the way we look back on McGraw's, as an age of charmingly roguish rapscallions. But we can't expect all those unborn sports fans to share our worldview and prejudices.
Unfortunately, those future fans, awash in controversies and dilemmas we can't even imagine, will probably look back on our era, with its steroid and HGH scandals, as being simple and innocent. We know it isn't. The present never is. It's messy and complicated and hard to figure.
As Bonds circled the bases Tuesday, his relief at reaching the milestone was palpable. I felt relief too. This complex, complicated, confusing chase is finally over. Hardly a marvelous moment, more like the end of something I'd been anxious to see end.
After years now of wondering how I'd feel when Barry Bonds, who plays for my team, who's the best hitter I've ever seen, who's one of the most disagreeable public figures of my lifetime, broke Hank Aaron's career home run record, at last, I had the answer.
The answer is I don't know.
Previous column: Tom Glavine: Last of his kind?
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his MySpace page.
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