I'm watching Bill O'Reilly and the caption comes across that Barry Bonds has just broken the home run record. It's a monumental feat and for somebody that grew up living and breathing baseball with practically every baseball card from the 1970's stored away somewhere, I really have little to zero interest.
I played baseball growing up and I followed everything about it until about 10 years ago. I was even lucky enough to go to a World Series and sit with thousands of fans that just attend the World Series because they can.
I highly doubt that I'm not the only one that has lost interest in baseball. In my opinion, MLB has lost the flavor that made baseball what it was. Today, it's hard to even keep track of who plays for who. Players go to the teams that will pay them the most money with little loyalty to a particular city. Would George Brett, Jim Rice, Ted Williams, Pete Rose or Cal Ripken Jr. be remembered for who they were if they jumped around to the highest paying franchise? (Granted, Pete Rose has had some character challenges but nobody can dispute the fact the guy had a huge passion for baseball when he played the game.)
Personally, I have nothing against Barry Bonds and have several of his baseball cards from when he started out in baseball long ago stored away somewhere. It's no secret the media does not like Barry Bonds and has not long before the steroid abuse allegations and I think it's simply because Barry does not like the media.
He's always been a great all around baseball player from what I remember when I did follow the game so I don't think it really matters to me who broke the record. My perception is just towards baseball in general.
The news blurbs are estimating that the ball that took the distance to home run #756 could be worth about $2,000,000 for the lucky 22 year old attendee from Brooklyn who bought the ticket to the game the day of the game. I'm wondering if the person that will pay that amount even played baseball growing up because I'm fairly certain that even if I did have that type of money, I would not pay $2,000,000 for it.
I was not old enough to know the overall feeling towards Hank Aaron breaking the home run record in 1974 so I can't compare the general attitudes but something tells me that the amount of money that the person could receive for home run #715 was not even news at that time. What does that tell you?
Date: 2007-08-08 00:47:53