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Sunday, July 8, 2007
Bonds will get cheers on road for 756
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The odds are that Barry Bonds will join Hank Aaron with 755 home runs by the end of the month. Plus, given how the schedule is flowing, the San Francisco Giants slugger could rip his tying blast and maybe the record-breaker in Chicago or Milwaukee.
That’s opposed to northern California, where the hometown fans have been among the few to suggest they’d rather hug the Giants slugger than choke him.
Here’s a prediction, though: A universal hug for Bonds is coming.
All you need to know is that, if Bonds does create history on the road with a blast or two, that ballpark not named for AT&T will rock as much as if the Golden Gate Bridge were nearby. Those inside will forget that Bonds is supposedly the Great Satan of baseball’s steroid era, and they will stand, cheer and applaud as loudly as if Bonds were one of their own.
“Well, you may be right about that,” said Aaron, who should know. “Generally, when you’re in that situation of [achieving immortality on the road], that’s true.”
What’s true is that people cheer the moment more than the individual. Such was the case for Aaron 33 years ago, when he had it significantly worse than Bonds. While Bonds is an African-American chasing the record of another African-American, Aaron was turning “714” into yesterday’s magic number, and the old mark belonged to Babe Ruth, an icon of white America.
Only the hate mail for Aaron was greater than the death threats. He also was forced to battle the combination of racists and pitchers during a time when the Civil Rights Act was barely a decade old.
So there was Aaron, opening the 1974 season with the Braves just one home run shy of Ruth’s record in Cincinnati of all places. We’re talking about the same city that pounded Jackie Robinson with racial slurs during his first road trip with the Brooklyn Dodgers. We’re talking about the same city that was so provincial that former Reds president Dick Wagner had a rule barring stadium officials from mentioning the achievements of opposing players — even those who once played for the Reds.
We’re talking about the same city that exploded with joy after Aaron lined a shot over the left-field wall of Riverfront Stadium during the first inning.
“Going into that game, I never thought about it, really, about how [the Cincinnati fans] might react, and then, after I tied the record, all of those fans were as jubilant as the fans would have been if I had hit it in Atlanta,” Aaron said. “Despite all the [hate mail and death threats] that I was receiving, I had thousands of people at the time who were on my side.”
This isn’t to say Aaron was completely fearless back then regarding the public, especially on the road. “I always thought the safest place for me, no matter what I was doing, was on a baseball field,” said Aaron, who had extra security for himself and his family during the Ruth chase from the commissioner’s office, the Braves and local authorities. “I always felt very protected, like nothing ever was going to happen to me on a baseball field.
“Still, you never know about somebody just being an outright nut. Most of the time, they can’t get to the field, but you have to be careful just going from your house to the car, or from the car to the grocery store. You never know what somebody might do. You always have some nut in a crowd who wants to make headlines.”
There was last month, for instance, when a guy trotted into left field in San Francisco to shake Bonds’ hands. Turns out, the guy wasn’t a threat, but it showed what a nut could do. Aaron sighed, saying, “I had somebody in Chicago [during the Ruth chase], and I don’t know what he said, but he did come up to me, and those who heard his words said they were derogatory.”
Then Aaron chuckled, adding, “Hey, it didn’t matter. I was safe. You had that one guy out there, and I was getting on the team bus with a lot of friends.”
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